Nonprofits and Social Media - Seth Godin's Comments and the Huge Response that followed

Seth Godin (famous social marketing blogger) wrote a blog not so long ago called "The Problem with Non" (as in nonprofits). He talks about how ineffective nonprofits have been in using social media to achieve their objectives and how most nonprofits are afraid of change. On the Midstream Corrections blog you can read the original post as well as find links to the barrage of responses...

10 Greatest Australian Television Commercials Ever

Ok ... so this post isn’t about membership, sponsorship, fundraising or even revenue generation. But I really enjoyed this article on the Anthill online website. There's something about watching the old tv ad that reminds me of when I was a kid ... yes ... I am a child of the television revolution (or de-volution depending on your perspective!) ... click here to read the article.

25 logos with hidden messages – Amazing graphic designing tricks

I found this great article that showed many familar logos and the hidden messages contained within them. There's a couple of really clever ideas in there. If you are about to review your branding it is worth a look to get those creative juices flowing ... read the article.

Hard sell membership may be good for short term sales but won't generate loyalty.

I read an article by Aaron Crowe who talked about the unpleasant experience of being sold a gym membership. I could really relate as I've gone through the same process recently myself. The sales pitch was so intense that, despite joining, I resigned a couple of weeks later. I'd found I'd really come to resent the entire process and going to the gym reminded me of it. I ended up joining another gym with a much more relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Thankfully not too many associations have chosen to follow the membership sales approach adopted by many gyms.

How do your logo colours affect your membership marketing?

I read an interesting article in Anthill Online called "What are your logo colours really saying?". After reading this I have to wonder ... does a multi-coloured logo make your organisation schizophrenic?

New research on the effectiveness of sponsorship

The Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey research has been released and showed that 64% of consumers "completely" or "somewhat" trust sponsorship as a form of advertising. This is the fastest growing in trust as it is up from 49% only two years ago. Sponsorship was ranked ahead of traditional, mobile and digital advertising. The only medium ahead of sponsorship was brand Web sites (70% found trustworthy). Inerestingly 70% of people trusted opinions they read online. The basic result - that consumers trust real friends and virtual strangers the most. How does this impact on your marketing?

Can you "Facebook" your membership?

Facebook has just hit 250 million users -just three months after hitting 200 million users. This is one of the most fabulous examples of membership growth I know of. Here is an organisation that understood a need in the marketplace, developed a membership product that fulfilled that need and experienced enormous growth as a result. They went from 0 members in 2003 to 250 million members in 2009. Even better - they have a free membership structure that is supporting from other income sources that leverage off their strength in numbers. With vision the sky is the limit. How can you "Facebook" your membership?

Thai Wisdom

In my local Thai restaurant I saw a sign that made a lot of sense. They have a sign above the counter that reads:

"Speed, Quality, Price. Pick any two."

In your organisation which two would you pick?

Flirting your way to more members

Today I read an interesting article called "Flirt Your Way To Influence". It talks about the idea of using flirting to build a mutually beneficial platonic relationships in business. This idea has even more merit within the membership environment. Effective member recruitment and retention is about building a long lasting relationship where the member feels they have a relationship with both the association and, hopefully, with the rest of the member community. If your members genuinely like you it makes the process of retaining them quite straightforward. After all, people like to do business and socialise with people they like. So a little platonic flirting - otherwise known as being friendly and engaging in order to build strong working relationships - can go a long way towards improving the effectiveness of your recruitment and retention efforts

7 Ways You’re Screwing Up Relationship Marketing

This is a great post by Naomi Dunford on Copyblogger. Talk about straight talking!