Marketing online CLE courses requires a different strategy than marketing in-person CLE sessions. For example, it’s not enough to simply rebrand all in-person sessions as “virtual” or “on-demand” without any additional information. As some members may not be comfortable with taking online CLE, let them know that it’s easy to sign up, that there’s technical support if they need it, and if offered on-demand, that they can access the CLE courses at their own convenience. For that reason, marketing is a complimentary service Vocalmeet provides to all our legal clients to help them increase their online CLE sales.

Additionally, a concrete marketing plan must be accompanied with a solid website. How a website looks and functions is every bit as important as the content itself. Your website content could be relevant and meaningful, but your members may still ignore your message if it is not designed well.

Continue reading below for our top 10 website design best practices to help drive traffic to your site and increase your online course sales. Incorporate these tips as you see fit and make your association’s website the best resource it can be!

Top 10 Website Design Best Practices

1. Set a Goal and Follow Through

When designing a website, it’s important to make a list of goals that you want your website to accomplish. Do you want it to drive membership, teach viewers the benefits of joining your association, or convince them to purchase courses? Try thinking about these goals in terms of a “call to action” to better help formulate your goals. After ranking this list in order of priority and importance, identify and implement as many ways to achieve these goals as possible.

2. Audience-Driven Design

If you want your website to attract an audience, you need to know who they are and what they like. If you have this information, you can better direct your design, tone, and content to match your target audience. Identify them by demographic. For example, what kind of work do they do, and what interests them the most? What other products and services do they use?

3. Simplicity Over Everything

A simple and clean aesthetic is one of the most effective design decisions you can make for your website. An uncomplicated design and user-friendly interface allow for clean navigation and accessible options. In general, clutter can have a negative impact on viewership and engagement. Too many options or pages, regardless of how amazing their content may be, can lead to “paralysis by analysis” for viewers – a form of overthinking that can be counterproductive for a website. As a result, websites should limit the number of overall pages, as well as design each page with plenty of white (or “negative” space) in order to give each item of content or image the space to breathe and be experienced.

4. Responsive Design

Responsive design almost always refers to the ability of a website to automatically accommodate the screen size, viewing platform, and screen orientation of each visitor. All modern websites should take into consideration a diverse array of viewers and devices. In this case, however, responsive design also speaks to a design that reacts quickly and effectively to user decisions while browsing. This means that the images, videos, and playable media of a website should load quickly. It also means that users should receive responses to their requests in short order. Additionally, organizations should ensure that all contact is met with a confirmation immediately after processing any kinds of requests.

5. Helpful Color Schemes

The choice of website colors can make or break a website. Colors can invoke specific emotions in viewers. They can help people better identify with an organization, as well as instill stronger brand recognition among visitors. It’s also important to ensure that colors are used effectively with each other. Websites should be designed in a way that has the text popping off the background color without putting too much strain on the eye. This is usually done by using a dark font over a lighter background. Try avoiding using similar shades, hues, and saturation alongside each other as well, as this can lead to a distracting effect where the colors meet.

6. Strategic Design

While common sense and thoughtfulness usually go a long way, there are some strategic choices that organizations can make for their website design. Organizations may, for example, employ the rule of thirds, which breaks the screen into a grid of two evenly spaced horizontal lines and two evenly spaced vertical lines. The four resulting intersecting points on the screen are your thirds – the points on the screen to which the eye is naturally drawn. It is on these intersections that a website’s most important features should be placed, such as the call to actions. Another option is to connect components into thematic groupings by using similar shapes, colors, and fonts. This allows viewers to subtly associate different on-screen elements with each other.

7. Proper Structure

How a website is structured can help users navigate and browse more easily. One of the most important structure elements is the header. Headers should only be used sparingly and should accurately explain and contextualize the content below them; this aids visitors in interpreting and digesting the material. Websites should also include tools like “breadcrumbs” so users can retrace their steps when desired. If your website incorporates forms, they should be clearly labeled and easy to complete. Be sure to provide clear instructions and information – assume that everyone is unaware of the typical process and new to your webpage (and organization!) as a whole.

