WebLink International will host a webinar on July 22 titled "Top 5 Reasons to Use Member Segmentation to Drive Your Marketing Strategy."  Cathi Hight of Hight Performance Group and Mike Bryan, WebLink's vice president of marketing will demonstrate ways you can use technology to learn more about your members.

This webinar will show you ways to use your membership management software plus your website and survey data to analyze and define your ideal target market for members. You'll learn how segmentation strategies drive sales, increase retention, promote satisfaction, define program development, and deliver high lifetime value.  

Cathi and Mike teamed up last month to present a webinar on "Leveraging Technology to Measure Member Loyalty and Engagement." That session was very well received by chambers of commerce and business associations. 

Cathi has more than 18 years experience in sales & marketing and training & development. She has worked with organizations of all sizes and across industry sectors to plan for market changes and to develop customer loyalty strategies.   She is a national trainer for ACCE (American Chamber of Commerce Executives) for membership development and facilitates regional workshops on membership sales and retention. Cathi is also an instructor for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Organizational Management.


Mike Bryan has more than 14 years of experience in business strategy, marketing, and product development in the web-based software industry, including experience at First Advantage, TruStar Solutions, Major Video Concepts and consumer products at Walt Disney. TruStar Solutions was an Inc 500 Fast Growth Company in 2003 and 2004.  At WebLink he is responsible for client acquisition and retention, marketing strategy, advertising, and public relations initiatives, strategic business development and partner management.

Learn more about the webinar and register here.  Register on or before June 18 to receive the early bird rate of $49.  After that date, the registration will be $59.  We hope you can join us for this informative and inspiring webinar on using techonology to better understand and manage your membership.

Last night, I participated in a Small Business Buzz Twitter Chat (Hashtag #sbbuzz) with staff from chambers of commerce and small businesses around the country.  The discussions centered on how chambers of commerce and small business can use social media to benefit their community and each other and how members can gain benefits from being members of their local chambers.

The question of “What businesses will receive the most value by joining their local Chamber?” sparked some very good discussions. 

A few people replied with things like "The members who receive the most value are often those who add the most value - participate on committees, volunteer, etc."   Yes, it may be true that members who put a lot into their membership will likely get more measurable return in terms of sales, leads, etc.  And, every chamber has at least a few of those power members, however, those members are generally the minority of members. 

My concern lies in making “you get more if you participate” part of the message of the chamber.  Each member has their own perception about how the chamber can/will benefit them. In order to meet/exceed those expectations, the chamber must know at least some of those expectations and strive to meet them on an individual level….and communicate that value as well.  Knowing why a member joined and what's important to them helps you improve your membership retention and increase new member sales through referrals from those satisfied and value-receiving members.

If the answer to “What businesses will receive the most value by joining their local Chamber?” is “the type where the employees work to gain more value” that’s fine, but I don’t think it would be wise for a chamber to say that to their members. ;-)   Otherwise, I'm not sure there is any one type of business that would necessarily benefit more than others.  I suppose a business who sells to local businesses and consumers would gain more benefit than someone who sells to businesses NOT in their community, but even then there are exceptions.

My response to the question was, "The ones that receive the most value are the ones that PERCEIVE the most value. Depends on how the chamber tells the story."

While every chamber has power members that will naturally gain value from their activities, I think the larger effort by the chamber should be placed on knowing which members are most valuable to them from a business perspective and finding ways to demonstrate to each member the value they received based on each members’ definition.  How do you do this?  Through a robust membership management system with CRM features and detailed reporting of course! 

What do you think about the question of “What businesses will receive the most value by joining their local Chamber?”   Do you think it's a good idea to tell member that they get more out by putting more in?   How do you go about communicating value to EVERY member and trying to meet/exceed their personal expectations.  And, lastly, how to you use technology to accomplish this?   Please add your comments below.  Thanks!

Here are some posts on similar topics:

• Communicating Value To Your Members
• Chambers using technology to create and communicate value
• Know your members (and show them that you know them)

Today on Twitter, my co-worker Benji Craig (@benjicraig) posted this tweet: 

1. What is the role of of chamber of commerce
2. What is the purpose of a chamber of commerce

There are probably plenty of businesses in your community (and even some members) that have the same questions.

Right now, go create a blog post and/or newsletter article that explains not only the role of a chamber of commerce, but specifically how YOUR chamber serves your business community.  Include specific benefit programs, recent government affairs efforts and more to demonstrate how your ogranization works for your members. 

And, use this as an opporunity to ask your members how THEY see the role of your chamber.  You may find that some of them have much different ideas about what activities your chamber should be doing.  Cross promote your new post on Twitter and/or your LinkedIn group and engage your members in a conversation.  Ask them for their opions and ideas.  Educate them about services they may not know about.  Share the information you learn.

And, if you need ideas for more blog posts, see 25 Things Your Chamber Can Blog About.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about The Social Media Quartet, the four social media tools used most often by marketers - Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook.  Now that you've mastered the Quartet, are you ready for the encore? ;-)

In that post, I mentioned the Social Media Marketing Industry Report.  After the social media quartet, YouTube was the next most frequently used media. 

At YouTube, several chambers of commerce have created their own "channel" where they can add new videos, share them with their audience and allow people to subscribe and comments on videos.  You can add your logo, "feature" certain videos, and change the layout and look of your channel to create your own customized space. 

Recently, YouTube passed Yahoo! as the world's #2 search engine as more and more people are looking for and viewing videos on the web.  Video is here to stay (and growing) and your chamber of commerce or business association can use it too, to engage businesses in your community, improve member retention, increase new member sales and even generate non-dues revenue.

