State of Association Marketing Benchmarks

State of Association Marketing
Demand Metric Research Corporation Copyright © 2014. All Rights Reserved.

What’s the Purpose?
 How healthy is the association marketing function?
 What are associations doing for marketing?
 How well is it working?
 Who’s doing it?
Create benchmarks for association marketing.

Chief Analyst – Demand Metric
Jerry Rackley
 30+ years in sales & marketing
 Adjunct marketing faculty:
Oklahoma State University
 Chief Analyst at Demand Metric since
2011

Survey Snapshot
Title: Most
Senior
Marketer
 Staff:
4%
 1st Level: 12%
 VP:
19%
 Director: 47%
 Exec:
18%
Type
 Membership:51%
 Trade:
20%
 Company:
6%
 Non-profit:
20%
 Other:
3%
Staffing
 None:
3%
 One:
11%
 Two: 15%
 Three: 19%
 Four:
16%
 Five+: 36%
Membership
 >100:
6%
 100-500: 10%
 501-1,000:
8%
 1,001-5,000:
18%
 5,001-10K:
16%
 10K-25K: 16%

Association Marketing: Overall Effectiveness
1%
8%
16%
65%
10%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Very ineffective Somewhat
ineffective
Neutral Somewhat
effective
Very effective

Effectiveness Categories

Communications Quality Perception
0%
4%
8%
57%
31%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
Always irrelevant and unprofessional
Sometimes irrelevant and unprofessional
Neutral
Sometimes relevant and professional
Always relevant and professional

Association Marketing Capabilities
11%
24%
30%
31%
39%
47%
51%
52%
54%
56%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
Other capabilities
Membership winback
Partnerships/Business development
Member/Market intelligence
Public Relations/Thought leadership
Membership retention
Membership growth
Membership engagement
Brand management/awareness
Strategy/planning

Capabilities by Effectiveness Group

Marketing Tactics Usage
32%
65%
81%
82%
83%
92%
95%
97%
98%
98%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Other tactics
Mobile marketing
Print advertising
Digital marketing/advertising
Direct mail marketing
Content marketing
Website and/or SEO marketing
Social media marketing
Event marketing
Email marketing

Marketing Tactics Effectiveness
13%
27%
34%
45%
45%
55%
62%
67%
75%
81%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Other tactics
Mobile marketing
Print advertising
Digital marketing/advertising
Direct mail marketing
Social media marketing
Website and/or SEO marketing
Content marketing
Event marketing
Email marketing

Tactics by Effectiveness Groups

Digital Marketing Portfolio - 1

Digital Marketing Portfolio - 2

Task Responsibility

Skills Inventory

Association Marketing Metrics
3%
10%
13%
28%
33%
76%
77%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Other metrics
Recency, Frequency, Monetary (RFM)
None
Reach/influence
Conversions
Open rates
Click-thru rates

Analysis & Reporting Tools
1%
5%
6%
7%
9%
10%
16%
20%
22%
23%
66%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
Hyperion
Business Objects
SPSS
SAS
Other tools
None
MS Access
Don't know
Crystal Reports
BI tools built into AMS
Excel

Association Annual Marketing Budgets
19%
42%
16%
10%
7%
2%
4%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%
I don't know
Less than $100K
$100K to $250K
$250K to $500K
$500K to $750K
$750K to $1 million
Over $1 million

Budget Line Items
8%
10%
12%
14%
17%
22%
22%
25%
26%
32%
51%
52%
60%
63%
64%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
Other line items
Data verification/acquisition
Inbound marketing
Mobile marketing
Search Engine Marketing
Online ecommerce
Responsive design
Email design
Banner ads
Social media
Direct mail
Website design
Print
Email marketing
Website management
Most effective tactics:
1. Email marketing
2. Event marketing
3. Content marketing
4. Web/SEO

Resources to Improve Effectiveness
1. More staff
2. More funding
3. More software or technology
4. More skills or competency
5. More direction from leadership
6. More creativity
7. More empowerment
8. Other resources

Where Time is Spent
1. Email marketing
2. Content creating
3. Internal meetings
4. “Changing gears” to meet new directions
from board/C-suite
5. “Posting” to websites and/or social media
6. Fielding member questions/emails
7. Data analysis
8. Data processing

Analyst Bottom Line

 For 82%, most senior marketing title is “Director” or below
 Implication: senior marketer isn’t talking to the board
 Marketing success requires top-to-bottom collaboration
 Executive leadership of marketing = greater success (89% vs. 73%)
Executive Leadership

 Prioritizing strategy & planning = greater marketing effectiveness
 If your marketing function is too busy to plan, then:
 It’s not oriented strategically enough
 You’re opting for lower marketing effectiveness
 The less strategic marketing is, the less respect it has internally
Strategic Orientation

 Content marketing effectiveness gap is huge (36%)
 Most of the tactics in use rely on content to succeed
 Don’t be on the wrong side of this content “divide”
 Learn to effectively create and deploy content
Embrace Content

 Ownership & responsibility of key marketing tasks is fragmented
 Executive leadership of marketing could eliminate this fragmentation
 Marketing needs to own the execution of what it’s held accountable for
Ownership

 Marketing is increasingly a technical pursuit
 Equip marketing with more technical skills and keep them current
Skills

 Move beyond volume or “vanity” metrics to measure marketing
 The best metrics help everyone understand the value and contribution of
marketing
Metrics

Q & A

For more information, visit us at:
www.demandmetric.com
Demand Metric Research Corporation
562 Wellington Street, London, ON CANADA, N6A 3R5

State of Association Marketing Benchmarks

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