Sourced directly from: http://maggiemcgary.com/blog/2014/6/three-reasons-why-content-marketing-doesnt-work-for-associations

On Tuesday, Ray van Hilst and I presented at ASAE’s Marketing, Membership and Communications Conference--it was fun (as far as public speaking gigs go) and great to see so many association friends. If you want to see our five quick tips for improving your website in five minutes, you’re in luck--here’s the link to our presentation.

I didn’t see Joe Pulizzi speak about content marketing, but Associations Now wrote about his presentation, and that he pointed out that associations are, for the most part, doing it wrong when it comes to content marketing. He said that according to a recent study by the Content Marketing Institute, only 26% of nonprofit organizations surveyed think they’re using content marketing effectively. I’m surprised it was that high, to be honest, as I don’t think that most nonprofits think of content as marketing, period, let alone consider themselves to be content marketers at all.

It may seem like an easy fix to someone who hasn’t worked in the association world--just create a mission statement for your content, create a content marketing strategy, then create an opt-in subscriber strategy. Done. Let me get right on that, said every association staffer ever. I mean, never, because this strategy would probably never work for actual associations.

Here are three reasons why content marketing in the for-profit world is different than content marketing in the association world, and why what works for them won’t work for most associations:

Silos. In the for-profit world, content is marketing. In the association world, there’s marketing then there’s content--web content, publications--and the two are almost guaranteed to be totally separate. The marketing department works on marketing things--membership, conferences, products. The communications or publication departments work on writing and publishing the association's magazine and/or journals and/or website, developing and writing the content that is one of the most tangible benefits of membership. Their audience is existing members. Marketing may sell ads that run in these publications or on the website, but that’s about as much crossover as there probably ever is between departments, and even those relationships aren’t that great. Marketing wants more--more space for ads, more opportunities to market--and pubs wants to write and produce quality content that is geared towards existing members and is not salesy. So telling associations to just set a content marketing strategy….in the world of silos that is the reality of most association’s inner workings and getting publications and marketing to work together towards one common goal is a lot easier said than done.

Technology. Associations are a different business than for-profits, and a lot of things that for-profits have to work for, associations can take for granted. Like subscribers. For the most part, if you belong to an association, you’re opting in to receive content from them--publications, email newsletters, etc. That’s what members are paying for, after all. That’s where associations have the advantage over for-profits. Where they’re at a disadvantage is, for the most part, money and technology. In the for-profit world, there’s marketing automation technology and CRM….and the money to both purchase technology platforms/services and to either hire people who know how to use them or outsource that part. In the association world, marketing strategies that go much beyond communicating with current members, house ads in your own publications and then maybe posting that content to social media sites and exhibiting at your own conference are, at least in my experience, pretty rare. IT departments are comfortable with Microsoft and whatever AMS the association is using; implementing Salesforce or Hubspot is not something they’re known to take on very willingly, even if there is budget for it, which, for 99% of associations, there probably is not.

Staff skillsets. In the for-profit world, marketing directors are, at least from my maybe overly-optimistic POV, expected to stay current in terms of skills. Marketing automation, SEO, content marketing, social media marketing….all these are areas they probably have at least a decent understanding of, as well as a staff who are proficient in each of these areas as well as what’s on the horizon in terms of marketing. Association marketing directors--and no disrespect intended, and I certainly don’t know everything, but in my 20 years working in the association world, I have seen a lot and know a few things--but, to generalize, they tend to be more traditional marketers who learned marketing a while ago, got into their current position five or 10 or 20 years ago and have pretty much been rinse-and-repeating the same email and print marketing strategies each year since. And to be fair, it’s hard to be a marketer in an association--a world where selling is verboten and you’re there for the lofty purpose of helping people and serving members. But for the most part, associations don’t have huge marketing budgets or staffs….or any marketing budgets or staffs, and the more senior marketing staffers tend to have traditional skillsets. And even those who want to push the envelope and do cool new stuff--like content marketing and/or social media marketing--well, suffice it to say, that’s why there are a lot of smart consultants who used to be associations staffers, and a lot of patient-and-trying-but-not-really-getting-anywhere association staffers. Writing for the web, cross-channel content promotion, building opt-in subscriber lists, tracking analytics....these are mostly not skillsets that the majority of association marketers possess.