To create your channel, go to YouTube, click sign up and start adding videos. Your channel will be at http://www.youtube.com/user/YOURNAME, so choose your YouTube account name wisely. :-)

Here are some examples:

South Carolina Chamber of Commerce   The South Carolina Chamber has more than 50 videos on their channel and they add new videos fairly often.  In addtion, they've added a good keyword-rich description of their chamber and included contact information and a link to their website.  They also have a large featured video that gets your attention when you first visit their channel.

Asheville (NC) Area Chamber of Commerce    The Asheville Chamber also adds new videos frequently and has a large featured video.  They use a Flip video camera for many of their videos.

Hope-Hempstead County Chamber of Commerce Wow! 128 videos so far. Lots of ribbon cutting videos.

Maryland Chamber of Commerce  The Maryland Chamber has more than a dozen videos, including one from the new chairman explaining his goals in his new role.

With the availability of pocket video cameras like the Flip series, it is very easy to record a video and upload it to YouTube in just a few minutes.  Yes, you can upload professionally shot videos as well and I think it's good to add those if you have them.  Personally, I think more content is good, so I like more frequent, casual videos as a way of building a relationship with your members.  Even if the videos have some "hiccups," I think more videos and more frequent updates outweigh the
time and expense of creating professional videos. (Most of the time)

What could you record?  Plenty!

• A daily announcement and in essence create your own TV show
• Ribbon cuttings - Instead of a static photo, why not use video to capture the sights and sound?
• Member testimonials - When one members see the additional exposure another one is getting, they too will want to record a testimonial video.
• Member commercials - You could even charge members to add videos to their listings in your member directory where they could promote their products and services.
• Updates from the state legislature or city council meeting. 
• Events - Even if you don't record the whole event, you can post key points made by speakers or big announcements made at the event
• Daily life - Show your members what it's like working at your office.  Do a "man on the street" impromtu inteview with your staff, asking them what their working on and why the like working for your organization.
• Calls to action - Do you need your members to "get out the vote" or act in some other way. Use video to create an emotional appeal instead of text in an email or a letter.
• Explain a benefit like your Office Depot discounts or health insurance plans.  Remind your viewing of the exclusive benefits of joining your organization.
• Walk members through how to use your website or blog. (Remember, videos can also be screencasts, using tools like Camtasia or Jing)

Remember, too, that you can embed videos from YouTube in pages on your site or your blog, too.  By adding videos to your web sites, blogs, Facebook pages, LinkedIn profiles, etc., you'll have more opportunities to engage your audience.  Remember to create videos that focus on issues that are important to them - demonstrating your relevance and giving them reasons to renew their membership each year.

How is your chamber of commerce using videos?  How has the reaction from your members been?  What's working? What's not working?  Let me know in the comments below or send email to curt.moss[at]weblinkinternational.com.

Here are some other posts you might find useful regarding videos:
Get Social (Media) with a Testimonial Event
Is your chamber using video yet?

WebLink International will host a webinar on May 13 titled "Leveraging Technology to Measure Member Loyalty and Engagement."  Cathi Hight of Hight Performance Group and Mike Bryan, WebLink's vice president of marketing will demonstrate ways you can use technology to learn more about your members.

I first met Cathi about 3 years ago and immediately connected with her on the concept of using member intelligence to help organizations make better decisions and provide better benefits to their members.  She is a trainer for the American Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) and has delievered presentations and consulting services to numerous chambers of commerce and business associations.   In addition, she has twice presented at WebLink's annual user conference and technology summit and received rave reviews both times. 

Mike Bryan joined WebLink in May of 2008 and brings strong business intelligence and product management skills to WebLink's marketing efforts.  He's able to translate "for profit" business concepets into ways that chambers and business associations can use them to better manage their business operations.  Mike recently wrote an article for the ACCE's Spring issue of Chamber Executive titled, "Chambers Turn to Technology to Beat the Recession."

Learn more about the webinar and register here.
Register on or before May 6 to receive the early bird rate of $49.  After that date, the registration will be $59.  We hope you can join us for this informative and inspiring webinar on using techonology to better understand and manage your membership.

I came across two posts yesterday that were very similar in nature and I wanted to share them here and get your input.

What Happened to the Original Social Network? by Joe Abraham

Is Your Local Chamber of Commerce Obsolete? by Jack Deal

Read these two posts, then continue below.

I've seen these posts mentioned on other sites and they bother me a little bit, too.  Maybe it's because I worked for a chamber for 8 years and know how hard the staff works to serve the members. I've seen the staff attend all the early morning breakfast meetings and the after 5:00 mixers and the weekly total resource development campaigns and I've seen their the genuine concern for local businesses.  Or maybe it's because I've seen so many chambers jump into using social media and reinevent the way they run their business by providing more and better benefit to their members. 

I do believe that chambers of commerce in general need to change in order to survive and thrive, but...BUT...why focus on pointing out these fairly obvioius facts (they are true for LOTS of businesses) and then wrap up the post with (essentially) "if they don't, they'll be gone." If you're going to point out a problem, why not offer a solution....or better yet, show examples of how some chambers of commerce ARE indeed changing as they suggest so that others can learn from them. Do the very thing you suggest that chambers should be doing and connect them with someone that can help them. I want others to see the success stories and know that chambers CAN evolve.  And I've tried to share information on chambers that are evolving here on this blog.