8. Consistency

A good website is an extension of an organization. The tone and feel of the website should be consistent with the overall brand. There should also be a consistency between the pages on the site, a natural flow that is present throughout. However, the website should be consistent not only with itself, but with the conventions of the rest of the web as well. While it can be tempting to be unique and artsy, being too adventurous and unconventional can lead to miscommunication. When using call to actions, for example, users should be able to easily identify and understand them. You may wish to follow some of the language and conventions used by major online brands, like Amazon, Facebook, or Google.

9. Avoid Automatic Media

While more of a faux pas than a rule, automatic media has quickly become a major no-no in the design community. Things like scrolling text, auto-playing sounds or videos, carousels, and sliders are more distracting and harmful to a viewing experience than anything else. Additionally, organizations should consider allowing users to alter the text and layout of a website. Locking down the text size can be very limiting for some viewers, especially those with poor vision.

10. Track, Report, and Adjust

If your goal is constant website improvement, you should use every tool in your belt. Don’t be shy about testing something new, but be sure to track and analyze how effective it was. Make sure to take advantage of website analytics; organizations can now identify how viewers find their page, where they go first, and where they stay longest. They can measure how people scroll and how they interact with the site. If an organization finds that certain elements are underperforming, they should be moved or replaced altogether. Use the available data to optimize every component of your website, and your organization will enjoy more satisfied viewers and higher conversion rates.

By taking all of the above into account, your association will have a sleek new website in no time!

The post Why Legal Associations Should Care About Their Website to Increase Online CLE Sales appeared first on Online Learning Solutions | Association Management System | Vocalmeet.

As more events are being cancelled, many associations are opting to ramp up their online continuing education sessions and conferences in order to soften the negative financial impact. Some are pre-recording their sessions and making them available on-demand, while others are choosing to live-stream on the scheduled date.

So, how does the shift towards virtual events impact sponsors and exhibitors?

Many associations rely on sponsorships to fund their in-person events and conferences. In return, sponsors and exhibitors are looking for marketing exposure and opportunities for attendees to better connect with their brand. As a result, being able to show sponsors and exhibitors the value of sponsoring virtual events is key.

Here are some of the online initiatives that you can do to continue to offer sponsors and exhibitors the benefit of exposure to members and attendees.

1. With paid on-demand events and courses, consider offering discount codes for members with the sponsor/exhibitor name.
2. Place sponsor/exhibitor logos and links to their website on the event webpage or on the online learning platform for a period of time.
3. Encourage sponsors and exhibitors to sponsor individual sessions or courses.
4. Sponsors and exhibitors can create short promotional videos to be placed on the event webpage or on the online learning platform
5. Sponsor/exhibitor videos and links can even be embedded directly into on-demand videos.
6. Consider promoting the “sponsor/exhibitor” of the week through the event webpage, social media, email campaigns, etc.
7. Ask speakers to mention the sponsors and/or exhibitors before or after their online presentation.
8. For live online events, sponsors and/or exhibitors can join for opening or closing remarks.
9. Promote sponsors and exhibitors, while enticing attendees, with sponsored raffles for gift cards and other virtual giveaways.
10. If your association has a community platform for members to communicate and network online, consider utilizing the platform to provide more exposure for sponsors and exhibitors.

There are many initiatives that are easy to implement for sponsors and exhibitors to reap the benefit of exposure online. As critical as it is for associations to engage their members virtually, it is equally important for associations to ensure sponsors and exhibitors are incentivized to continue to provide funding for virtual events.

The event delivery method may be different, but the goal remains the same. In today’s digital world, associations need to think outside the box and find new and creative ways to continue to engage members, attendees, speakers, sponsors, and exhibitors.

The post 10 Ways for Associations to Offer Benefits for Sponsors and Exhibitors Online appeared first on Online Learning Solutions | Association Management System | Vocalmeet.

Social media can yield many benefits for an association. In the marketing world, social media represents one of the strongest tools available. Utilizing this avenue can create more brand awareness than traditional advertising, increase traffic to your website, and help improve conversion rates for visitors and consumers. Yet there’s more to social media than just blindly posting in the hopes of being seen. With a little thought and strategy, every association can turn social media from a mystery into a strength.

Create Meaningful Interactions

In order to get the most out of social media, associations need to do more than simply broadcast information. In fact, Facebook announced that its algorithms are moving toward promoting meaningful interactions ahead of all other posts. Now, this includes “engagement bait” posts as well. These are posts that ask for likes to create the illusion of meaningful interactions. Therefore, associations need to drive discussions that encourage thoughtful responses and queries from viewers in a more natural way.

