Note to Association Marketers—E-mail is Dead

Did you know people in their 20’s think e-mail is “old?"

This line from Stephanie Vance’s article Network Your Way to Advocacy Success—Online! Published in the November/December issue of The Association Forum of Chicagoland’s magazine Forum got me thinking.


Outside of work, 99.9% of the email that I get is spam. Granted, I have a couple of websites and domains so my spam bucket is fills daily with hundreds of unsolicited messages. The personal e-mails that were so much a part of my life have dwindled. New, richer communications channels have taken their place.

The messages that reach me, the conversations that I’m interested in, come largely through channels other than e-mail. These channels include social networks, message boards, blog comments, and listservs that I’ve chosen to subscribe to. This is my trusted communication network. I can grow it or reduce it.

Association marketers should pay attention. Marketing plans based on blast e-mails probably aren’t reaching as many customers as you think. There is still a place for traditional marketing activities, but if your association is still primarily cranking out postcards, flyers, and bulk e-mail – well, you are missing the party. And you are leaving money on the table. Associations are uniquely positioned to develop trusted channels and to leverage those channels for revenue through marketing in context and through community. More later.

Association launches groundbreaking social networking platform for members

I see press releases daily from associations announcing the launch of social networks for their members. This is a good thing. The recent announcement of a social networking platform for members by the Medical Group Managers Association (MGMA) caught my eye.

As reported in Healthcare IT News
MGMA launches social networking platform
Healthcare IT News
By Richard Pizzi, Contributing Editor 10/22/08


SAN DIEGO - The Medical Group Management Association announced the launch of a new social networking community for its members at the group's annual conference this week.

William F. Jessee, MD, president and CEO of the MGMA, said members consistently rank networking with other members as their primary reason for belonging to the organization. Given that interest, the MGMA has looked for ways to enhance and centralize networking technology, he said, and creating the new online community seemed a natural decision.

What struck me was Jessee's reference to member feedback stating the PRIMARY REASON for belonging to the association was networking with other members. My initial response was "Well, Duh!" But let's give them some credit for doing the research to validate this fundamental principle of the value of associations and acting on it. There are still a lot of associations that are locked in the old model of association as the controlling center of the universe. Better to be the eye of the hurricane formed by the coordinated force of the surrounding membership.