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Opting-in for Sales and Services:
Association members get the message when you e-mail news they can use.
By Cathy Chatfield-Taylor,
© 2002 Used with author's permission
The National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA), Washington, D.C., discontinued its monthly print journal, stopped mailing preliminary conference programs, and cut off broadcast fax promotions for workshops. Instead, the biweekly e-mail NCURA E-NEWS Bulletin introduces journal articles published in RMR Online, announces conference updates posted on the annual meeting Web site, and publicizes workshops open for online registration at www.ncura.edu.
“Our members are at colleges and universities and are totally tapped into the Internet,” says Tara Bishop, associate executive director of NCURA. She has e-mail addresses for nearly 100 percent of the 3,600 members and permission to blast messages anytime there’s news. “The No. 1 thing is to know your constituency and make sure the e-mail is value added,” she says.
Association members are an ideal target for e-mail marketing. When they “opt-in” for news and information that interests them, you can reach out multiple times each month, at a cost of pennies per person.
E-mail promotions generated nearly 15 percent of online sales in 2001, according to the Fifth Annual E-Commerce Survey conducted by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), New York. To achieve that result, business-to-business marketers allocated 9.5 percent of their marketing budgets to e-mail. With spending on interactive media—Web sites, banner ads, and e-mail marketing—projected to grow by 32.8 percent per year over the next five years, the DMA predicts e-mail will continue to consume a significant slice of the direct marketing pie.
The reason is clear: E-mail to an in-house lists costs just $1 per sale, compared to $20 per sale for direct mail, according to Forrester Research Inc., Cambridge, Mass. At $5 per thousand, compared to $761 per thousand for direct mail, an e-mail campaign can reduce your total marketing budget by 99 percent.
Among associations, e-mail is second only to newsletters as the medium used most frequently to communicate with members. According to ASAE’s 2001 Policies and Procedures in Association Management, 28 percent of associations use newsletters most often, 23 percent use broadcast e-mail, and 18 percent use direct mail. On government relations issues, broadcast e-mail comprises 33 percent of communications, followed by broadcast fax at 23 percent.
As a complement to an integrated marketing communication program, e-mail marketing is an entree to an ongoing conversation with members about their wants and needs, and how you can meet them.
Retaining members
You can achieve real results, measured in clickthroughs converted to sales, when you combine the marketing power of e-mail with the editorial content of a newsletter. “An e-mail newsletter is the most inexpensive way to communicate regularly,” says Debbie Weil, CEO and publisher of WordBiz.com, Washington, D.C., a twice monthly report focused on online copywriting and e-newsletters. “When cost is a factor, it’s the perfect tool.”
E-newsletters have a regular publication schedule, a consistent format, and a distinct editorial voice. “Give it flavor and personality to make it feel like a conversation,” she advises. Weil recommends an 80-20 rule for content: 80 percent information—short articles or introductory blurbs with links to longer articles online—and 20 percent promotion.
NCURA has found its E-NEWS Bulletin to be an ideal member retention tool. “We did a blast to everyone who hadn’t paid dues yet,” Bishop explains. “The newsletter said, ‘Dear Bob, This will be your last newsletter as of [the expiration date]. Click here to renew.’” The blast generated at least 200 renewals. Now NCURA times delivery of E-NEWS with the renewal cycle, eliminating the need for mailing renewal notices.
Sending the text messages is simple, thanks to a customized interface between NCURA’s e-mail system and member database, stored in the Association Management PACkage (AMPAC) software by Morant Information Systems, New York. Bishop can target groups of members by region, job title, and other criteria, then personalize the blasts with an e-mail merge. The cost is measured only in the staff time it takes to create the text. “It’s a beautiful savings for us,” she says.
And that is e-mail’s strength. Nearly two thirds of companies surveyed by the DMA find e-mail marketing more effective for customer retention than any other interactive media. But for customer acquisition, e-mail is less effective than offline methods, such as broadcast ads, print, and direct mail.
ASAE’s Policies and Procedures reports that direct mail is the most common membership recruitment method, with only 10 percent of associations using e-mail. When NCURA wants to recruit new members, it pays allied organizations to distribute e-mail messages about NCURA workshops. Signups surge after they attend the workshop and see the value in membership.
Promoting conferences
That tactic demonstrates another effective e-mail marketing application for associations: promoting educational sessions. Savvy marketers have found that, as a major revenue producer, an annual meeting warrants the extra oomph you can get by delivering HTML rather than simple text messages.
Forrester predicts that by 2003, 85 percent of all e-mail messages will contain HTML, up from 63 percent in 2001. “HTML is definitely the way to go,” says Kim MacPherson, president of Inbox Interactive Inc., Bethesda, Md., and author of Permission-Based E-Mail Marketing That Works! (Dearborn Trade, 2001). “It beats out text two to one in response rates.”
HTML formatting allows you to highlight the contents of your message by breaking it up into scannable chunks with headlines, text, and images. The design can mirror that of your conference Web site. “The Web is all about graphics, and e-mail has gone that way, too,” MacPherson says. “If you look at e-mail as a branding tool, not just a direct response tool, all those little things add up to one big thing.”