So anyway….it’s easy for someone outside the association world to paint a rosy picture of how easy it is to implement a content marketing strategy inside an association; it’s another thing to actually understand that, while there’s certainly a place for content marketing in the association world, there are unique challenges to work around and simply plugging in for-profit advice most likely won’t work.

Sourced from the ATO Website: https://www.ato.gov.au/Non-profit/Expenses-and-purchases/In-detail/Claiming/Guide-to-company-tax-return-for-non-profit-organisations-2014/

This guide has been prepared for non-profit clubs, societies and associations that are not exempt from income tax.

It helps these organisations complete the Company tax return 2014.

In this guide we discuss some common errors made by non-profit organisations when completing the return and the consequences of these errors. We also provide guidance on how to complete related labels on the tax return correctly.

To foster relationships with our members beyond the face to face networking opportunities, I am pleased to announce AuSAE will soon be launching our very own private online community thanks to partner ConferNet and software provider Socious.

This new community will enable AuSAE members to communicate 24/7 and discuss current workplace challenges and innovations with like-minded groups regardless of their location of residence.

The AuSAE team are very excited to provide increased tangible value for our members via this new community and see not-for-profit leaders actively participating in discussions, networking with their peers and sharing information and knowledge via this new network. Special interest groups within the site will include: Advocacy, Governance, Membership, HR, Leadership and many more.

Testing of the site has begun with an estimated “go live” in early July. For more information on this new member resource please contact me directly at toni@ausae.org.au

To see some examples of successful online communities in action click here. 

The Australasian Society of Association Executives (AuSAE) is pleased to announce the appointment of Brett Jeffery as General Manager New Zealand commencing on July 1 2014.

Brett Jeffery is a long term AuSAE member and has served on the AuSAE board for the past five years. Brett has had over twenty years’ experience working alongside association and other non-profits in his numerous New Zealand tourism and hospitality roles, including most recently Sales and Marketing Manager at Rotorua Events and Venues.

“Brett is passionate about ensuring not-for-profit leaders receive opportunities to network, and further their careers and I am sure he will achieve great things at AuSAE” said Tony Steven, President of AuSAE.

This appointment reaffirms AuSAE’s commitment to strengthening the New Zealand and Australian Not-for-profit sector by providing localised networking and professional development opportunities for all not-for-profit leaders.

“I am positive this growth of the AuSAE team and Brett’s depth of experience in the New Zealand not-for-profit sector will lead to an increased number of engagement opportunities for our members” said Mr Steven.

The Australasian Society of Association Executives (AuSAE) is the peak professional society working for its members throughout Australia and New Zealand and representing over 10,000 individual leaders that work in not-for-profit organisations. AuSAE’s core purpose is to equip these dedicated and passionate leaders with the tools, information and networks they need to better achieve the vision of their organisation. For more information on this appointment or AuSAE services, please contact me on the details below.

Warm regards,

Toni Brearley
Acting Chief Executive Officer
Australasian Society of Association Executives

P + 61 1300 764 576 F +61 (0) 7 3319 6385
A Suite 2.01, 433 Logan Road, Stones Corner QLD 4120 Australia
P PO Box 1400, Coorparoo DC QLD 4151 Australia
E toni@ausae.org.au W www.ausae.org.au
T https://twitter.com/ausaenews F https://www.facebook.com/AuSAE

As reported in the latest CICA e-Bulletin, at the May Board Meeting the CICA Board approved a proposal to establish a new ‘Workplace Relations & Safety Program’ for CICA members from 1 July 2014.

Key benefits:

• Help Desk Hotline assistance on all Workplace Relations and Safety queries
  
• No fees for CICA members to access the Help Desk, by phone or email
  
• CICA Member only benefit
  
• Australia-wide service and support
  
• 24/7 incident response service
  
• For complex queries, an additional / optional legal service is available at special discount rates
  

Key features of the help Desk Hotline service:

Delivered by national commercial law firm Holding Redlich for CICA

Free access on issues such as:

• Pay and conditions
  
• Leave entitlements
  
• Award compliance
  
• Fair Work Australia compliance
  
• Pay disputes
  
• Investigations
  
• Claims
  
• Misconduct and performance management
  
• Safety
  
• Employment contracts
  
• Policies and procedures
  
• Directorships and shareholding
  
• Privacy
  

Refer the CICA website for all details of the CICAASSIST program.