To be fair, Joe Abraham does have some decent suggestions near the end of his post. They mostly focus on delivering real value to your members by directly helping them increase profits and improving the lives of the individual members.  These demonstrate some of the opportunities and decisions I believe chambers have before them.

Be the great connector
Chambers have held mixers and networking events for a long time.  While these may still have some value, the two authors point out some deficiencies in these types of events.  (Those who understand the value of long-term networking will disagree, I'm sure).  However, chambers can go beyond these events and actively connect businesses who may need/want each other's services.  This may involve "business match making" services or using technology to match business together.  Listening to your members' concerns and needs though social media (and in-person visits) can be a great way to start connecting them to other businesses.  Certainly social media will be a major part of chambers' efforts to connect local businesses.  Those chambers already using social media will have a great head start.

Be THE business advocate
Dave Kilby (and others) at the Western Association of Chamber Executives have encouraged chambers to be active in business legislative issues for years.  Some chambers have long avoided jumping into the political arena.  If you're not there already, now is the time to be the advocate for business in your community and make their concerns heard.  Blogging, email and Twitter will take larger roles for those organizations who are politically active.  They'll be able to share information instantly and solicit feedback from members.

Provide personalized business services 
Many of the chambers of commerce I know are run by staff who have no or little experience running small business themselves. (Including me when I worked for one). Chambers could hire succesful small business owners and managers to provide one-to-one consulting services for other small businesses.  Things like creating business plans, developing marketing materials, even dealing with HR issues could be provided as paid services.  And because the small businesses would be getting help by someone who had "been in their shoes," they may feel like the chamber truly understands their needs.

Promote/develop a strong local economy
Despite Jack Deal's comments about how people can buy anything from anywhere in the world (which is true), the reality is that the vast majority of people in your community shop locally for most items. They drive to work each day past local gas stations and local grocery stores.  They drop off their cleaning at local dry cleaners and they buy lattes at the local coffee shops.  Chances are they have an account at the local bank and they bought or sold their house through a local realtor.   They live in neighborhoods full of other people that do the same types of things they do....they spend 75-90% of their time working in, playing and and shopping in their LOCAL area.  So, why wouldn't the chamber of commerce can work to create positive economic conditions in the area and promote their members?

Create/demonstrate value on an individual basis
Ah, the world of mass customization.  Each member has different needs and different reasons for joining the chamber.   Chambers will need to use customer relationship management software and other technology to create value for members as they need and want it.  And, you'll need to have customized ways of communicating that value to each member.  It won't be enough to say "you're on the chamber's health plan."  You'll need to tell them how much they spent, how much value they got and how much they saved over using other plans.   Where will you store this informaton? (Hint: Hopefully in your membership management sotfware) Can you provide this info for your Office Depot discount plans and other benefits? If not, you should probably start finding ways of getting this information and communicating it to your members. 

Explore different avenues for revenue generation
What if the chamber was an open organization that had benefits for all businesses, regardless of if they "joined."  Could you create a new set of services and charge for those services to all businesses?  Could you then offer a "premium" level of service that in essense replaced your membership dues structure?  What new product and services would you create? For more info on this concept, see an older post, Retain more members by competing with yourself.  Certainly, customer relationship management software and social media will have roles here as well.

What about exclusivity?  This has long been a selling point on being part of the chamber.  "If you're not a member, you won't get X, Y or Z."  Is it time to let go of this sacred cow or is it time to reinforce it and make it even stronger?  I can see both sides of this argument and I've love to get your input.

What are your opinions about the two posts above?  How is your chamber changing to provide more and better services to your members?  How will you use technology to help you evolve your chamber?

And most importantly, what do you think is the future for chambers of commerce?  Please leave a comment below or email me at curt.moss[AT]weblinkinternational.com.

If you can use only 4 social media tools, use these:  Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn & Facebook.   These are by far the social media tools that marketers most frequently use, according to the Social Media Marketing Industry Report. (page 19)

Each one of these - Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn & Facebook - can be used in concert (see what I did there) with each other AND with what you’re already doing in your organization’s communications efforts.  But how can your chamber create a communications symphony with all these different media?  Read on...

Twitter
Use Twitter to cross-promote your chamber's blog posts, events and members.  There are a number of chambers using Twitter in other ways, too. However, don't forget to follow businesses in your area and have conversations with them, too.

And, of course, you can cross-promote your LinkedIn group, Facebook page and any other social media you use.  I will stress again, though....don't just push information.  Mix up your tweets with questions and replies to your followers.

Blogs
We know that blogs are great ways to position your chamber as an expert and create communications that engages your members.  If you've been blogging for a while and think you've run out of topics, check out
25 Things Your Chamber Can Blog About.  

See some good Chamber blogs below.  These Chambers do a nice job of creating communications that are relevant for their members. Yes, you can mix in posts about events and members with legislative and business issues as you'll see in some of these blogs.

LinkedIn
If you're not on LinkedIn yet, go there now and set up your profile and have your coworkers do the same.  Using the tools that LinkedIn provides, you'll be amazed out how quickly you can build a network.  You can (and should) create a profile for your chamber, too.  Connect with your members and other businesses in your community.  Keep you and your chamber in the middle of your area's local and online networking.  If you don't, someone else will take that role.

There are plenty of chambers of commerce who have LinkedIn groups, too.
I've been researching chamber LinkedIn groups and will post soon about using these groups effectively.  In the meantime, here are some quick tips:

• It may seem obvioius, but ask questions. Push content and concepts to your LinkedIn group members and get their input.  
• Answer questions asked by others, or at least refer them to another resource in your area.  Be the great connector in the online world just as you are in the offline world.
• Post national and local business news, make it relevant to your community and see how your group members respond.  Again, ask for their input, see how it is affecting them or show them what they can learn from it.

