Lehman Article



Welcome About Lehman Associates Services Presentations and Articles Our Customers Home Call Us Today 1-888-221-0081 Or Send an Email Tlehman@ansible.com		You are who you are online © Tom Lehman, 2005 Associations today have more interactions with more members through their Internet presence than all other channels combined. Many associations consider their annual meeting a major success if it is attended by 15% of the membership, and touch perhaps another 5-10% of members at least once a year through another interactive activity such as other meetings, training seminars, and telephone inquiries. Most have only passive, one-way interactions with the other 75-80%, primarily through printed newsletters and magazines, marketing promotions, and, more recently, broadcast email. Enter the association's website. The figures are varied, but many associations report that at least 50% of their members make use of their website, and most of those use it multiples times a year. Many members come to association websites several times a week or month. The result is literally tens of thousands of interactive sessions with individual members, translating to thousands of positive (or negative) experiences, clear communication of desired brand attributes and positioning (or confusing or contradictory messages), contributing to sense of membership value (or detracting from it), and generally meeting (or falling short) of member expectations. For many members, such as the 80% figure suggested earlier, the online experience with your association is the only interactive experience they will have with the organization. And it is likely to be repeated many times over the course of the year. To a very real degree, this means that who you are online becomes who you are in the minds of the majority of your members and member prospects. That raises the bar significantly for your Internet presence including branding, positioning, key messages and the user experience. Websites have evolved greatly over the short life of the Internet. Most associations started with a "brochure site", an assembly of static information pages that told the association story. The "about us" aspect of these early websites was about it. As the medium developed, websites became a way for members to retrieve information from the association, based primarily on the reproduction online of printed newsletters and magazines. These websites quickly grew to include more association information and even some new content created specifically for the website. Still asset-based, the structure of these websites reflected the structure of the association itself. Most association websites retain this structure today with sections for meetings, publications, membership, education, and so forth. This is not sufficient for a website that is your primary window for communication and engagement with members. Branding and positioning are how your members (and prospective members) perceive the association, the role it plays in their professional or personal lives, and the value of membership. Conveying brand and positioning is not something your association can choose to do or not do through the website. The presentation of the site and the user experience of the site will convey powerful impressions to the user about the organization. The only question is whether the association will take an active role to ensure those impressions are the ones the association would like to communicate. Many do not. (A future article will focus more specifically on brand image and positioning, a whole topic in itself.) In today's world of extreme information availability and overload, the experience of using your website will count as much as, or more than, the specific assets available through your website. Does it help members solve problems? Does it help them address critical issues? Is it geared around their needs and interests? How the site works communicates an impression of how the association works. Does it have a single and rigid navigation structure, or are there multiple ways to use the website? Is it a one-size fits all, or does it respond more to an individual member's particular set of needs? Some questions to ask yourself. Take a look at the front page of your website. Imagine seeing it for the first time, and then imagine seeing for the hundredth time. Take in the whole page including the graphic treatment, the presentation of content, the navigation options, and the overall feel of the page. What is the image it projects? How does it fit or not fit with your desired image? How well do you think it creates a positive impression on your target markets and members? How does it compare with sites you consider competitive? Does the website works best for members who already know the resource they want to find? Does it work equally well for members who come to the site knowing only problem or issue, but not what they need to address it? Think of 2-3 common reasons a member might come to your website. How well does it work to help the member address that need? Is the site structured around user needs and interests, or is it primarily a reflection of the association structure? Does the user have to visit multiple sections of the website such as publications, meetings, legislative affairs, and education to find all of the resources available on a particular topic? Are discrete products "unbundled" on the site to target information to a particularly need, or do they have to look through a full issue of the magazine, for example, in order to find and read a particular article of interest? Do you have a strategic plan for the website that includes among other things, desired user scenarios, i.e., the type and frequency of use that you would like to stimulate? Have you articulated clear strategic goals for the website that tie directly to the association's strategic plan and goals? Associations dedicate time and resources to make sure that the interactions they have with members at the annual meeting convey a clear message of the value of membership, a member-centric orientation, and the quality of the organization.. It is critical that associations spend a commensurate level of resources on the experience and image they provide through their website. After all, through the website, you have thousands of interactions with a large numbers of members, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Tom Lehman is president of Lehman Associates, LLC, a management consulting firm that partners with association executives to improve organizational performance through insight, strategy, and the application of information technology.