From 1 July, contact CICAASSIST. Simply phone 1800 475 299 (1800 HR Lawyer) or email cica-assist@holdingredlich.com

Article by Lynne Newbury 

Making the switch to a new online membership software is not only expensive but time consuming for many associations. Productivity can be slowed down when the transition is taking place, but it’s not all bad news. There are several key approaches that can help make the transition a smooth and stress-free one for all staff involved and eventually members when the new system is live… Read more.

Around the board tables of many not for profits, more consideration is being given to the merit of mergers. AuSAE are running some executive briefings focused around mergers and acquisitions. Financial difficulties, executive turnover, membership demands and industry consolidation often point to the need for associations to join forces. Attendees to the briefings uncover:

• What the practical matters to consider in a merger,
  
• If it legally possible to merge,
  
• If the reasons you are considering a merger the right reasons,
  
• How to make it all the way down the aisle, and
  
• How to make it a happy marriage.
  

If you missed attending these meetings, please find below two helpful resources:

1. A comprehensive check-list for mergers including the concept phase, exploration, due diligence examination and a preliminary integration plan
   
2. A list of documents to exchange during due diligence (corporate, financial, fundraising, personnel & contracts)
   

Australia Medic Alert Foundation is pleased to announce that Ms Margaret Gehrig has beenappointed as Chair of its National Board.

Ms Gehrig brings extensive experience across the health care industry, having initially trained as a nurse and worked in chief executive roles within hospitals, medicine-based medical publishing, a not-for-profit health research organisation and a commercial health software company.

“I would like to acknowledge outgoing Chairman, Dr Peter Heysen, for his many years of dedication and commitment to the organisation. Dr Heysen has skilfully led the Board and management to ensure that the Foundation has a strong membership and fiscal base and I look forward to continuing his work as Chairman, supporting both the Foundation and its members in my new role,” Ms Gehrig said.

“Having served as a director since 1990, Dr Heysen has been a long-serving member of the Board, and in his capacity as Chairman for the last four and a half years, the organisation has introduced a range of new products, programs and initiatives, including the use of social media to better engage with the community,” she said.

Ms Gehrig offers extensive corporate governance experience from having served on a number of Boards and sub-committees, including Child and Youth Health, and is currently also a Board member of the Medical Software Industry Association (MSIA).

She has previously held Chief Executive roles at both Hartley and Wakefield Hospitals, before spending three years as Principal Consultant at NewHealth Management Services. In recent years she has also been Chief Executive with Patient Safety International and the Australian Patient Safety Foundation, as well as National Business Manager at MIMS Australia.

In addition, Ms Gehrig is a past Vice President of the Rotary Club of Adelaide, and is currently a volunteer through TAFE SA’s Home Tutor Scheme, teaching migrants and refugees how to speak, read, write and listen in English.

Ms Gehrig is currently Managing Director of MGa (Margaret Gehrig and Associates).

About Australia MedicAlert Foundation

For over 40 years, Australia Medic Alert Foundation has been the Nation’s only not-for-profit organisation providing a 24/7 personal medical emergency information and identification service with close to 300,000 members joining since 1971.

MedicAlert members wear a bracelet or necklace with a genuine MedicAlert emblem custom engraved with their vital medical information, membership number and hotline number.

The 24/7 hotline allows emergency service personnel and healthcare professionals to access important additional medical and other details quickly and efficiently in a time of need.

Blog post by Mark Athitakis, sourced from here. 

In the wake of a massive data breach, Target is moving its corporate and technology leadership closer together. It’s a model more associations should consider following.

Target is trying to get everybody on the same page. It starts with getting everybody on the same floor.

Late last year a massive data breach at the retailer compromised millions of customer credit cards. Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel delivered profuse apologies, not to mention free credit checks to concerned customers, but last month he delivered what was an inevitable resignation. (Though it received less publicity, its CIO resigned as well.)

Since then, Target has been retooling: Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that the company has been working to remove layers of bureaucracy from its operations, as well as creating an environment of improved communication among its executives. The company’s chief information officer and chief marketing officer, the Journal reported, will move to the same space where its interim CEO and executive vice president have offices. “The floor will be getting a more open plan than its current layout of office and hallways, aimed at fostering greater collaboration,” the report says.

Whether you think the move legitimately chips away at the walls that block innovation and good management or is largely just for show, the reshuffling makes an important statement: The connections between CEOs and an organization’s technology leadership need to be stronger than ever.