Facebook
There are two things (among many) that you can do on Facebook for your chamber:  Create a group and create a page for your chamber.   The biggest difference is that people can "join" your group, but they can become a "fan" of your page/chamber.

There are subtle differences in how you would manage a group versus a page. (Why not have both?  The two can live in harmony, after all.)  For example, through Facebook's interface you can invite anyone to join your group (either your Facebook friends or send email to anyone else).  Once they are a member of your group, you can send messages to them about new items in your group, invite them to events, etc.   

On your Facebook page, you can send an update to your fans (through Facebook's tools) and let them know when you've added new videos, events or other content. 

See a list of chambers with Facebook pages and chambers with Facebook groups.   Similar to LinkedIn groups, be sure to engage your Facebook fans or members by giving them frequent updates and new content.

The big finish
Use this quartet of social media tools to cross-promote each other.  Use Twitter to announce a new blog post or ask for replies to a question in your LinkedIn group.  Connect your blog's RSS feed to your Facebook page and your LinkedIn profile.   Create blog posts about successful connections between members in your LinkedIn group.  Share information about your chamber and about your members.

However, please don't simply repost everything you do to every other medium.  Occassionally that's OK, but if you do it all the time, it will seem like spamming to your biggest fans (the ones who connect with you on all networks) and you certainly don't want to alienate them. In fact, you want to reward them!  Why not create some social media exclusive items like contests on Twitter or Facebook trivia questions that you don't promote in other areas?   Your followers and fans on each network will appreciate your efforts to create unique content. 

And....have some fun!  Let your enthusiasm for your chamber, your members and your community come through in yours posts.

By using these tools, you and your chamber can be make sweet music using social media - no chamber orchestras required. (OK, enough with the music puns!) ;-)

There are certainly many examples of the economy affecting chamber membership numbers and sponsorship revenue. However, with each obstacle there are opportunities. :-)

I thought this was an interesting nugget from the blog post:

How are you implementing these and/or other strategies? How are you using technology to help you?    Are you creating segmented communications to deliver relevant information? Are you communicating value to every member using benefit tracking, referral reports or other tools? How are you attracting new members?  Are you showing your members that you "know" them?

I also found this line a bit contradictory: “Surprisingly, they identified online media (blogs, Facebook, twitter, etc.) as the least effective tool at their disposal.” The article goes on to say that most organizations will be increasing their spending on social media or keeping it the same. I suspect the response is due to the difficulty in determining direct ROI when using social media.  I know that plenty of chambers are having good success with social media and are doing the great job with it.

So, do you view social media as a valuable tool to help you survive and THRIVE in the recession? And if so, can you share your reasons why you think it's valuable in the comments below? I would love to know what you think about the article and report AND what you are doing to focus more on your members as mentioned above.

Edit:  I got a reply from one of our clients and it was so good, I just had to add it to this post.  Jessica Hibbard from the Frederick County MD Chamber had this to say.

I've been working with chambers of commerce and membership organizations for nearly 15 years. I've never seen anyone hug their computer, let alone hug their member database. Oh sure, there have been some who've said they LOVE their database (WebLink clients, of course!) ;-), but mostly it's viewed as a necessary evil.  Let's change that!

First, why do you have a database? Or member management software? Or a customer relationship management system?

What do you do with it?  Do you:

• Create mailing labels to send your members a newsletter?
• Look up members' phone numbers when you need to call them?
• Enter event dates and committee meeting minutes?
• Send invoices to your members?

If you're just doing basic things and not gaining valuable insight from your membership data, you're missing tremendous opportunities to truly connect with your members (and future members) and expand your organization's influence.

Sure, your chamber will be able to survive by tracking basic information, sending out email and newsletters and running monthly board reports. But do you want to survive or do you want to thrive and enrich your local business community?

Why not shoot for more?  Why not use your database to:

• Extract member intelligence to help you better KNOW your members?
• Use this member intelligence to make better decisions for managing and marketing your chamber?
• Directly integrate member information with your website for real-time updates?
• Learn which members are the most (at least) valuable?
• Segment your members for more personal communications to them?
• Predict how certain members may act based on past behavior?
• Build relationships with your members in such a way that they become raving fans?
• Communicate the value your members receive so well that your retention rate soars?

You may have heard something like, "you don't have a database to put information in to, you have a database to get information out of."  So, what kind of data, information and business intelligence are you extracting from your membership management software?  Are you using that info to do work or to grow and improve?

What would it take for you to do this?  Some features that help make this easier are:

• A web-based member management system.  This let lets you access the system from anywhere and allow for real-time integration with your website
• Seamless integration with your GL system. Integration saves you time and potential mistakes during duplicate entries.
• Robust reporting cababilities.  As you find ways to better use your data, you're going to want to see it in dfferent ways too. A reporting tool that give you maximum flexility will also give you maximum opporunities.
• Multi-user logins.  If each of your staff can log in as themselves, you can track their interactions with your data and the relationships they have with your members.
• Dashboards.  Quick-glance information centers that help you quickly understand your data and take action on it.
• Advanced member segmenation.  Slicing and dicing your membership data into chunks can help you see which type of members are most valuable.  And you can communicate with each segment to deliver more personal, relevant information.

