Opportunity and Cost Go Hand in Hand

In working with professional associations, nonprofits, and universities, I have been able to observe different approaches in making a decision on selecting a learning management system, deciding on an integration with an association management software, providing a single sign-on, and even in considering costs related to recording live continuing education sessions. Almost always the initial consideration is cost, which I recognize as a real concern having worked at an association for over a decade. And granted, any responsible staff person evaluating a purchase should consider costs to the organization. However, solely considering costs is short-sighted.

What puzzles me is that the decision-making process often stops at cost. If it isn’t in the budget or the cost is perceived to be too much, no further review is undertaken. While respecting the concern over cost, I maintain that the analysis is incomplete, and therefore flawed, unless the potential benefit derived from the purchase is also fully assessed. Benefit can be measured in dollars and in member/learner satisfaction.  This isn’t an exact science but knowing your members or learners enables you to put together some credible measures of potential value to offset costs.

Revenue, Savings, Opportunity and Cost

First ask yourself the question, “What is the likely revenue or savings I will create, if I say yes?” A couple of examples:

• If I pay X to record my sessions at the annual meeting, and I provide those sessions as on-demand programs later:
  • How many purchases of the on-demand programs are necessary to cover the costs?
  • Can I offer annual meeting registrants, for an increased fee, access to the archived sessions after the meeting? If so, how many are likely to opt into that opportunity?

Considering a New LMS

• If I am considering a new learning management system because my current LMS has crashed several times, and the new LMS costs more, but it never crashes:
  • I have lost X customers due to the crash, and those customers will never return absent another solution. Do this math: X customers multiplied by average dollars spent in a year.  Your solution should have reporting to help you get this information.
  • Do the above prospectively. I’ve already lost X customers and with another crash, I will lose at least the same number of customers I lost before. Y customers multiplied by average dollars spent in a year. Note, this number could be even greater if some of your loyal customers gave you multiple chances after a failure.
  • How much staff time was lost due to these crashes? Take the value of your staff by the hour (don’t forget to add in benefits) and ask them to estimate the time they spent in handling calls, emails, refunds, etc.
  • If I select a new LMS, and I market the new solution, can I win back lost customers? If so, what is a good estimate of returning revenue?
  • Can I expand my current market share based on selecting a stable solution? If so, what is a good estimate of new revenue?
  • Measure in registration dollars. This will cost me Z registrations.
  • Or measure in membership dues dollars. For voluntary organizations that provide free continuing education, you cannot look at the cost of delivering free CLE without looking at the increase in membership dues after you start providing the free content. If you need to do so, survey those members and find out why they became members. You’ll see!

First Time LMS Solutions

• If am looking for a first-time LMS solution or a change in an LMS solution, and I want to go with the lowest bid:
  • What am I not getting with this solution that the others are providing?
  • How can the LMS provider bid at such a low rate?
    • Are there fewer features?
    • Is the provider going to charge me for things that are normally provided without cost by the other LMS?
    • Is the provider staffed adequately to provide me the level of service to which I am entitled?
    • Does the low bid indicate the provider may be desperate, and therefore on the brink of going out of business?
    • What is the cost of change if this provider is inadequate or goes out of business? Measure staff time, consider lost customers…

Second, ask yourself about your learner satisfaction. “How happy can I make my customers if I say yes?” While you can’t always assign a dollar amount to satisfaction, you can consider the value of member loyalty to the overall organization.

Encourage Your Speakers to Create a Blog

Given the importance of social media and online marketing, blogs have become essential for promoting products, including educational ones. A blog helps drive traffic to your website and strengthens your social media presence. Readers appreciate blogs because they simplify complex topics into easy-to-understand content. These benefits are valuable for any organization. However, if your goal is to sell a continuing education product, a blog offers even more. It can increase inbound links to your product and potentially boost sales.

Increase Website Traffic with a Blog

In a recent study, research found that having a blog increased website traffic by 58% and the use of inbound links by 98%.  Creating a blog to promote a program, publication, or other educational product just makes sense and should be done by your subject matter expert.  Whew, you were scared I was going to suggest you write the blog, weren’t you?  The only add to your to-do list is to make writing a blog a speaker or author assignment.

Start Writing

Add writing a blog to the list of instructions you provide a newly committed speaker or newly committed author – and provide a hard deadline!  The blog should be about his or her piece of the program or publication.  Explain to your speaker or author that the blog will include an inbound link to your educational product and could increase registrations or sales.  Ask every speaker on a program and every contributor to a publication to blog.  Even if you get 75% response, you will have multiple blog posts, which will enhance your chances of success.

A Blog as a Teaser

Tell your SME not to give away the farm in writing the blog but the blog must provide value.  Make sure the SME understands your business objective.  The blog should provide relevant information and prompt the reader to take the next step—clicking on the inbound link and buying.  The SME should still transfer knowledge in the blog. The SME should also give a peek into the additional topics that are to be addressed in the program or publication.  It’s knowledge with a tease.

