Jul. 2, 2009 - Doughnuts with the Crash Test Dummies
“I dunno,” she said, rolling her eyes heavenward. “I mean, social networking is all the THING! Even Oprah does it! But I can’t get 20 members to show up for a seminar on Twitter and Facebook. And it’s free, even, and I had doughnuts. My members are just so lethargic!”
I look at the flyer advertising the class. “Learn To Tweet!” it says. “Free Seminar. Doughnuts Served.”
A Twitter target market? I ask myself, and I envision a roomful of Krispy Kremes and overweight teenagers with sugar on their lips and hyperactive thumbs. I certainly can’t imagine a classroom of 40-year old real estate professionals with Blackberries in the pockets of their navy blue blazers or Kate Spade handbags.
As a writer, I work best when I can envision my audience—I find myself constructing a composite image, an Annie Audience who will be responding to what I put on the page. I want to have her in the room with me, looking over my shoulder and commenting. “Why should I go to the seminar? I’m very busy. Why should I care about Twits or Tweets or whatever? What good will it do me in my profession? I sell real estate, for heaven’s sake. And I’m on a diet, besides.”
Recently I began working on the content for an online leadership course. “Who’s it for?” I asked my client. “Oh, new leaders,” he replied vaguely.
“Like members who are presidents-elect?” I said.
“Oh, no, it’s for anyone.” And after a moment, “Anyone who might want to be a leader in the association.”
Now, ‘anyone in the association’ is pretty broad, I think. Even ‘anyone who might want to be a leader’ doesn’t narrow it down much. And there’s a fairly wide gap between someone who has a faint notion that it might be ‘nice’ to be a member of the board of directors and a president-elect who has responded to The Call, who has become committed to spending a few years of her life in the service of the association.
I asked my client to give me a scenario of how this course might be used: who would the participant be, what circumstances would direct the member to this course, and what would the expected results be when the course was completed? It took quite a bit of dialogue before I could see it: an association exec or current leader saying to the 30-year-old member, “Well, we’d really like for you to consider becoming involved in the association. There’s a quick and helpful online course that would give you some background in our organization and introduce you to some of the basics. Then you and I can have a talk about whether this is something you’d feel comfortable doing, and we get more specific about how you could fit in to our association. It’ll probably take you just a couple of hours all together. Why don’t I call you in a week or so and see how you’re doing?”
Got it! Now I understand the target market, the format, and the expectations. I can put the material together and work on the course details.
A marketing program starts with product design. And product design starts with a target market. Being all things to everyone isn’t a definition of a target market, and yet when I facilitate a strategic planning session with an association and I ask, “Who’s the main beneficiary of association services?” the answer almost always is, “Why (dummy), it’s the MEMBER.”
Well, unfortunately, Realtor associations aren’t too discriminating about membership—with good reason. (Just ask NAR Legal about turning away membership applicants: no WAY! If someone’s got a license and hasn’t been convicted of ax murders….and neither of those are indefensible barriers, either.) So for whom are you building your member services programs and writing your newsletters? What does your targeted member look like? I think identifying a member persona (avatar, if you will) is a pretty good exercise to do at the beginning of a planning session. Draw a picture and put it in front of the committee. Or construct a crash-test dummy who can sit in the room with the planning team. The more real the target, the more accurate the product or service design and the marketing strategies.
Once you have a clearly defined target market, things fall into place more easily: you know what the problem is, and how your product or service will fill the void. You can see your market and know how to reach out to him. How successful is he? How old? How experienced? What will attract his attention? Make a list of five or ten ways you can touch him with your message. Then, translate those ways into specific action steps and deadlines for completion. Leave yourself plenty of advance time and begin softly—perhaps a with blog explaining, say, how Realtors are using social media.
Then announce the education offering in your newsletter—and not just once. Make sure you explain HOW this information can be of use to attendees: what’s their return on their investment of time? Make registration easy on your website: Payment by credit card or PayPal. Follow up with confirmation letters. Post registration lists and updates. Make a Facebook event site. Set up a hashtag for a Twitter discussion. Complete reminder phone calls. Office visits. Early registration discounts. Establish check points where you compare expected registration results with the reality. You know the drill: set up an action plan and stick to it, keeping your target market firmly in mind.
You could even put your crash test dummy on a chair in the staff lounge to remind everyone to participate in the promotion effort. Dress him in a blazer and khaki pants, Blackberry in hand, briefcase at his feet.
And notice that “free” and “food” aren’t in the marketing mix.
Jul. 5, 2009 - RE: Doughnuts with the Crash Test Dummies
Posted by Bill Malkasian
In the past a good old fashion recession brought out the best of our members in educational opportunities as they sought out new ways of learning about the business.
Today, I find that even free and donuts along with free and online in your living and pajamas don't seem to work with this generation.Some how one hour of a new idea to an old business model doesnt seem to be working.BUT if you havent had a sale for 6 months,going to class or staring at a computer screen doesnt seem to pay the bills.
The key here is to figure out a way to translate the learning into profitability or making someone unique and different from their vanilla brothers and sisters.
Maybe educating the broker at the office first on the concept can help educate the agents+Organized real estate has so many good ideas to offer, but getting the fish to swim up stream is a challenge.
Good response, Bill. Thanks! I don't think the old saw of engaging the broker has any teeth, however. It really never did, in my experience--the broker wants business, first of all, and let's face it--many of our association products aren't all that directly applicable to his bottom line. The key here is the term 'directly'--many things, such as ethics, and the law, and political advocacy are applicable indirectly--but there are no measurements that we offer so that the broker can measure the results of our association products and services. Brokers measure results in terms of profits and productivity: many of our products (associations) compete with product and productivity and are viewed by many brokers as competing activities for his only real resource--the time and energy of his independent contractors.
A behind the scenes look at organized real estate--what works in an association, what doesn't, and what a long time AE sees as challenges facing the industry from the viewpoint of its professional organization.
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