What if you were able to do all these things and more?  You could change the culture of your organization to be data-centic and use your high-tech system to create a high-touch environment for your members.  Show them that you're listening. Provide them the information they want and need.  Communicate your value to them.   All of this requires good data, a good system and good people to manage it.  (Don't forget about the people aspect).

You can make your membership database SO valuable that you actually wanted to hug it!  And, in turn, probably make some members want to hug YOU!

You don't need to be an expert to succeed at using social media for your chamber of commerce or business association!  What you need is a desire to connect with people and engage them in conversation.  (And you do need to actually have those conversations, too.)

Just setting up an account on Twitter and having a blog and creating a Facebook group isn't enough.   But, it doesn't really have to be much harder than that.  Simply use these tools to do the things you're already doing like delivering useful information to your members, listening to their concerns and fostering relationships.

If you're not already, you might first ask if your chamber of commerce needs to be using social media. You're mostly certainly going to hear "yes" whenever you ask this question.  It is one of the hottest topics among chambers of commerce and business associations - all businesses, really. Check out my post from last year: Should Chambers be expected to use social media?  

How do you get going?  Find 3-4 things you can devote some time to that will help you engage your members and prospects.  I would suggest: 

1. Blog - Blogs are clearly a great way to create content, position your chamber as an expert and engage your audience in conversations.  See 5 reasons your chamber should blog, chambers are not blogging WHY  and 25 things your chamber can blog about.
2. Twitter - Twitter is growing like crazy right now and plenty of chambers of commerce are using it effectively to engage the businesses in their community.  See Five ways your chamber can use Twitter and More chamber-Twitter thoughts.
3. Facebook & LinkedIn Groups - These are the two most popular social networking sites for business professionals.  Several chambers of commerce already have very active groups on these sites.  Keep your pages updated with new content and have conversations with your members in these groups.  You can repurpose existing content or create new questions and discussions.   Your members are already using LinkedIn and Facebook....why not meet them where they are?  See how chambers can use social networking sites.

Yes, using social media does take some time and effort and, as mentioned before, a desire to make connections with/for your members and prospects.

But, you don't need to be an "expert!"  There are plenty of great chamber staff out there who are simply using social media as a tool for them to further their chamber's mission and goals.  They are regular people who care deeply about the businesses in their community and they are choosing to engage those businesses using social media.  You can too!
  

Are you worried you could spend your entire day "playing" with social media and not get any "real"work done?  Check out: Tweeting 9 to 5: The Social Media Work Routine.  There are some good tips on balancing your time and getting started in social media.

As I've said before, chambers of commerce are the original social networking platform.  Using social media is just the logical next step in the evolution of your chamber. So, go out there and get social!   And let me know if I can help you in any way.

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal published a story about how chambers of commerce are helping small businesses stay abreast of the latest technologies.  The article demonstrates how some chambers of commerce are using technology to engage their members and strengthen their business community.

We're very pleased that two of our clients, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and the Salem (OR) Chamber of Commerce were highlighted in the article.   A few months ago, we had our PR firm contact the Wall Street Journal in an effort to help our clients get media coverage demonstrating how they are benefiting their communities.  A few of our clients' stories - and even a mention of WebLink - failed to make the final edits, however.  (Darn editors!) ;)

Now consider this blog post by Tony Rossell - Associations Get Mixed Grades for Helping Members in a Recession    (I know that chambers of commerce are sometimes different from associations, but I think there are some common themes here.)  Tony mentions a report, "Beliefs, Behaviors and Attitudes in Response to the Economy," that shows how members feel about their organization's efforts to help them during these economic times.   

In his post, Tony highlights several key points from the survey.  How do you feel about the survey? Are the results similar to what you're seeing with your members?

Tony also says in his post:


I touched on some ways chambers can do that in this recent post.   Many of our clients use referral reports and custom fields to track and report on all the ways their chamber provides benefits to their members - on an individual basis.  They then use this information in communications (phone calls, emails, mail) throughout the year to help communicate value.
The Wall Street Journal article shows some clear cases of chambers of commerce are evolving and using technology to create and communicate value for their members.   Back in December, I wrote this post about creating value with technology and have since heard from several of our clients.  We've heard that some of them are indeed able to increase member retention and generate new member sales (even during a recession) by using technology.

Grafton deButts of the Loudon County Chamber of Commerce, had this to say:

How is your chamber of commerce or business association using technology to create and communicate value? Let me know in the comments below.   I'd love to hear your success stories!

At the W.A.C.E. Conference last week in Las Vegas, I sat in on a session titled, “Communicating Value…Messaging That Works.”   There were three speakers who each presented different ideas on how their chamber creates, measures or delivers value.  However, I felt that all of them missed the mark a bit on how to communicate that value.

I thought that Brad Hicks, President/CEO of the Medford/Jackson County OR Chamber, came the closest to explaining how to communicate the value.  (BTW, Congratulations to Brad on winning the W.A.C.E.’s Executive of the Year award.  Brad’s chamber is a WebLink client.)

Brad mentioned that value is about both the “macro” and the “micro.”   He also discussed that his chamber is promoting connection rather than participation and that his staff is working to develop stronger relationships with members.  I love this approach!   In the age of constant online connections and virtual everything, a phone call or face-to-face meeting with a chamber staff person is usually a welcome interaction for chamber members.   Many member don’t have time to participate on committees or attend events, so ask them if they are comfortable with their level of connection, instead of telling them to “get involved.”