Try using hashtags to create a more focused discussion, and don’t be afraid to be conversational. Social media users are well-versed in marketing speak, so try to use regular language to break through. In addition to increased brand awareness and interest, the results of these interactions can be enormous. Though social media interactions don’t directly increase search engine rankings, they can help influence them. Meaningful interactions also help to build relationships and create more involved members.

Be Present and Active

Social media allows people to connect with organizations better than ever before, but visibility isn’t enough. To make social media work for you, your association must be present and active, responding quickly to queries and joining conversations. In fact, many people now use social media for customer service inquiries the moment they need them. Although you can schedule your content submission to ensure that you’re posting regularly, try to communicate with your audience at different times.

In addition to being a space for basic customer service, social media allows for personalization. Use the platform to provide information to inquiring minds. Don’t be afraid to jump into relevant conversations and help people asking general questions about the industry. A continued social media presence can help with brand awareness and generate interest in the association without requiring much in the way of advertising dollars.

Learn from the Experience

While social media offers excellent opportunities for providing information to current and potential members, it is also home to a large congregation of professionals from every industry. Use this as a source of information and insight into what professionals are looking for, what industry trends are popping up, and what topics are generating the most interest. By incorporating these topics and trends in various ways, the association demonstrates it’s tapped in and paying attention.

Furthermore, like any customer service experience, social media interactions provide a great source of feedback and constructive criticism. Associations that use this information and build from it illustrate how they are willing to adapt and grow. On social media, this happens in real time and in front of many eyes, which provides plenty of great opportunities to provide excellent customer service.

Track your Results

After posting on social media for an extended period of time, it’s time to start learning from your experience and perfecting the artform. From the beginning, track your results to get the most from each post in the future. Measure what hashtags perform the best, and see what comments get the most likes. Ask yourself, what times do posts get the most interactions? Do posts with images do better than those without? While tracking can be done manually, various software and applications make this job easier and more automatic. Before long, your social media work will be more efficient and effective.

Mix Things Up

A little mixture goes a long way on social media, so it’s important to vary the type of content you post. You want to avoid strictly posting at people. Join in conversations, post about things outside your direct lane, and most importantly, avoid always self-promoting. Not only will constant self-promotion hurt your visibility on social media, but people may react negatively to your posts. Do all these things, but don’t stray too far off topic or relevance. People want their associations to be involved in industry- or professional-specific conversations. Last but not least, avoid posting the same thing on different social media channels as people will see posts as ads and not meaningful content.

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The goal of customer service is to create a bridge between an organization and a customer. Ideally, this connection sets the organization up as relatable and ensures that customers are heard and satisfied. For an association, customer service can keep members happy, involved, and willing to renew their membership in the future. If done right, great customer service can lead to member referrals, increased sales, and stronger relationships with other organizations, like advertisers and sponsors.

Accomplishing this, however, requires more than just friendliness in communications. Contemporary members demand that their associations keep their best interests in mind and prove it. Read on to uncover some ways that your association can go the extra mile for your members and give them the quality customer service they deserve.

Don’t Be Afraid of Change

Associations that are willing to adapt are able to demonstrate to members that they value change. It is necessary. It’s not only the industries, professions, and professionals that evolve over time, but the technology available to associations and membership needs evolve as well. Yet, while adaptation is needed, associations should avoid change for the sake of change. Instead, they should take calculated risks by incorporating moves that improve membership quality and value. Ensure members know why the changes were made and how these changes will benefit them.

A safe way to incorporate or introduce change is to request input from members. Ask for improvement suggestions, take member surveys, and run feedback polls. From there, it’s important to display the results of this member feedback and implement changes that the members want. Through this type of response, associations can build up member loyalty and engagement. Knowing their input is valued and integrated, members take a greater stake in their association. They align their interests more closely with those of the association and value its successes more. For the association, dedicated, satisfied, and engaged members provide more renewals and more referrals.

Maintain Clear Communication

Communication is one of the primary elements of good customer service. Associations that keep open and honest lines of communication with members maintain a higher level of engagement and a stronger reputation. By informing members of upcoming events and associational changes in a clear and concise manner, associations can eliminate or at least limit any confusion, misinterpretation, or mix-ups. This can improve event attendance and minimize any resistance to changes.

