View from HQ - 2005/05

184 MODEL AVIATION
I LEARNED a long time ago that
successful associations pay close attention
to three things: members, marketing, and
money. You already know my feelings
about members. AMA exists as an
association to serve the interests of its
members, and our fate is ultimately tied to
how well we satisfy their needs.
The challenge is to identify those needs
and put in place the kind of programs and
services that provide what I described in
last month’s article as the “value
proposition.” It would be nice to think that
once you do, everyone will understand and
flock to your door as if you had built the
proverbial “better mousetrap,” but it
doesn’t happen that way.
This leads me to the second item on my
list: marketing. I like to point out that
marketing is a nine-letter word—not
four—and that it impacts us in many ways.
It certainly has many implications for
AMA as an association and for our
members. It is one of the major challenges
we face in growing this organization and
taking it to the next level.
AMA is no different from any other
organization when it comes to marketing.
We don’t stand in grand isolation—even if
we do have a privileged position as the
largest modeling organization in the world.
We must constantly market ourselves to
nonmembers, federal and state
governments, local communities, other
business, and yes, even to our own
members.
Are you surprised? Don’t be. Much of
what associations do is nothing more than
internal marketing aimed at reinforcing the
value of your membership.
Why do we market? There are a number
of reasons, but the most important one is to
sell the idea of modeling as an enjoyable
recreational activity that returns value to
individuals and the community at large.
To those of us already infected with
this disease, it’s hard to imagine why that
would be necessary, but the modern-day
reality is that there are many ways to spend
your recreational time, and we must
compete for attention and prove the value
in our sport and hobby at every
opportunity.
Who does all of this work? We do, you
do—we all do. You may not think of it this
way, but every time someone watches you
fly, each time you talk to a friend about
our sport, and every person you invite over
to see what you’re building is just another
form of marketing.
Marketing has many facets. It can help us
grow the membership, spread an important
message to the modeling community and
general public, and even control the costs
of dues. Whoa! Run that by me again?
Yes, control the cost of dues. In
association speak we call it non-dues
revenue, and it’s an important source of
funds that can help associations do more
for their members without increasing the
dues.
Perhaps the best example of this
concept is the revenue generated by our
advertisers in Model Aviation. Without
them we would certainly have a much
smaller publication, and a less attractive
one as well. The revenue generated from
advertising is plowed right back into the
magazine, giving you a higher-quality
publication.
Another example of non-dues revenue
is our credit-card program. This is
something AMA has had in place for many
years. As I write this article, an offer is
already in the mail introducing you to our
newest partner, US Bank, and the new
AMA credit-card program.
We are excited about this new program
for several reasons. It’s a good offer with a
low introductory rate that can help you
manage your money efficiently and
Don Koranda Executive Director
View from HQ
effectively. It’s a money-back card that
will help you control your expenses, and
it generates revenue for the association
which will be used to support AMA
programs and help keep your dues low.
But the overwhelming majority of our
funds still come from membership dues,
and that is something we need to work
on. One of my goals is to increase the
non-dues component of our revenue so
that we can keep your dues low and build
our membership. One large association I
know of hasn’t had a dues increase in
more than 10 years. It is more than twice
as large as AMA and has a dues structure
that is substantially lower than ours.
All of this will come with some
challenges for our staff and for you, the
members. Our recent AMA Ultimate
Model Aeronautics Video Library DVD
proved that. A number of you wrote to
share your thoughts concerning this offer.
The good news is that fewer than 50
people out of an initial mailing of 50,000
asked to have their names removed from
future offers. We are happy to do that and
have a process in place to handle such
requests. The other good news is that
many of you are taking advantage of this
offer, and that helps all of us.
Building an association that is prepared
to meet the challenges of the future
requires a number of important elements
that must be blended together in a
coordinated effort to be successful. One
of those elements is marketing and
another is generating non-dues revenue.
In time you will see AMA get better at it.
We will refine our approach and offer
more products and services while holding
the line on dues. That will help us grow,
and that’s a good thing.
By the way, the old adage that if you
build a better mousetrap, the world will
beat a path to your door—that’s only half
true. The other half is that you have to
market! MA
Marketing—taking
it to the next level.
Safe flying.
Don Koranda
Executive Director
[email protected]
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