Blue Ocean Ideas

With so much information sprawled across different channels, use the opportunity to create valuable tools for your members and community.

Establishing branding schemes for featured conferences and events makes the creation of additional marketing assets much more efficient and effective, like event promotional videos. Consistent branding is how marketing integrates.

Branding offers many invitations. Among them: to bring *familiarity* by the consistent use of symbols (e.g. logos and language). Another is to design those elements to give a semantic context to the thing they represent. Strategy is story. Stories can seep into unexpected places.

Use simple but exciting videos to market upcoming featured events by depicting and naming the content that makes the event most appealing, like: Topics // Outcomes // Speakers // Key Programming Components // New Opportunities.

Marketing any one event or program can be a way to market multiple events & programs. One tactic is to "bundle" related content that speaks to the same audience or focuses on the same skill/practice area. Then, an ad for a package of events also advertises all the included parts.

Making a difference in your profession can include providing scholarships for students entering that profession. And this can also serve current professional and members: Raising money for those scholarships is a great way to provide a practical way to "give back."

As you keep members informed on how your association is changing to better serve members, give awareness to your awareness of how the professional landscape is changing, too.

Usually when we use the term _user interface_ we are talking about digital contexts. Sometimes, printed materials are also an "interface." Similar design approaches (acknowledging all the opportunities & limitations) can create improved results in both digital & physical media.

To drive particular types of engagement and interaction, consider naming exactly the behavior that's desired to help set expectations of what's "normal." Community benefits from example-setting.

There are always ways to discover providing services to members/customers. What is your community relying on *you* for?

Stories of success come in all sorts of shapes. Telling those stories isn't so much bragging, as much as it is witnessing to the goodness we see around us. Shape the culture of your organization and community of members by telling their stories (and your stories) well!

An approach to creating a branding video: Reveal what your organization and your members MAKE POSSIBLE in the profession and in the community. Consider: "Without _us_, what would not happen?" Then tell the story about those things.

When you feature a *special* thing, use it to also draw attention to the whole *category* of things that it's a part of. Reveal the universal in the particular.

A robust email marketing strategy can include regular and predictable "periodical publications". Value can be created sometimes by surprise, and sometimes by consistency.

When promoting events to possible attendees, speak to the "why" of the event: the overall purpose and the change someone can expect to experience. And then prove /how/ the event might accomplish its purpose by presenting at least some portion of the programming agenda.

Using real photos. Communicating real value. On real paper. Keep it real.

Everything is a possible brand touchpoint. Transforming something into a "branded touchpoint" isn't just for the brand... it provides a feeling of a more polished experience to members and customers.

It doesn't have to be tattoos or bumper stickers, but how can you imagine your members putting your brand identity "on"? Your branding could be "on" a wall, a website, a shirt, an ad. Ask, "Where do we intersect with our members' life."

When talking about the unique experiences you offer members, featuring real members in creative pieces speak to your attention to personalization. Using video provides a way to include *music*, which is an effective emotional driver.

Publish a member magazine? Speak to *real* member issues. Lead with empathy and risk to address the most pressing issues they face.