Through effective communication, an association can also position itself as a hub for industry information. Connect members with industry news, encourage targeted discussions, and notify members of association initiatives to ensure they continue relying on the association for information. Strong communication is a two-way street. For best results, associations can ask members to suggest their preferred level and method of communication. Answer questions and contribute to discussions via social media to ensure members see the association as something more than a faceless entity.

Be Genuine

The association members of today, particularly the younger generations, appreciate genuineness and authenticity from organizations. Intuitive professionals can read between the lines in sales speak and can perceive unspoken agendas in marketing communications. Simply by providing open and honest customer service, an association can build better and more trusting relationships with its members, leading to stronger loyalty down the line.

Another element to a genuine association is demonstrating empathy for its members. Try to appreciate and understand the member position. Be accountable and responsive. Apologize for inconveniences and address member concerns within an appropriate time frame. Genuine quality customer service helps build a solid and dedicated membership. Appreciated members attend and participate in more events, which can lead to more and better sponsorships.

Develop a Personal Touch

The best customer service relies on a connection being made between the association and members. For this to happen, members need to feel seen and heard on a personal level. Communications and ads personalized to the recipient will result in far greater responses than the general varieties. This makes sense as personalized communications speak to the recipient’s specific history, scenario, and interests.

Of course, this can prove challenging, especially for associations with a large number of members. By using targeted member technology, such as mail chimp or targeted Facebook ads, however, associations can still reach a large group of people with personalized communications. Associations can further improve the results of these campaigns by grouping members into similar demographics, like age, profession, job title, and location.

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When it comes to learning, we all do it a little differently. Even the best content provided by the best instructor can be lost on segments of the audience if it’s all presented in the same way. This is because of the way people digest knowledge. When trying to optimize audience reception and response, a little versatility can go a long way. While everyone’s got their own unique flavor in regards to how they process information, there are distinct learning style categories into which most people can be grouped.

For associations, offering different educational opportunities, like events and activities, professional development courses, and presentations, can satisfy each of the different learning styles. Furthermore, when creating events, continuing education courses and presentations, each of these categories should be explored. By catering to your entire audience, the content will be more enriching and returns maximized. In addition to increased and engaged participants, appealing to distinct learning styles can lead to more purchases, stronger advertising and sponsorship deals, and member satisfaction.

Understand the Differences

•  Visual

Also called spatial learning, visual learning is achieved through sight and observation. Without pictures or diagrams to help them, these types of learners may visualize materials to best understand them. For that reason, they may need additional time to process and digest what they hear.

• Auditory

Auditory learners best process information through sound and speech, such as lectures and reading information aloud. These types of learners often possess strong memory techniques, communication skills, and participation efforts.

• Kinesthetic

As tactile learners, kinesthetic-styled students process information best through physical engagement. They digest information through practical training and muscle memory, whereas long stretches of inactivity can lead them to tune out.

• Reading/Writing

Overlapping slightly with visual learners, reading and writing learners digest information through the written word. During lectures or verbal presentations, these students may need additional time to write down the information they hear.

How to Integrate into Events

The primary goals for event holders include attracting as many attendees as possible and ensuring those attendees return in the future. The best way to accomplish this is to design events catered to a diverse audience and provide them with content that they can process and appreciate.

For best results, design activities and find speakers that include all learning styles. It might also be beneficial to split activities and speakers up by learning style, ensuring that every attendee gets something from the material. With such active engagement from all attendees, event-holders can improve sponsorship value, member appreciation, and the chances that attendees become returnees in the future.

• Visual and Auditory Activities

On the one hand, visual learners find value in events with visual-aided presentations or live demonstrations. Auditory learners, on the other hand, might enjoy from a Q&A session or a roundtable discussion. Both visual and auditory learners may benefit from gaining access to recordings of these presentations, demonstrations, and discussions.

• Kinesthetic and Reading/Writing Activities

To accommodate kinesthetic learners, event holders may host workshops or walkthroughs that attendees can participate in. If they go home with a free trial, these hands-on learners can continue their engagement beyond the confines of the event. Learners who process best from reading and writing can benefit from many of the activities above, but they may also appreciate a take-home booklet or email with notes from the event, additional information, or a record of the discussions.

