CONSUMER INSIGHTS FOR ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT

Mitchell&McCue has been a strategic consulting partner with a range of recognized national Associations since 1991. Our Association work is focused on discovering consumer insights about the attitudes and behaviors of targeted consumers or members.

"What" a consumer or member does or thinks is not enough. To uncover actionable insights we must understand "Why" a consumer finds one organization engaging or of value, and not another.

To ensure that each program or cause is contributing to building an Association’s brand equity, we deliver “Corporate Best Practices” to Associations. The Mitchell&McCue principals bring custom senior leadership teams to the table and provide Associations with cost-effective access to marketing thought-leaders who have handled for-profit challenges for global brands.

Our approaches are built on the following four principles:

"Begin with the end in mind"
In order to design the most meaningful project methodology it is critical to identify how the deliverables will be expressed in the marketplace and to establish objectives and criteria for measuring success.

"Walk in my shoes"
We ensure that the project or program includes the perspective of the user or the intended target. We know the art of finding the consumer insight and making it work hard.

"Just the facts"
In non-profit Association marketing, key decision-making can often be directed by the strongest voices of staff or volunteers who are passionate about helping the organization. We have a better approach: each project should be grounded in facts from due diligence in the market landscape, and ideas should be properly vetted with decision-makers and influencers of the target program or cause.

"1 + 1 = 3"
Our approach and experience tells us that collaborative work with Association staff and/or volunteers results in stronger results on any project. Since we frequently hand off a project to staff for execution, we know that integrating that same staff into our entire process helps the staffers better understand the thinking behind the strategy and, thus, also improves the implementation results.

THREE-STEP APPROACH FOR ASSOCIATION CONSUMER INSIGHTS

Discovery
Assimilation and analysis of existing data to build hypotheses.

Insight
Through traditional and non-traditional interactions with the target audience, determination of key consumer insight(s) that will drive programmatic and/or communication planning.

Activation
Focused plan/program development that is based on and leverages the consumer insight.

ASSOCIATION CASE HISTORIES

ADDITIONAL ASSOCIATION CONSUMER INSIGHTS CASE HISTORIES

The following Association case histories are available for download:

  • Development of a program positioning to address a new competitive threat
  • Adding relevancy to an Association program that needed energy
  • Using very effective listening approaches and insight to build a more valuable membership benefit package

To access one or more of these case histories, please complete the form below and we will provide you with the case history(ies).