Call Us Today

1-888-221-0081

Or Send an Email

You are who you are online

Associations today have more interactions with more members through their Internet presence than all other channels combined. Many associations consider their annual meeting a major success if it is attended by 15% of the membership, and touch perhaps another 5-10% of members at least once a year through another interactive activity such as other meetings, training seminars, and telephone inquiries. Most have only passive, one-way interactions with the other 75-80%, primarily through printed newsletters and magazines, marketing promotions, and, more recently, broadcast email.

Enter the association's website. The figures are varied, but many associations report that at least 50% of their members make use of their website, and most of those use it multiples times a year. Many members come to association websites several times a week or month. The result is literally tens of thousands of interactive sessions with individual members, translating to thousands of positive (or negative) experiences, clear communication of desired brand attributes and positioning (or confusing or contradictory messages), contributing to sense of membership value (or detracting from it), and generally meeting (or falling short) of member expectations.

For many members, such as the 80% figure suggested earlier, the online experience with your association is the only interactive experience they will have with the organization. And it is likely to be repeated many times over the course of the year.

To a very real degree, this means that who you are online becomes who you are in the minds of the majority of your members and member prospects. That raises the bar significantly for your Internet presence including branding, positioning, key messages and the user experience.

Websites have evolved greatly over the short life of the Internet. Most associations started with a "brochure site", an assembly of static information pages that told the association story. The "about us" aspect of these early websites was about it. As the medium developed, websites became a way for members to retrieve information from the association, based primarily on the reproduction online of printed newsletters and magazines. These websites quickly grew to include more association information and even some new content created specifically for the website. Still asset-based, the structure of these websites reflected the structure of the association itself. Most association websites retain this structure today with sections for meetings, publications, membership, education, and so forth.

This is not sufficient for a website that is your primary window for communication and engagement with members. Branding and positioning are how your members (and prospective members) perceive the association, the role it plays in their professional or personal lives, and the value of membership. Conveying brand and positioning is not something your association can choose to do or not do through the website. The presentation of the site and the user experience of the site will convey powerful impressions to the user about the organization. The only question is whether the association will take an active role to ensure those impressions are the ones the association would like to communicate. Many do not. (A future article will focus more specifically on brand image and positioning, a whole topic in itself.)

In today's world of extreme information availability and overload, the experience of using your website will count as much as, or more than, the specific assets available through your website. Does it help members solve problems? Does it help them address critical issues? Is it geared around their needs and interests? How the site works communicates an impression of how the association works. Does it have a single and rigid navigation structure, or are there multiple ways to use the website? Is it a one-size fits all, or does it respond more to an individual member's particular set of needs?

Some questions to ask yourself.

Take a look at the front page of your website. Imagine seeing it for the first time, and then imagine seeing for the hundredth time. Take in the whole page including the graphic treatment, the presentation of content, the navigation options, and the overall feel of the page. What is the image it projects? How does it fit or not fit with your desired image? How well do you think it creates a positive impression on your target markets and members? How does it compare with sites you consider competitive?
Does the website works best for members who already know the resource they want to find? Does it work equally well for members who come to the site knowing only problem or issue, but not what they need to address it? Think of 2-3 common reasons a member might come to your website. How well does it work to help the member address that need?
Is the site structured around user needs and interests, or is it primarily a reflection of the association structure? Does the user have to visit multiple sections of the website such as publications, meetings, legislative affairs, and education to find all of the resources available on a particular topic? Are discrete products "unbundled" on the site to target information to a particularly need, or do they have to look through a full issue of the magazine, for example, in order to find and read a particular article of interest?
Do you have a strategic plan for the website that includes among other things, desired user scenarios, i.e., the type and frequency of use that you would like to stimulate? Have you articulated clear strategic goals for the website that tie directly to the association's strategic plan and goals?

Associations dedicate time and resources to make sure that the interactions they have with members at the annual meeting convey a clear message of the value of membership, a member-centric orientation, and the quality of the organization.. It is critical that associations spend a commensurate level of resources on the experience and image they provide through their website. After all, through the website, you have thousands of interactions with a large numbers of members, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Tom Lehman is president of Lehman Associates, LLC, a management consulting firm that partners with association executives to improve organizational performance through insight, strategy, and the application of information technology.

Top of the page

Welcome

About Lehman Associates

Services

Presentations and Articles

Our Customers

Home

You are who you are online