Membership
Marketing
Bull’s-eyes
For associations and corporations alike,
marketing is a lot like hunting in the dark:
Although you know your target’s there,
you can’t always see it and you don’t
always know how best to reach it. Because
having the right weapons makes all the
difference, Alexandria, Va.-based association marketing firm Marketing General
Incorporated recently conducted a survey
of more than 500 association professionals in order to determine what marketing
strategies and tactics they’re using to
successfully recruit new members. Among
MGI’s key findings:
• Nearly two-thirds of associations report
continued growth or stability in membership. Despite the down economy,
62 percent of associations have either
grown or maintained their membership
this year, although 35 percent say their
membership has declined. What’s more,
60 percent of associations have grown
over the past five years, 26 percent of
them by more than 10 percent.
• Direct mail is the most effective new
member recruitment channel. While
new media is sexy, traditional media
appears to be successful, as 32 percent
of associations say direct mail is their
most effective new-member marketing
tool. Also popular are member-get-a-member campaigns and word of mouth
marketing ( 18 percent combined),
e-mail ( 11 percent), personal sales ( 7
percent) and promotion at association-
Top International Meeting
Destinations
The International Congress & Convention
Association recently released its list of
the world’s most popular destinations for
international association meetings. At
the top of the list, it says, are the United
States and Germany, the two most popular countries for international association
meetings, and Paris and Vienna, the two
most popular cities.
ICCA based its rankings on a survey of
7,475 qualifying events that took place
in 2008, an increase of approximately
800 events from 2007 that ICCA says is
due partly to the strength of the international meetings marketplace and partly
to increased event reporting by ICCA
members. Qualifying events are those orga-
nized by international associations that
take place on a regular basis and rotate
among at least three different countries.
Although ICCA’s most popular country
for association meetings was the United
States, its list of the top 20 association
meeting cities included no U.S. destinations. It did, however, feature several
cities making their first appearance this
year in the top 20, including: Athens,
which ranked 15th; Buenos Aires, which
tied Athens; Sao Paulo, which ranked
12th; and Tokyo, which placed 20th.
According to ICCA, its rankings are
meant to be a practical tool that associations can use to identify potential new
destinations for their meetings.
TOP 10 COUNTRIES 1. United States (507 meetings) 2. Germany (402 meetings) 3. Spain (347 meetings) 4. France (334 meetings) 5. United Kingdom (322 meetings) 6. Italy (296 meetings) 7. Brazil (254 meetings) 8. Japan (247 meetings) 9. Canada (231 meetings) 10. Netherlands (227 meetings)
TOP 10 CITIES
1. Paris (139 meetings)
2. Vienna (139 meetings)
3. Barcelona (136 meetings)
4. Singapore (118 meeting)
5. Berlin (100 meetings)
6. Budapest (95 meetings)
7. Amsterdam (89 meetings)
8. Stockholm (87 meetings)
9. Seoul (84 meetings)
10. Lisbon (83 meetings)