These personal conversations are a great way to reach out to members, ask them about their business and LISTEN to their concerns and successes.  And you can use this opportunity to explain the macro reasons for being a member of your chamber such as how your chamber works to create a strong local economy and advocates for business in the halls of government.   These conversations can help explain the high-level benefits your chamber offers.

But, how are you handling the micro portion?  Can you use technology to track, monitor and communicate value that’s specific to each member?   For your members to make their own decisions about the value your chamber provides, you’ll need to provide them details on the referrals they’ve received, discounts used for office supplies or health insurance, events attended, sponsorships completed or any other benefit that can be tracked.   Can you demonstrate to each member what your chamber did specifically for their business?   Find a way to track this information in your member management software. Then, use this data to communicate the value to each member. Use email, letters, phone calls – anything – as long as you speak to specifics.  

You can speak to specifics somewhat in your newsletter and blog posts, as well.  Wherever possible, use real life examples of how a certain issue affects your members.  Rather than state that “the Chamber stopped a tax bill that would have cost area businesses $1.3 million,” find members to give you specific examples.  Something like “Joe Smith, owner of Speedy Dry Cleaning, has 6 full time employees.  He estimates the defeat of the tax bill will save his business $1,500/year” carries more weight than large, generic numbers.  Weave in examples from several different sizes and types of businesses so your members can find one they can identify with.

When it comes time to renew their membership, your members want a way to equate the dollars they spend to the value they’ve received.  And the decision about value is THEIRS.  Make sure you give them all the tools to make that decision in your favor.

Times are tough, money is tight, and No One is spending money right now.   Well the first two points are certainly true, but the latter is not.  The truth is; everyone is more selective in how and where they spend their money, but they ARE spending money.  Your members are looking to make the most of their dollars and get a clear Return on Investment (ROI) from your chamber.  You are in the right place at exactly the right time to make money with your website and provide tremendous value AND results to your members.

Why chambers exist
Now is an opportune time to revisit why you exist in the first place, or at least why members belong to your organization.  Chamber initiatives are diverse and you do so many important things for the local economy you serve, but members join to grow their business. 

It bears repeating.  Members join primarily to grow their business.  If you are helping them grow their business, you are VERY valuable to them. Most especially in tough economic times. 
                                                                                              
The chamber brand = Credibility
Chambers of commerce have a “brand name” advantage over other local directory sites as most consumers know each community has a chamber and they will seek out a chamber’s website to search before the site of a local newspaper, TV station or radio station.   And chambers have a physical presence to support their efforts – something most directory websites do not.  Local means physically local and that still matters to buyers.

In the 2007 Schapiro Study, a key takeaway is that when consumers know that a small business is a member of the chamber of commerce, they are 44% more likely to think favorably of them and 63% more likely to purchase goods or services from that company in the future.  This translates directly into credibility.  Why does that matter?  People do business with businesses they trust.  They can’t afford to take risks with their money and a chamber membership is an implied seal of approval by the local business community when people search for local businesses online.

So what is the potential?  Let’s look at some important trends.

Internet advertising trends
In 2008, $100 Billion was projected to be spent on local advertising across all mediums (Insiders Report – Universal McCann Dec. 07).  Local online advertising was expected to reach $13.1 Billion in 2008 according to Borrell and Associates.   What was your share of the $13.1 Billion spent in 2008 and are you positioned to take advantage of the $100 Billion already spent locally that is migrating online?

Online usage trends and directories
According to a recent Pew Internet and American Life Study – 49% of people use online search at least once a day.  More importantly to you, a study conducted by Piper Jaffrey & Co. in 2007 determined that 58% of online activities are searches for local information!  People are already searching online for local businesses in your community EVERY DAY.

New sites with interactive directories are popping up continually and other sites are adding them to compete for advertising dollars.  Traditional local media websites such as TV, radio, newspaper and yellow page sites are moving to designs and features that blur the lines regarding their media type.  In essence, everyone is going online and you have a fantastic resource in your online business directory that is under-promoted and under-monetized as a profit center. 

Results matter and conversion is king
A client of WebLink is generating a 2.9% click through rate on ads on their website. As a point of reference, industry-wide average click through rates for web advertising (impressions delivered / clicks) are typically 0.1% to 0.2%.  This means that ads on chamber sites can 14x to 28x more productive than other websites.  Conversion rates are high on chamber sites because you are trusted by visitors.   Greater credibility AND greater results.  Now that will get members’ attention.  And their dollars.
  
History shows that the greatest opportunities often come during the times of greatest adversity.  Your chamber IS the most valuable cost effective advertising medium there is.   Your chamber website provides targeted, immediate, affordable, and measurable results.  Remember that members join primarily to grow their business and you can help them do exactly that with your website. 

To summarize: people are searching for local business information, your website has high credibility, and businesses are already purchasing local online advertising.    

NOW is the time to take action and make money from your website. 

If your chamber is like most, you go through a certain process to sell memberships to local businesses.  At some point in this process, the business will decide to join or not to join.   If the business joins, you can be well on your way towards gaining member intelligence for your chamber.     But what if they don’t join?  What can you learn from these businesses?  Plenty!

Let’s start with this, “Why not?”  Ask them why they didn’t join.  AND, record that information in your database!  You’ll soon be able to determine the top 5-10 reasons why businesses don’t join your chamber.  You probably hear things like:

• I don’t have time
• The corporate office says we don’t join chambers
• Dues cost too much
• You don’t have “X” benefit
• I’d like to, but the boss says no
• I was a member once and didn’t get any new business from it
• We’re already a member of an industry trade group

Create a way to track these objections in your member management software and assign them to these prospects that don’t join.   (If you can, be sure to record their type of business, how many employees they have and how long they’ve been in business, too…more on using that information later.)

