“Associations want to be media companies.  And media companies want to be Associations.”  This was said at the start of one of our first meetings with an association executive director, as she responded to my question of “Who/what do associations consider as their biggest competitive threat?”  She pointed out that media companies now offer just about everything that associations do - content, resources, events, research, data and now, community – a fierce competitor for association memberships. 

And she nailed it.  (In fact, she not only nailed it, she validated our whole business model.  But that’s a whole other blog.)

Back Story

This was the message that I heard over and over again at the Marketing, Membership and Communications Conference, sponsored by ASAE (The Center for Association Leadership) in Washington, D.C., a few weeks back.  An association should act like a publisher?  Well, I happen to agree.  This message underlined the founding vision and mission for our company, Association Media Partners.  Our mission is to bring B2B media fundamentals and solutions to associations.

In my years as a publishing and media executive, I competed head-to-head with many trade associations.  In fact, they were the most formidable of all my competitors.  They had things that many for-profit publishers didn’t…like community and loyalty.  And because acquiring new readers was always a challenge, as well as one of the most costly of all publishing expenses, my publishing company coveted the association’s model of member loyalty and the credibility.  These were attributes that our advertisers understood, and bought into. The air of authority and community that permeated through association events and publications within the industries we served was difficult to compete against.

Associations require a website that can be updated frequently to reflect changes in membership, events, news, articles, blogs and much more.

A properly developed Content Management System (CMS) software platform can quickly and efficiently do what your association management team spends tedious hours doing.

In simple terms, a content management system is a computer system that allows publishing, editing, and modifying content, as well as site maintenance, from a central login page. It provides a collection of procedures used to manage workflow in a collaborative environment.