How to Integrate into Presentations

On their own or as part of a larger whole, quality presentations can add significant value to an event. They can also make a memorable experience for attendees and generate advertising and sponsorship opportunities. To get the most from a presentation, however, presenters should create meaningful connections with each of the different learning styles. This can be done in a number of ways, but the following tips might lead to more consistency.

• Visual Presentations

Since most presentations already appeal to visual and auditory learners, presenters don’t need to reinvent the wheel here, though they can make some small tweaks to enhance the effect. Powerpoint-type presentation still work effectively, but be sure to include charts and graphs for the visual folks. Also, try mind-maps and creating visualization-friendly examples and scenarios. When presenting, be sure to pause and give time for these visualizations to take hold.

• Auditory Presentations

With the advent of live streaming and applications like Google slides, presenters can now host live Q&A sessions during their presentation. This active participation can benefit all types of learning styles, specifically the auditory and reading and writing groups. Auditory learners might also appreciate a repeat-after-me section.

• Kinesthetic Presentations

For kinesthetic learners, a physical activity or participation element can work wonders. Presenters may involve movement or a component that utilizes something most attendees have access to, like a smartphone. A small group activity is enough to get the blood and the creative juices flowing for this segment of the audience.

• Take-Home Value

Another useful means for adding value to a presentation is to add a learning-style specific take-home component. Access to a recording of the presentation works for both visual and auditory learners, whereas a quiz or a fill-in-the-blanks section helps the kinesthetics and a written overview or transcript reaches the reading and writing crowd. Furthermore, by adding an effective take-home element or the rewatchability of a presentation, presentations extend the value of an attached sponsorship or advertising.

How to Integrate into Continuing Education

Preparing a course that satisfies each of the learning styles can be difficult, but it’s not impossible. Associations can choose to create content that appeals to various learning styles or offer different options for different learners. Either way, the versatility should lead to more members enrolling in courses, more successful outcomes, and improved membership value.

• Visual and Auditory Courses

Many online courses today are designed for visual and auditory learners. Associations often design lessons with visual and aural aids, like verbal lectures and presentation-style courses with pictures, charts, and diagrams to help drive home facts and information. For video courses, content designers can break up large chunks of verbal or written information with animations or live-action scenarios. Instructors may choose to speak or lecture over rolling videos to capture the attention of both visual and auditory learners and help them process information.

• Kinesthetic Courses

Some of the latest and greatest continuing education advances have come in the field of kinesthetic learning. To appeal to these types of learners, courses now offer interactive scenario-based training in which students can apply their knowledge directly. Courses may also include simulations or practical demonstrations as a learning aid. Training may include more traditional lab participation or explore gamification as a modern way of reaching learners and getting them involved.

• Reading/Writing Courses

While large chunks of written content can be off-putting for some learners, reading- and writing-styled learners process information best this way. To accommodate these learners without sacrificing the content for other participants, courses can allow students to access a transcript of the course materials or a written overview. Video lessons might include closed caption options and the course could include a fill-in-the-blanks quiz.

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Most Associations strive to bring in more new members and keep existing members, but many don’t know how to accomplish this.

By observing the trends in The 2017 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report, I created a best practices list based on the actions of the highest-performing associations with over 80% member retention yearly. The following list highlights what the most successful associations are doing to keep members interested and provides a helpful map of what others can do to follow.

1. Have a Strategic Engagement Plan

The most basic and perhaps the most important principle to increasing member retention is to have a plan in place. Of the associations with more than 80% retention rates, 68% have a strategic engagement plan laid out. The best of these plans start from the very first contact. Once a member joins, call them personally or send them a welcome kit.

2. Provide Benefits Right Away

A significant number of successful associations offer members a free trial membership to start. This helps build member loyalty right away. From there, many associations in the highest category offer membership discounts for the remainder of the year. Many even discount membership dues for the second year, keeping in mind that securing member commitments for first and second years are the most challenging obstacles.

3. Utilize Continuing Education Online

Associations reporting renewal rates of 80% or higher indicate that specialized information, continuing education (online) and advocacy are significant member drivers. This is compared to associations with less than 60% renewal rates that consider publications and supporting the mission of the association to be the reasons members join the association.