The American Advertising Federation (AAF), Washington, D.C., blasted about 30,000 HTML e-mails once a month starting in the November 2001 to promote the annual AAF National Conference, held June 5–8, 2002, in Miami. The blasts reached about 70 percent of its database. Individuals without valid e-mail addresses automatically received broadcast faxes.
“That allowed us to increase the number of people that we sell to,” says Kristin O'Ferrall, vice president of marketing services for AAF. “Our membership is 50,000, but because of budget constraints, we couldn’t send [a registration packet] to every single person. This year we were able to do an e-mail blast for much less.”
Using Captaris MediaLinq, a San Francisco-based outsource email, broadcast fax, and fax on demand service, AAF formatted the HTML in-house, then paid an initial setup cost of $85 plus 3 cents per delivered e-mail for each blast.
The e-mail design tied in to the “AdVentures” conference theme and promoted an online adventure game featured in a banner ad on the AAF home page (www.aaf.org). Web site traffic spiked after each blast, and the game generated more than 600 entries to win a cruise. The adventure theme also carried through to direct mail pieces, print ads, and banner ads on Ad Club Web sites.
The 2002 National Conference achieved record attendance of more than 900 advertising professionals. O’Ferrell counts the e-mail marketing a success because it was part of a comprehensive campaign. “You shouldn’t rely on it alone,” she says, “but because of the ease [of use] and low cost, it does allow you to reach a higher volume of people.”
Targeting regional markets
One danger of relying on e-mail marketing alone is risking that a substantial number of recipients will delete messages without opening them. Although e-mail from a known source to a willing recipient stands a better chance of being read, it can get lost in the clutter that clogs inboxes. Brightmail, a San Francisco-based company that filters
Spam for Internet service providers, reports that Spam has almost tripled since last year and now accounts for 12 to 15 percent of total e-mail traffic.
Segmenting your database and personalizing messages to target groups is the best way to make your e-mail stand out. “People are three quarters more likely to open an e-mail if it is personalized than if it is blasted,” says Corbin Ball, CMP, president of Corbin Ball Associates, Bellingham, Wash., consultant and professional speaker on meetings technology. He suggests crafting a message that speaks directly to recipient interests based on member profiles. For example, if you track the educational sessions members have attended in the past, you can segment the database by sessions attended and invite each segment to register for sessions on the related topics.
Surprisingly, just 43 percent of DMA survey respondents use segmentation techniques on their customer files. But with detailed data on member preferences, associations are well-equipped to get ahead of this trend. The American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA), Alexandria, Va., recently targeted members in San Francisco and Los Angeles to promote local continuing education seminars. The e-mail promotion reached about 1,000 members and generated almost instant response, resulting in 150 to 200 registrations.
“We have another seminar this fall, in Philly and New York,” says Kevin Bayes, assistant director of information services for AAPA. “Since we’re targeting the same group for each one, we’ll combine the two promotions, so members can get an overview of what’s available.”
Continuing education is a core offering for AAPA, and Bayes uses e-mail to deliver as much information as possible. “We have individuals practicing in very rural areas, and I’m able to update them about what’s going on via e-mail,” he says. Monthly e-newsletters distributed to about 24,000 members generate 2,500 clickthroughs to articles on the AAPA Web site (www.aapa.org) each month.
Growing local programs
E-mail is at its most effective when it delivers information members want, directly into their inboxes. The smaller the organization, the more it can benefit from the cost efficiencies. Even local chapters are getting in on the action.
The Heartland Chapter of the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) e-mails invitations to 182 members in six states at least three weeks ahead of each program. When preregistration for a Corbin Ball Seminar, June 25, 2002, in Kansas City, Mo., was about half the number expected, the chapter asked the local ASAE and Meeting Professionals International chapters to e-mail their members an invitation, generating 40 percent more registrations.
Using Cvent (www.cvent.com), an online registration, e-marketing, and data analysis tool, the chapter can send personalized reminders, updates, and evaluations; accept payment online by credit card; and capture e-mail addresses for pass-along recipients. The cost (discounted for PCMA chapters) is about $480 per year, plus $3 per credit card transaction.
“It has not only improved our attendance, it has been able to improve our tracking capabilities regarding the attendance history of our members,” says Lori Johnson, president of the Heartland Chapter and meetings manager for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Kansas City. Armed with this data, the chapter can plan future programs with broad appeal.
Whether they’re using in-house software applications or outsource application services, associations and their affiliates are realizing real cost benefits in marketing educational programs and services to members by e-mail. When you push the envelop with personalization, segmentation, and viral marketing, you’ll see results that outperform traditional offline methods almost every time.
Cathy Chatfield-Taylor, a freelance writer/editor based in Lenexa, Kan., was co-managing editor of Professional Meeting Management, 4th Edition (Chicago, Professional Convention Management Association, 2002) and The CIC Manual, 7th Edition (McLean, Va., Convention Industry Council, 2000). E-mail:
cathy@cc-tunlimited.com.
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