Membership & Marketing Summit

From shifts in member engagement to leveraging artificial intelligence, from marketing tactics on a limited budget to delivering member value, this immersive one-day summit will explore emerging ideas, industry trends and leading best practices in association membership and marketing.

Join your association colleagues to discuss the evolution of membership and how your organization can provide meaningful experiences that provide deep member value and engagement.

Education

MemberShift: Why Members Leave and the Strategies to Bring Them Back

Membership organizations are reporting higher levels of disengagement and decline than ever before. That’s a fact. It’s also a fact no one really knows how to solve the problem. If they did, the decline would have reversed long ago.

Think about it. Membership is not a recognized subject of expertise. There are no degrees, defined requirements, career paths, or educational tracks. Membership organizations employ millions and generate billions in revenue, and not a single person has been certifiably or definitively trained in the subject of membership. This means the strategies essential to member engagement and growth have remained largely unknown, overlooked, guessed, or left to chance. A new membership strategy is urgently needed, and Sarah Sladek has discovered it. Sarah will provide a sneak peek into the new strategies from her latest book, MemberShift, hitting the market in August!  You won’t want to miss this!

Whether your association is struggling to engage younger members, show value, manage change, or strategize for the future, Sarah’s keynote promises to pack a punch and inspire a turn-around. This is your opportunity to create a meaningful ‘MemberShift’ in you association and place it on a renewed path for success!  

Sarah Sladek, CEO & Chief Strategist, Sarah Sladek & Company

Build From the Core: Lessons Learned from Public Safety Membership Engagement

There are dozens of reasons why someone will join your organization, and dozens of reasons why they will or will not retain their membership. Keeping that member engaged by providing opportunities for them to interact with your organization enough and in meaningful enough ways to find personal value offers another set of unique challenges. This task is difficult enough without the additional engagement barriers presented by law enforcement. Learn how California Peace Officers Association (CPOA) built a Regional Engagement Model that empowers a core group of member leaders to reach less involved members at the periphery of CPOA – and in doing so, has built a successful network of leadership to expand reach, support meaningful relationships, cultivate community, and deliver lasting value.

Tariq A. Bruno, California Peace Officers’ Association


Marketing Artificial Intelligence in Action

Are you ready to infuse AI and next-generation tech into your organization’s strategy, but not sure where to start? Get an overview of the current Marketing Artificial Intelligence landscape and disruptive technologies you can begin experimenting with. Learn about low lift, low cost marketing, membership and communications AI tools you can leverage right away at your organization to optimize your marketing strategy. Explore how to use AI to enhance your processes and make workflows less time consuming. Demystify the idea of AI and leave with an understanding on the practical applications of AI technology that you can begin experimenting with today.

Erica Salm Rench, MBA, rasa.io

Our Association Has a Membership Strategy. No It Doesn’t.

As Sarah shared in her keynote, membership organizations are reporting higher levels of disengagement and decline than ever before. This is largely because membership remains largely unexplored and unknown. Remember: There is no formalized training in the field of membership. Rather, associations have been forced to rely on business models, learn by trial-and-error, or make assumptions about what fuels vibrant membership experiences and cultures. Critical mistakes have occurred for that simple fact. But Sarah has been researching membership trends for two decades to clearly understand what drives disengagement and what fuels growth. Via considerable research and experience working with associations globally, she has acquired the equivalent of a master’s degree in membership and she will share many key insights in this jam-packed session.

Sarah Sladek, Sarah Sladek & Company

Tools & Strategies for Small or Single-Person Marketing Departments

Is marketing for your organization one of the many hats that you wear? Come learn the tools that will streamline and improve your marketing tasks, while simultaneously helping members to easily access your resources and content. From graphic design templates to social media scheduling tools, hear different time-saving tools that will make your marketing and communications tasks easier, whether you are well-established or going through a re-brand. Collaborate with your fellow participants to hear what others are doing to effectively market go members.

Touda Bentatou, California IT in Education (CITE)