4. Embrace Mobility and Social Media

Associations in the top retention bracket also have the largest membership base of millennials. This could be because these associations put a substantially larger emphasis on connecting with members through social networking websites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Mobile access and ease of connectivity is also a major contributor to these associations improving their digital footprint and increasing the number of millennial members. It should also be noted that those that use digital marketing techniques for recruitment and retention, see more members retained year after year.

5. Provide More Membership Incentives

According to the Marketing Benchmark Report, associations with greater than 80% renewal rates find that granting members access to specialized content is a powerful driver for retention. For example, of these associations, 41% offer certifications as part of the membership package. Some simply package content or offer multiple years of membership at discounted rates.

6. Improve Engagement Opportunities

The more a member is engaged with an association the more likely they are to renew their membership. Therefore, the most effective associations focus on improving associational engagement opportunities. Associations that see increases in event and webinar attendance and/or growth in member website visits and service purchases are the associations that see the best retention rates.

7. Increase Non-Dues Revenues From Members

Members that rely on their associations for things like industry training, certifications, products, networking events, and subscriptions are much more likely to renew their memberships. This is fairly straightforward. To engage members in associational initiatives, the most successful associations find new ways of offering value to members and this often results in non-dues revenues increasing.

8. Offer Members a Sliding Membership Scale and More

For the associations that offer many different levels of services, the most successful see extremely positive responses to offering a sliding membership scale, giving members the choice of what benefits they wish to pay for and receive. Find out what members truly want through member research. Try different things and gauge the response.

9. Start Renewing Members Months in Advance

One of the things that most of the best-performing associations have in common is they almost all start the renewal process months before the membership expiration date. Most begin the process within two to three months before the membership is up, allowing members time to consider their options without going past the deadline.

10. Don’t Be Afraid To Call Members When It Comes Time to Renew

The vast majority of the most successful associations find between three and four contact attempts is the sweet spot when trying to get members to renew. They use different types of contact as well. This blend is important. While email is the most common starting point and the most successful touch point, only 15% of the associations with over 80% retention do NOT use the phone. In other words, 85% find that a phone call is a very useful, personal and necessary renewal tool for retention.

11. Call Your Members More Often For Improvements All Over

While 49% of the most successful associations feel that the phone is best renewal tool, the phone is also useful in other ways. Phone calls are the best way to create brand awareness in members as well. It adds a personal element to the association. The phone is also a powerful resource when trying to call members to action for a new association initiative, such as a conference, a webinar, or for a networking event.

12. Improve Your Email Touch Points

Though this may seem obvious, associations looking to improve retention rates should place a larger focus on the content and quality of emails. This is because the associations with great retention rates see much better open rates for emails than the others. It is integral that associations find a way to ensure members see a benefit to each email touch point and have a desire to open them.

13. Offer Renewal Payment Plans in Installments

Within the most successful group of associations, grace and flexibility are extremely common. The majority of these associations offer members the chance to pay dues as part of an installment plan (a percentage almost twice as high as those that require a lump sum).

14. Allow a Grace Period After Memberships Expire

One of the largest majorities within the successful associations in the Benchmark Report is witnessed in the grace period allowed after a membership expires. An astounding 83% of these associations allow members to receive member benefits for a significant period of time after their membership has run its course. Of that group, 70% give three months of grace. This is important because it allows members more time to reconsider letting their membership expire.

15. Don’t Give Up On Expired Memberships

Many successful associations find calling former members six months after the membership expired is a good time to attempt to recover former members. Offering these expired memberships discounts on the next year’s dues proves to be an effective strategy to inspire members to renew their membership.

Conclusion

Even though the focus of this best practices list is on member retention, there is a far-reaching and significant ripple effect demonstrated within the report. For instance, the associations that reported more than 80% renewals also experienced the greatest growth in both new memberships and overall five-year memberships. Interestingly, their growth isn’t the result of higher operating budgets, as the 80%+ group actually had a lower median operating than the associations with 60% retention or less. Another positive is that most of these successful associations found that raising member dues year over year (typically 10% or less) was completely acceptable for members.

Sources: The 2017 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report

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Today’s online consumers report that ads are more pervasive, more plentiful, and more intrusive than ever before. As a result of years of being bombarded with ads, online users have developed banner blindness, the subconscious ability to ignore banner ads. While many believe this is only relevant to certain ad placement, it goes much further than that. According to a survey administered by Goo Technologies, 82% of Americans ignore all online ads, regardless of location. For online marketers, that’s a troubling statistic.

