"Ask the HAA"

Ask the HAA, Call #2: Marketing and Membership

To hear the recording of the morning call, please click HERE.

To hear the recording of the evening call, please click HERE.

NOTES

In last year’s Annual Reports, Club and SIG leaders reported that membership recruitment was one of their biggest challenges.  
•    At the HAA we want our organizations to be thriving and vibrant
•    It is hard to build engaged members if people don’t even know that your organization exists or why it might be beneficial for them to join
•    Raising awareness through outreach and marketing initiatives is critical for both Clubs and SIGs wishing to expand their numbers and those wishing to deepen member engagement

Here are some low/no cost strategies Clubs and SIGs have used for raising awareness:

Connect to student groups and build your pipeline early
•    Engage any relevant students or student groups early and often. This can begin as soon as students are accepted

•    Contact groups on campus at both the undergrad and grad school level and invite them to be a part of your organization. Many of our Clubs/SIGs offer free/discounted membership to students

•    Appoint a student liaison to your organization and charge them with marketing your organization at various student fairs at grad and undergrad level

•    Ask student groups to submit data on participants in the AlumniRecords Office each year so we can market relevant SIGs to students in these groups
 
Examples: HC Poland, HC Peru, HC Mexico, HC UK, HC South Carolina, CityStep SIG, Latin American Alumni and Friends SIG, Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra SIG

Use eVENTS
Take advantage of HAA eVENTS to advertise your organization’s events.
•    This is a monthly broadcast email that goes to all Harvard alumni for whom the HAA has email addresses – about 250,000
•    Raises the visibility of your organization to alumni worldwide, in addition to promoting your event
Examples:  Harvardwood SIG, Harvard Veterans SIG, Global Women’s Empowerment SIG, Harvard Club of Cape Cod, Harvard Club of Chicago, Harvard Club of the North Shore

Use HAA-sponsored events to raise awareness about and recruit members to your organization
•    Use Global Networking Night, Global Month of Service, and reunions as recruitment opportunities to meet and get to know alumni, to inform them about your organization and to invite them to become members

Examples: HC Miami, HC SoCal, Harvard Democrats SIG, Harvard Architecture and Urban Society Alumni SIG

Use LinkedIn/mine your data
•    Use LinkedIn groups, if you have one, to see what people’s interests and passions are, where they live, what industry they are in, and create targeted outreach to alumni through LinkedIn

Examples: Crimson Alumni of Latter Day Saints SIG, HC Russia, HC Seattle, HC San Francisco

Collaborate with other groups
•    Building effective collaboration opportunities across Clubs and SIGs, or amongst SIGs, is a great way to introduce your organization to a wider audience

Examples: Global Women’s Empowerment SIG partnering with HC United Arab Emirates, HC Washington DC partnering with Harvard Veteran’s SIG


We talked about ways of raising awareness but in order to convert the informed into members, you need to create an incentive to join.  Here are a few helpful suggestions:

Define and articulate the benefits of membership
•    After you have raised awareness about your organization, you need to articulate the value in belonging
o    Determine whether or not you will charge dues
o    If so, create levels of membership with increased benefits (discounted or free registration, premium seating, membership card with local merchant discounts, members-only events, sponsorship or naming opportunities that leverage size and stature of your club or SIG’s reach)

Examples: HC United Kingdom, HC San Francisco, HC Chicago

Connect to the different demographics in your organization with targeted programming to attract more diverse audiences
•    Create events that are unique (special access; behind-the-scenes; interaction with speaker is in setting difficult to replicate).
•    Use your Annual Meeting or other signature event as  a recruitment strategy: package deal for membership and ticket to event
•    Collaborate with another Club or SIG as a recruitment strategy

Examples: HC San Francisco, HC Central Florida, Harvardwood SIG, Harvard Veteran’s SIG, HC North Shore

Establish regular communication with your alumni population
•    If you don’t have a newsletter, regular email blast, active Facebook, listserv or some other regular way of keeping in touch, it is harder to keep people engaged and get them to become members
•    Phonathons reaching out to potential members have yielded positive results

Examples: HC Washington DC, HC Rocky Mountain, Harvard Asian American Alumni Alliance SIG

Send a paper mailing once a year, if possible.
•    Paper has the advantage of that physical reminder.  
•    Also yields results financially if your organization charges dues
•    Email can overwhelm our inboxes and items we mean to attend to can get lost.  

 Examples: Harvard Club of Central Florida and Harvard Club of North Shore

Take advantage of a captive audience
•    At the end of every event make an appeal for membership. Sometimes you need to specifically reach out to someone and encourage them to join, even if they have not previously been involved.

Examples: HC Houston, Harvardwood SIG