Over time, you’ll notice trends for why businesses don’t join. Then you can adjust your messaging going forward.  For example, if you continue to hear “I don’t have time,” you may want to alter your advertising, website text and selling process to focus on how businesses get benefits from your chamber even when they don’t participate. 

You can also revisit some of these businesses in 6 months to a year and demonstrate to them the ways you chamber has benefited businesses just like theirs in the past year, using their own objections “against them.”   First, find businesses that are similar in industry and/or size, by mining data from your membership database.  Then check the objections from this business when you first tried to sell them a membership.   Run referral and benefit reports from your member management software and get testimonials from these similar businesses to use in your conversation.  You can create mini “objection kits” for most objections to help you go back to those businesses that told you “no,” and demonstrate why they now should say “yes.”

For example, you might say “When we talked last time, you said that you didn’t have time.  I want to show you how some other businesses like yours are seeing value from our chamber even though they don’t attend events or participate on committees.”    

The effects of such a conversation can be very powerful.  Foremost, it shows that you listened.  And, it shows that your chamber cares about the businesses in your community and you are interested in forming relationships with your members, not just collecting dues.  And listening and strengthening relationships go a long way toward improving member retention and generating additional new member sales.

WebLink will be exhibiting at the Western Association of Chamber Executives (W.A.C.E.) Conference in Las Vegas, February 4-6.  If you’re attending this conference, please stop by the booth to say hello.   We’ll have at least 4 staff members there:  me, Tao Stadler, Mike Bryan and Jeff Cashman.

We’d like to hear about the challenges your chamber of commerce is facing during these uncertain economic times and how you are working to strengthen your local business community.   WebLink works with more than 400 chambers of commerce and business associations across the U.S. – a number of our clients are doing great work right now and even increasing membership. 

We’d love to learn how we could help you use your membership management system to gain greater member intelligence and help you market and manage your chamber of commerce more effectively.   Plus, we’d like to discuss using your website to generate significant non-dues revenue and provide additional exposure for your members.  

If you're already a WebLink client, please stop by and let us know what we can do to help you succeed in 2009 and beyond.  We value your business and want to grow with you.

I’ll be glad to discuss your social media ideas and goals for 2009, too, including blogging, Twitter, social networking sites, social bookmarking, and photo and video sharing.  There are a number of chambers of commerce doing great work with social media – I’d love to “talk shop" with you for awhile and learn from you, too.

And….(saved the best for last), we’ll be giving away three Flip Mino video cameras.  I’ve mentioned these cameras before as a great way to create videos and share them with your members and community.  We hope to see you in Las Vegas!

You might have heard about the recent password hacks or phishing scams for Twitter users.  Several news and celebrity accounts were taken over by hackers including Barack Obama, Britney Spears and FoxNews. 

Turns out that one of the hackers ran a simple password guesser on Twitter’s administrative control panel and gained access to one of Twitter’s support staff’s accounts.  He then could access any other Twitter account and post using that person’s account. What was the Twitter staffer’s password? “Happiness.”   Read the full account here. 

How strong is YOUR password?   Check it out here.  And here’s a post showing you how one hacker would crack your password and how long it would take him to do it.  (Note this post is a couple years old….it would probably take less time today)

Please make your passwords stronger and protect your online and other property.   For many organizations your data is your only truly proprietary set of information.  Protect your password to your database and your email and any other company passwords.  Same things for your personal accounts, too.

How can you make your passwords stronger? Do at least one, if not all of the following:

• 8-15 characters long
• Uses both lower and upper case
• Uses at least one number
• Uses at least one special character

Examples of stronger passwords include:

• t3wahSetyeT4
• 4pRte!ai@3
• #3kLfN2x

One way to remember these fairly complicated passwords is to create a mnemonic phrase. For example “Iw21wIfvP,” a difficult to remember string, derives from “I was 21 when I first visited Paris.”   Or, "mHs2m$oM" derives from “My husband spends too (2) much money on me.”  (I’m waiting for comments on that one!)

Please do not use:  “admin,” “password,” your pet’s name, birthday, wedding day or any common English word that could easily be guessed by and automatic password guesser, such as the one used against Twitter.

Whatever you do, don’t write them down.   Don’t share them with anyone.  And change them often.   Our entire lives are beginning to need passwords; online banking, email, membership management database, social networking accounts, alumni networks, etc.   If someone truly wants to get your info, they probably will, but let’s at least keep out the casual hackers by making it harder for them to hack your passwords.
 

We know that email is an affordable way of delivering personal, timely and relevant information to your members.  And, some email services go even further and help you measure open rates, click-throughs and forwards.  But, are you taking all the precautions you need to ensure you can continue to deliver messages to your members via email?

First, are your members’ email addresses exposed on your website? Can a site visitor copy your members’ addresses and send them spam?  What happens when they get so much spam and other email at that address that your messages can’t get through the clutter?  You can still provide exposure for your members in your directory and allow site visitors to contact them, but why not use a form or other method that hides the email address from the site visitor?  This allows potential customers to contact them, but keeps their address safe.

Second, are you getting your members’ permission to send them email on various topics?  If you are sending them information that they don’t want, will they be reading when you send them the messages they do want?  Will you be able to effectively engage them using email?

Consider this:  What if you needed to communicate all the things you send via email by some other form of communication?   Could you print and mail letters to your members each week or each month to replace your email newsletter?   Could you drive to each member’s business and talk with them once a month?  