Online marketing changes all the time, but there are rarely philosophical shifts in regards to how ads are created. Sure, ads have become more intelligent and personalized, but the vast majority are still one-off advertisements hoping to catch consumers at the right place and the right time. Well, multi-channel marketing or omnichannel marketing is looking to move beyond hope. This new wave of online marketing looks to create multiple advertising touch-points spread across various channels, all connected in one cohesive campaign. The results from these multi-channel campaigns have been incredible, but, surprisingly, few organizations are taking advantage of the advertising strategy.

Here are the main reasons Why Associations Should Consider Multi-Channel Marketing Campaigns.

1. Avoid Being Avoided

As consumers are becoming more blind to online ads, marketers need to find new ways of capturing interest. Each online channel, whether it is through Facebook, Twitter, video, or on a mobile device, demands a different type of interaction and engagement. Multi-channel marketing is much more than simply increasing the number of touch points. It is about customizing each touch point based on the channel it is on. By itself, this customization captures and challenges the consumer’s eye more than the standard ad. Together, as part of a larger cohesive campaign, the ad elevates.

When a multi-channel marketing campaign starts with a strong central idea, the individual ads all benefit from it. Each ad contributes to stronger brand recognition, but each ad also contributes to a larger message. Some associations may use a common color theme or slogan, whereas others may use a different device to connect the campaign. If the ads are consistent and connected, they can become an effective and memorable platform. In a small way, these interconnected touchpoints demand a level of problem-solving from the consumer which has a lasting and impressionable effect.

2. Spend Marketing Dollars More Wisely

Online marketers understand and accept that most ads are ignored and forgotten. The goal of multi-channel marketing is to create several standalone ads that are integrated into a larger common theme. This integration creates a cohesive, unified message. According to Kantar Millward Brown, these integrated campaigns are up to 31% more effective at building brands than the alternative. This is because, even though they may seem more complex, integrated campaigns use various visual and audio cues to trigger consumer recognition. The more recognizable an ad is the more memorable and effective it is.

There is another level to multi-channel marketing that makes it even more impressionable: customization. As discussed, the most effective multi-channel marketing campaigns are also customized to the different channels. As a whole, an integrated and customized marketing campaign catches the consumers interest in specific ways depending on the channel it is viewed on. Kantar Millward Brown’s study on multi-channel marketing suggests that campaigns that are both integrated and customized perform up to 57% more effectively than those that are not. This is because each touchpoint is not only performing at the optimal levels of effectiveness as a channel-specific ad, but they are also part of a larger campaign.

3. The Time is Right

Multi-channel marketing online is right on time. For one of these campaigns to be most effective, the customization on each channel must be optimized and the entire strategy must be integrated. Well, we know that consumers are no longer one channel users. In fact, millennials are often considered challenging targets for marketers because they utilize so many different channels. By targeting each channel and customizing ads based on how users interact with that channel, multi-channel marketing will become associated with this modern channel-surfing behavior.

Additionally, we know how users interact within each channel, meaning true and proper personalization and customization can be created. We know our consumers and how they consume, and we understand the technology. Finally, many of the different channels are being used more than ever before or ever again. It’s time that knowledge was put to use. This is the time to jump in and create a multi-channel marketing strategy.

4. More Accurate Data

For online marketers, multi-channel marketing has one major advantage over traditional marketing that might be the most beneficial: more accurate response data. Currently, simple push marketing provides associations with information about the consumer’s actions that is more about the channel than it is about the ad or the user. Since ads are not customized or varied between channels, marketers expect consumers to react and respond to each ad within each channel the same across the board. But we have the consumption data about each channel and know that isn’t the case.

Multi-channel marketing provides data that tells marketers exactly how an ad on that specific channel is performing. If one ad in the campaign is struggling, marketers can fix it or eliminate it based on the data provided. As consumer data becomes more effective, so too does multi-channel marketing. Furthermore, the current targeted ad technology in combination with multi-channel marketing allows marketers to create ads that are so customized and personalized that the consumer’s actions will be about as detailed and accurate as it gets. In advertising, knowing exactly where your possible consumers stand is half the battle.

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