"Creativity" and "revenue generation" don't often wind up in the same sentence, unless an indictment is involved. But these are complicated times for associations, and a bit of (legal) imagination is important as they think about how they keep the doors open.
That challenge is one issue I explored in the latest batch of Associations Now Deep Dives, which cover revenue generation broadly and creative approaches more specifically. For instance, I spoke with association experts about the importance of developing new business models that can better respond to the needs of current members, while also drawing in new ones.
That process starts with getting smart about data, according to Vista Cova CEO Lowell Aplebaum, FASAE, CAE: “It’s going to be up to the association to become more fluent in not just how to aggregate [data], but to translate it into implementation for their members,” he said. And that doesn’t happen by accident: You need a plan for what your organization’s goals are, and what data you’ll leverage to meet them. Reaching out to potential new member groups means tracking trend lines about membership and thinking about who’s there and who’s missing; freshening up your events portfolio means looking at recent attendee data and understanding what kinds of sessions, modalities and experiences they prefer.
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