Associations create value for member consumption, engagement, and connection. If we do this often and well enough, we will derive the following outcomes:
- Diversified revenue
- Thriving membership
- Move-the-needle impact
Associations are in the business of understanding and empathizing with their members so they can deliver value for them.
Most associations have the intention of adding value to their members but sometimes find themselves shorthanded due to not having funds to market the association or to have full time staff which has an advantage over volunteer-run associations mainly because volunteers will prioritize their paying jobs when choosing how to spend their time.
So how can associations step away from being the poor sibling to corporations? Having their own products help.
Standard products include events, publications, podcasts, courses, webinars, or membership. As you can see from the below graphic, they can be grouped in lots of ways. Just choose a simple organizing structure and stay consistent.
What’s more important than products are the outcomes they create for your community. Here is where we can tease out synergies across offerings. From this, comes new possibilities for creating new products.
What’s important, however, is that most of what we create is underutilized. That is, these examples – even the cash cows of membership and annual conference – are largely built for tactical execution not strategic evolution. What does this mean?
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Our offerings are one and done, single use solutions with a limited life.
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Our offerings are rigid, ingrained, and staff-intensive. They are hard to change or extend.
A product framework helps you identify and leverage underutilized value in order to extend its original intention. It also helps you extend possibilities, reach new markets, and diversify revenue. There are three features:
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Longitudinal Framework | Value that happens over time. The product community is built on a durable, longitudinal product framework. Value comes not only from immediate satisfaction, but over time.
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Productized Services | Value that can be extended. All associations build products; they tend not to build or deliver products in ways that they can be extended or packaged so members can easily consume or use them.
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Cross-Functional Teams | Value created through high-impact collaboration. This synergy helps get the best ideas to market while creating new efficiencies and healthy trust.
These three, overarching features allow us to think more expansively about how we create and deliver new products. It is how we position our resources away from non-value creations activities and more deliberately toward building value for members hungry for relevant content and experiences.
Leveraging underutilized content, programs, or offerings is called product extensions.
When we think of product types in the world of associations, it’s fairly fundamental. We mostly, but not always, do events, publications, membership, and learning.
These “offerings” aren’t necessarily products so let’s see if we can translate through four product extensions.
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Product Adjacency. Developing new products that are closely related to existing offerings. It involves expanding or leveraging existing capabilities or resources to create new opportunities that address current or emerging member challenges.
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Product Re-use. Similar to an adjacent product, product re-use is stretching the life of our existing offerings beyond single use. An example is bite sized learning, which takes longer content and chunking it into usable learning so it can be consumed in a new way.
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Product Aggregation. Combining content or programming in a way that presents additional or new value. This can be a library subscription to aggregated content or bundling disparate content to create something new.
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Product Pathway. Experiencing a product or multiple products over time (longitudinal consumption) will create a multiplier effect resulting in increased engagement, improved knowledge retention, and greater impact.
Ten Revenue-Bearing Product Ideas
The goal is not to create more stuff. The goal is meaningful connection, usable value, and ongoing engagement. People want associations to help solve their problems. So here are ten off-shoots or descendants.
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E-Learning Library. Collection of curated content tailored to member needs. Can be delivered in varying lengths bundled by theme. Type of revenue: non-dues.
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Tool Subscription. Practical tools (models, frameworks, surveys, etc.) to engage members and to foster problem solving and longitudinal engagement. Can be delivered via email or social media. Include video intros or questions of the day (see #6). Type of revenue: non-dues.
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Orientation Game. Help socialize new members by gamifying boring content. Type of revenue: sponsorship.
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E-Learning Short Courses. Fee-based courses (non-dues revenue) themed by hot topic, foundational knowledge, or required learning needed for continuing education. Type of revenue: non-dues.
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Maturity Model Suite. A competency-based assessment rubric to help your association create longitudinal learning journeys. Type of revenue: sponsorship or non-dues.
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Question of the Day. A bank of questions randomized + delivered in lots of different ways (text, email, social media, or mobile app like QStream). This is especially useful for associations that have continuing education or licensure requirements. Type of revenue: sponsorship or non-dues.
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Fellowship Program. A premium priced cohort program for young professionals. Longitudinal in nature, anchored by authentic engagement, and includes a required outcome or thought piece that can be shared with the broader community. Type of revenue: sponsorship and non-dues.
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Connector Club. A quarterly check-in phone call from a veteran in the field to a new professional. Could be linked to programmatic inputs and outputs or simply a nice way to deliver a lo-fi, high-touch connective community. Type of revenue: sponsorship.
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Meeting of the Minds. A quarterly interdisciplinary think tank in which leaders from the field come together to envision the future. Outcomes could include an annual report, insight to the board, or way to create a powerful, longitudinal community. Type of revenue: sponsorship.
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Crowdsourced How it Works. Key concepts presented by experts in the field which can be recorded (audio and video), bite-sized, and delivered in lots of interesting ways. Type of revenue: non-dues.
This graphic combines the product ideas with the type of extension (product adjacency, product reuse, product pathway, or product aggregation).
Leverage is a product community® mantra. People don’t need or want more stuff. People desire meaningful connection, usable value, and ongoing engagement. People want associations to help solve their problems.
This graphic demonstrates how it might work. How can we leverage the great stuff we put out?