Email has become the main relationship management tool for many chambers of commerce and membership organizations – for all kinds of businesses, actually.  So, get email addresses from your members so you can provide them with relevant information that they want to receive.  But, protect your member’s email addresses and send them only the information that they want. 

If your members stop reading because they are getting too much spam or because you send them irrelevant information, how likely are they going to be to renew their membership?  How will you be able to manage your relationship and demonstrate the value your organization is providing without using email?   Yes, there are other social media available, but to provide truly personal communications, email is still king. 

What would it cost you to maintain the relationships with your members in the manner than using email allows?   Could you even get 10% of the effectiveness of email using other methods?   How much is each member’s email address worth to you?  $500 a year?  $1,000?  More?

“What,” you say? “We’re already understaffed and we can’t add any more programs that compete for our members’ attention!”   Hold on a second and read. ;)

In his book, Purple Cow, Seth Godin discusses transforming your business by being remarkable. One of his questions was, “If you had to create a product or service to compete with yours, how would you do it?”

We know that chambers of commerce are facing competition from industry associations, networking groups, online communities and sometimes other chambers of commerce. And, the Gen X and Gen Y business owners are less likely to “join” an organization like a chamber.  Plus, the current economic climate is forcing businesses to justify every dollar spent.  So, if you were going to create a new chamber of commerce (or other organization) to compete with yours, what would you do? 

Would you:

• Offer very low membership dues and a clearly defined list of benefits?
• Create high-end memberships and promote the “spend more –get more” idea of being connected at the highest level?
• Offer a la cart membership options so businesses could customize their membership to their needs?
• Offer “free” memberships but charge reasonable fees for all services?
• Deliver regular, personal communications to each member demonstrating their return on investment to help increase member retention?
• Find more ways to connect member businesses to new clients, local or otherwise?
• Deliver such outstanding service that your existing members consistently generated new member sales for you via word of mouth?
• Reach out to your audience, find out what’s important to them and engage them in more personal conversations?
• Help your small business members succeed by offering educational programs in-person and on-demand, so they can view them on their schedule?

How would you use technology to accomplish your goals?   Would you:

• Use customer relationship management tools that give you the operational, collaborative and analytical tools you need to log, monitor and report on all member and prospect activity?
• Utilize member intelligence to help you make better decisions for managing and marketing your organization?
• Employ social media as a low cost way to extend your reach and develop a loyal base of connected members?
• Share information with others to become as transparent as possible in hopes of developing long-lasting relationship and foster trust?

Now that you’ve thought about what someone might do to take your members, go create those programs and services, get the technology needed to do so and retain more members!   Of course, this means that some long-established programs may cease to exist, but consider this:  If you were starting a new chamber to compete with yours, would it make good business sense to create the programs in question?

The exercise here is not to actually compete with yourself, but rather to think like your competition.  By thinking of how you might compete with yourself, then developing new products, services and culture around these ideas, you’ll be a more flexible and responsive organization.  And that is something that can improve your members’ satisfaction - and ultimately, your bottom line.

As a follow up to my post about how chambers can use Twitter, I’ve got some more examples for you. 

• Have multiple staff at your chamber also on Twitter.  Since you all have different roles at the chamber and you have relationships with different members, you can each post about slightly different things.  More voices from the chamber help you connect to more people via more conversations.  Most of the chambers mentioned in my previous post have 2, 3 or even 5 other staff members also using Twitter.
• If your chamber has a group on Facebook or LinkedIn, use your tweets to cross-promote that group and the questions being asked/answered.
• Promote other members and staff who are Twitter users.  In your tweets, type “@username” to distinguish that person as a Twitter use so that other people can follow them, too. Mention that they attended a certain event or participate on a committee.  Include some text about why someone should follow them or include a link to their blog, etc.   (This is a big part of the social nature of Twitter – sharing great resources and helping to connect other people)
• Link to your city council’s meeting agenda and ask for input from your followers on what issues are important to them.
• Occasional teasers about a big announcement coming soon. Be sure to give a date the announcement will come out – and then hit that date! 

If your chamber is using Twitter in others way, reply to me on Twitter @curtmoss or @weblink. I’ll include your info in future posts.

Several months ago, I was asked if I knew of any chambers of commerce or membership organizations that were using technology to create value.  Short of a few conveniences like members being able to update their own information, view referrals or pay their bills online, I couldn’t come up with too many ways to create value.

I do think technology can be used to better manage and communicate value, especially when it's specific to each member. You can effectively track which/how many members are using a certain benefit, assign/track a value associated with that benefit and communicate the value via email or other personalized communications.

By using technology to manage and communicate value, you can increase your member intelligence and then make better decisions for your member retention and recruiting efforts.  You can demonstrate your value more effectively and increase member satisfaction, too.  But, I was still stuck on the creating value idea.

Recently though, I started considering this idea again. Social media has changed the way many chambers of commerce are communicating with their members.  Could social media and social networking create new value that would help a member justify paying dues and renew their membership?  How could you use technology to create an exclusive benefit that only members would get, thereby creating a “need” for other business to join your organization?  

I could see that by creating exclusive content online or a well-used community that you could then be adding value to a membership. Are there specific ways that your chamber is doing this?  Some organizations have online communities where members can connect and share ideas, but is that by itself creating the value or merely providing another vehicle for members to conduct business?  Would they be able to get something similar if that community didn’t exist? 

How are you creating new value for your members by using technology?  Please post comments below or send me email at curt.moss AT weblinkinternational.com.