That’s a point that became clear to me as I was writing a feature for the latest Associations Now on data security at associations. Data security is a primarily technology issue, of course, but what I was told repeatedly during my reporting is that it’s also a leadership issue. A well-managed staff is essential when it comes to protecting your information, because the source of the problem is often within your office walls.

That means knowing who has access to what information, and how well-protected it is, is a task that’s increasingly on the CEO’s task list. Devin Jopp, CEO of the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange, told me that “one of my number-one concerns is the integrity of my data, whether that’s conference attendees, whether that’s member dataundefinedensuring that all the safeguards are in place.” I like Jopp’s comment partly for its implication that a CEO has a lot of competing top concerns. But the quote also stresses that technology needs to be one of them.

This is a relatively new notion for associations, which often shunted technology duties into a separate department and, until fairly recently, didn’t think strategically about technology’s role in its marketing and communications. Fewer than half of IT chiefs at associations report directly to the CEO, according to ASAE research in 2011; more often, they report to the CFO or COO.

Last fall, John Mancini, CEO of the Association for Information and Image Management, stressed that structure needed to change. “CEOs personally need to be more invested in the technology decisions that their organizations are making,” he told me. Knowing what’s possible in terms of creating value for members is one reason for that. Knowing where the potential for breaches are is another.

Jopp emphasizes the need for a posture of constant vigilance when it comes to data, continuously monitoring who has access to what kind of information, even at a small organization like his with six staffers. “It gets back to roles and controlling who has the ability to control data,” he says. “You have to be very restrictive.”

Target has been forced to get more serious about the role technology plays in its operations; beyond the office shuffling, it’s also hired its first chief information security officer. Whether the moves themselves will improve the company’s fortunes is an open question. But more fully integrating technology into the leadership of an organization is clearly a smart step.

How much day-to-day responsibility do you think a CEO should have when it comes to technology and data issues?

Article sourced from: http://www.hcamag.com/hr-news/employer-branding-only-17-of-organisations-have-a-clear-strategy-188810.aspx

by Janie Smith | 16 Jun 2014

How much time and effort does your organisation invest in its employer brand?

According to international research by Employer Brand International, 65% of companies are planning to increase or maintain their investment in employer branding initiatives in the coming year.

The study also found that the movement by companies to shift recruitment spending into social media during the past three years has continued, with 76% of organisations using social media as the main way to communicate their employer brand and engage with potential candidates.

But while 87% of companies believe that a clearly-defined strategy is the key to achieving employer branding objectives, only 17% actually have such a strategy in place.

Career development was the most important attribute for a company to promote when attracting talent, according to 87% of study respondents, followed by leadership on 86% and work environment with 83%.

Engineering and technical services company Aurecon won Best Employer Branding at last year’s Australian HR Awards and employer brand manager Shannon Gillespie told HC that people are the foundation of organisations, regardless of sector.

“Employer branding strengthens an organisation’s ability to attract and retain top talent, so you can better build and maintain a workforce with the right people, the right skills and the right cultural fit. For professional services firms in particular, like Aurecon, the ability to build a workforce of engaged top talent is vital, as the expertise of our people is essentially the product we sell to our clients.”

Aurecon was formed in 2009 through a merger of three engineering firms in South Africa and Australia.

According to the company’s HR Awards submission, the creation of the global company meant the brand journey needed to start from scratch.

The company began by establishing an employee value proposition which reflected its overarching brand proposition and was aimed at three audiences – experienced professionals, executives and graduates/students.

It then reviewed all of its employer brand communication touch points to look at when and where the employer brand reached its target audiences.

Aurecon came up with a range of tactics to launch its EVP globally, including using a range of media platforms and industry events.

Gillespie said an employer brand needed to have the “right balance of aspiration and reality”.

“It should inspire and motivate people, but also be a true reflection of what it is like to be part of that organisation. All stages of the employee lifecycle - from awareness through to recruitment and on to the employee experience - should support the employee value proposition, or you will find a gap between the brand promise and the reality of employment, which leads to disengagement and increased attrition.

“It’s also important that the whole organisation owns the employer brand. An employer brand is not purely established through marketing channels, but more so through every interaction your staff has with other people, both internal and external. Your employees can be your strongest employer brand ambassadors.”