Target Audience

Providing blogs to your target audience provides value in that you create an audience that trusts you and the information you provide.  But we all know that increased sales are the real payoff.  To measure your blog success in sales conversions, use website analytics to monitor.  Remember to give this approach some time, and don’t expect results overnight.

Resources:

“B2B Content Marketing 2017 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends–North America”

“Blogging for Business and How it Drives Sales”

“How to Use Subject Matter Experts in a Sales Meeting”

How Your Online Presence is Building Community and Connection

Social media has taken a front seat in relationships and maintaining connections in many lives. Personally, I find social media to be incredibly interesting as a topic in its relation to social interactions and societal norms. Living in a truly digital age, there is a certain importance to being established online. The absence of an online presence is now more than ever coupled with the question, “why not?”

This expectation of digital presence is heightened in fields that are online in nature, such as Continuing Education. Offering an online presence to your members/users is very important, but can seem daunting, especially when you don’t know quite where to start. Keep reading to harness tools for your Social Media toolbox.

For online presence I’d like to focus on these five main factors:

• Consistency of branding and tone
• Active, regular updates
• Varying content that focuses on business, practices, and processes
• Engagement with user base
• Ease of accessibility

Consistency of branding and tone

Consistency of branding and tone helps users to get to know the association (or business) as a whole. Branding can be used as an attention grabber or subconscious way for users to recognize new content. For your online presence, try using consistent colors and fonts across the board. Take the branding colors and fonts and apply the styles to all of your online material. Creating a cohesive brand improves perceived legitimacy and trust as your association is more established online.

Consistent, active, regular updates

Social media and social media platforms are ruled by time. The consistency of posts has a direct effect on connections and perceived establishment. Timely, regular posts are key to building a user base. By posting consistently online, users will not only come to expect content but will also feel more stability with your association. Imagine that each time a member visits a social media platform, they are greeted with familiar colors and established posting. Connecting through regular updates is a great way to maintain the user relationship. While all users may not visit Social Media platforms regularly, when the user navigates to these sites, they will be able to see the ongoing feed in its entirety. Have a healthy feed waiting for them. If possible, try to consider posting weekly.

Varying content that focuses on practices/process

Brainstorming content can be difficult, so I’d like to introduce five categories of posts that might be useful for your association.

• Testimonial: These are quotes directly from users. Think about using a quote from a faculty or user who had a particularly good experience with CE. These testimonials can then be used in a graphic with some copy on appreciation for the individual. (Please remember to keep privacy in mind! You could always show the testimonial as a “member testimonial” without using their name.)
• Business Highlight: What do you do? How can you feature it? For example, a post of a videography member with equipment: Headed on the road to record CE!
• Staff/Employee Highlight: Give your team a shout out! Include a working photo/candid portrait and a fun fact about the pictured employee. You can also advertise services in this type of post. For example: This is Adam from our support center! He’s a pro at calmly troubleshooting any issues your members might have.
• Atmosphere: Atmosphere shots are great for mixing in with the feed. Examples of these posts would be an office building photo or a nature shot in your city.
• Product Highlight: Bring some attention to what you have to offer! Do features on On Demands, Live Events, etc. (period here), to both inform users and excite them about content. For example, if you have a new bundle, create a graphic to go with it and advertise on online platforms!

Engagement with your user base

If you have an active platform with regular engagement, make sure to follow up on those comments and reactions! Responsiveness naturally helps to improve the relationship between user and association both for the individual user and anyone who happens to see the engagement. Even a quick answer shows that the association cares. Next time you see a positive comment such as “The CE process has been so smooth – Thank you ASSOCIATION NAME!” try answering with “Thanks, NAME! We’re thrilled to hear that you had a great experience with our CE platform. Let us know if you ever have a question or need assistance.

Ease of accessibility

Part of the digital era is instant gratification. Regardless of the business or brand, users look for clear, easily accessible information. For this reason, it’s extremely important to have information up to date and uniform across platforms. That means the most up to date phone number, address, faculty information, etc. Intuitive layouts and organization can also help with accessibility. Users should be able to find out where they need to navigate fairly quickly with a few clicks. Nothing is more frustrating than struggling to find the “contact us” area when there is a problem/inquiry. To further ease accessibility, try taking a look at the language used on online platforms. Keep text informative while cutting down on indirect references and word count. Always aim to be clear and concise if possible.

These five topics are great for reviewing your association’s status in social media. I invite you to use this list to assess your association’s current presence online and then identify goals moving forward. Online presence is a vast, vast topic, and that is why I have prepared a knowledge-based document on online presence to offer all of our InReach Partners! In this document, I walk through each of the five topic areas mentioned here with graphic and copy examples. In addition to social media guidance, I have also included best practices and procedural information so that you can confidently execute posts on all common platforms. No matter where your association is in online presence, I urge you to request the online presence document from your CSM for reference.