New Member Sales

By Tao Stadler, Senior Membership Management Executive

In a meeting a few months ago, my CEO, Terry Dwyer, made a point about progress that strongly resonated with me and has been in my mind ever since.

In discussing a feature that we all agreed would be a dramatic improvement for our association clients, a litany of reasons why it would be hard or even impossible to accomplish came rushing forward, as though months of research had already been done and the answer was set in stone.

After a few...

By Bryan Long, Relationship Manager

Is your chamber of commerce or business association website doing all it can to promote your members? Could you be improving member retention, generating more leads for members, producing more revenue, or even increasing event attendance with a more powerful website and online membership directory?

The single biggest reason businesses join your organization is to gain more business.  Through networking, professional learning opportunities and the exposure gained...

WebLink recently launched a brand new iPad app designed for associations and chambers of commerce using the WebLink Connect membership management system to conduct mobile commerce by accepting credit card payments for new memberships, current member invoices and event registrations when away from your office. The WebLink iPad app has only been out a few days, but the feedback has been amazing!

By streamlining the interface and workflow, we've created a intuitive tool for sales teams, events staff...

By Chad Bouslog, Membership Management Specialist

About 45 days ago, I was just like a lot of you reading this blog today. In fact, today, I’m probably similar to a lot of you as well, being human and all. But 45 days ago, I was introduced to WebLink International.  I wasn’t actively seeking new employment opportunities, so I probably wouldn’t have considered myself as a “hot lead” for the sales world.

Just the same, not every association or Chamber of Commerce that comes into contact with WebLink...

What is the one thing your Chamber of Commerce website can't do? Lose a prospective member of course!

If your website is the 24/7/365 salesperson it's supposed to be, you need to make sure there is no chance a prospect is going to walk away because they can't find your join button. This button will lead your site visitor to your defined target page to be a member. The resulting page can also serve as a sales pitch to why they should become a member and what the ROI is for membership.  Here is an...

By now, you're probably sick and tired of PSY's Gangnam Style video. But after watching this video become the first in history to hit 1 billion views in December 2012, it's hard not to take notice of the explosion of online video. While your Chamber probably won't aspire to go viral on this scale, online video can have a tremendous impact on new member sales, member retention, and member engagement in your Chamber.

A recent infographic from SundaySky and research from comScore showcase the video...

Recently, my son was helping me with his homework (yes, you read that correctly!) and it made me think about ways that business associations and chambers of commerce can solve problems with their data.

His 5th grade class is learning pre-algebra using tokens and dice to represent the Xs and the Ys to help them "break down" the equations into manageable chunks and ultimately lead to the solution.  Being in my mid 40s, it took me a while to grasp the concepts, but once I did, it made understanding...

By Matthew Bugnacki, Membership Management Specialist

Recently, while I was walking with my ten year old son around our neighborhood, we discovered a tree house that seemed to be falling out of its respective tree. The tree house was not uncared for. In fact, some of the boards seemed new while some seemed a bit worn with age. My son easily identified that there was a substantial problem with the tree house as it looked warped and about ready to collapse. This led to some very...

By Joe Scaggs, National Sales Manager for WebLink Digital Media

Recently, The Schapiro Group, an Atlanta-based strategic consulting firm, released a national survey of 2,000 adults that indicated significant benefits for businesses active in their local Chamber of Commerce. The full results of the survey can be viewed on the ACCE website, but I’ll try to be helpful and cover a few of the highlights for small businesses.   

When a small business is active in a Chamber of Commerce:

• Consumers are 49%...

At WebLink, we've long said that Chambers of Commerce were the original social networking platform and involvement in the business social scene is crucial for your organization.  As the pinnacle of your local business community, your Chamber should always look for additional ways to engage your audience and measure your results. This list features super helpful social tools that make the most efficient use of your time communicating and engaging the businesses in your community.

While engaging...

Business associations and chambers of commerce spend precious time and money recruiting new members and trying to retain existing members.

But some members are naturally more inclined to renew based on how they feel about your association BEFORE they join.  You'll create greater chances for success at renewing these members if you can identify them before they join so you can:

1. Capture details needed to demonstrate value in your membership management database
2. Try to "convert" them to a type of...

It's that time again where we all reflect on our successes and failures of the previous year and create a list of things we promise we're going to do differently in the next year.

I'm feeling great about 2013 and excited about what the new year will bring at WebLink. My optimism remains despite the fact that I just Googled 'New Years Resolutions Success Rate' and found that according to a 2007 study by Richard Wisemen from the University of Bristol, 88% of resolutions fail.

On the brighter side,...

By Joseph Loria, Vice President, Advisory Services

In the financial world, investments are expected to return profit and pay dividends. Do you feel the same about your member management software?  Likely not.  More disturbing, research from Forrester Group  shows that only about 33% of customer relationship management (CRM) system implementations are deemed a success. So, why do so many fail? Surprisingly, only a third of the failures are due to the technology itself. The majority is related to...

By Tao Stadler, Membership Management Specialist

Isn’t it interesting when a well-worn cliché proves itself to be true yet again?

Yes, grandpa, I know a penny saved is a penny earned. Many times you are damned if you do; damned if you don’t. But would you dare say a member in hand is worth 1.5 in the bush?

A recent sample we took with some of our more established association clients illustrates this nicely.

I recently gathered the VPs of Membership at a handful of associations. We came up with a...

Increasing website traffic to your association’s website can mean more member sales, improved member retention, and increased non-dues revenue for your association. With the right visitors to your website, you'll achieve your goals and have happier members. Though there are dozens of methods that promise to help you to increase website traffic, we recently did an analysis of our client websites and found the following 8 best practices.

In fact, we found that on average, our clients experienced a 6...

Each year, the WebLink Summit brings together business association and chamber of commerce executives from around the country to discuss ways they can use technology to improve their organizations.

This year's WebLink Summit will be May 30-June 1 at the brand-new JW Marriott in Indianapolis. The WebLink Summit is far more than a software user’s meeting – it’s a unique marketing, technology and social media conference designed to help associations and chambers of commerce use technology to market...

If you're like most business associations and chambers of commerce, you're using a Facebook page to broaden your communications and engage your audience where they already are - on social media.

The average user in the U.S. spends about 8 hours/month on Facebook. As Facebook continues to become THE place where people learn about news and find information about companies, it is reasonable to think that your audience may someday visit your Facebook page to learn more about your association - maybe...

Your association database is the single most important asset your organization owns.

Many associations and chambers of commerce don't hold patents, produce products or create proprietary information, such as extensive research projects or detailed industry reports.  However, the collection of data in your membership database IS a propriety asset.

This data is unique and extremely valuable to your organization.

Your membership database software should contain everything you need to manage your...

The old display funnel of advertising.  Isn’t it great? 

It’s simple. It’s effective. 

And yet, still, sometimes members advertising on chamber of commerce and association websites have trouble getting their ad to result in action. Some members continue to advertise the same way, year after year, throwing images on backgrounds and phone numbers over pictures, instead of thinking about how the ad will move prospective customers through the funnel.

Display advertising brings conversions of people who...

Well, it's week 3, discussing Competition in the book, Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day.

There is only one website that can rank #1 for each keyword search, making SEO a constant tug of war. So, what can associations be doing about their competitors?

Find out who is competing with your association website and what you can do to rank higher. As I recently heard in a meeting about SEO - You don't have to be able to run as fast as the bear chasing you, just faster than your friend. Beat out...