Just Published Article on Global Marketing Now Available

If your organization is U.S. based and looking to do membership marketing beyond the borders, you are facing some challenges including postal costs, prospect list availability, and language barriers.

In a just released article I wrote, you will find some guidance on how other organizations have handled some of these challenges. The article is Global Direct-Mail Membership Marketing: Challenges and Opportunities and appears in ASAE and the Center’s ASAE’s Global Links newsletter.

You will need an ASAE password to access it. However, I will check on getting permission to distribute copies if there are non-members who want to see it.

Language Usage in Global Membership Marketing

Perhaps the single biggest challenge with global membership marketing is the language barrier. There are 256 languages in the world with over 1,000,000 speakers[1].

On top of the variety of languages there are also dialects and variations associated with many languages. A visiting French exchange student just this weekend told me that he had a very difficult time understanding the French spoken in Quebec.

So how does an organization move forward in this area? One tact that successful organizations have followed is to get started with the language in which member benefits are now provided.

In order to start global membership marketing, one group that I work with decided to reach out to countries with high proportions of primary and secondary English speakers like Australia, Canada, England, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, and Singapore.

To date, using American English, the promotions have generated very positive response rates and very few complaints.

The basic language philosophy is to market using the same language and dialect in which the actual membership product will be delivered. If a recipient struggles with the American English marketing materials, then they will not be very likely to be able to use the membership materials.

Reaching English speakers across the globe actually presents a fairly large market opportunity. For example, more people speak English in India, Nigeria, Germany, or the Philippines than in Canada.[2]

Another organization that has relied primarily on English is Toastmasters. Toastmasters “now have nearly 226,000 members in 11,500 clubs in 92 countries.” However, they do not support the translation of their materials until a large enough membership base has developed in a language group. The translation policy is clearly outlined in their organizations procedures.[3]

What do you think is the right approach to language in global membership marketing? Language issues can elicit very emotional and heartfelt reactions. I am curious how you deal with these challenges.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population
[3] http://www.toastmasters.org/websiteApps/policyProcedures/SectionVIA6.pdf

Global Mailing Lists for Membership Marketing

A second challenge to global membership marketing, in addition to postage, especially when it comes to acquisition is finding prospect lists.

The direct mail list industry in the United States is highly developed. Thousands of lists are available with very detailed selects. And since the market is fairly competitive, many lists, especially compiled files are priced for as little as $.04 per name. The market is also rapidly developing for email lists.

This is not the case for lists outside the US. Selectability is limited and mailing lists are priced at two to three times the cost of comparable US lists.

So what is the best way to get started?

The best source for reaching out to prospective global members starts with your own database. Anyone who has purchased a book, attended a meeting, or formerly been a member is a good prospect. These prospects know who you are and there is not cost for use of the list.

The second source is to look for non-US names on the mailing lists that you currently use for your US membership acquisition efforts. Many periodicals, associations, and product providers also serve customers globally and rent their records as they do US customers. If a list produces good returns on US mailings, it is a good bet to perform well outside the US.

For example, if you are interested in the medical, 1,253 of the members of the American Academy of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery from outside the US and available for rental as a select from the membership file.

A third source for obtaining global mailing lists is through a list broker. Brokers have subscriptions to costly to databases and resources like SRDS Directnet® which provides data on “over 60,000 list rental opportunities across 230 business and consumer market categories, including sources, selects, counts and costs.” So they can be a big help in targeting your market provided they have clear direction from you of who you are trying to reach.

Brokers also work on a commission basis from the list owner. So there should be no additional expense for you to use their services.

If you are focused on a specific country or region of the world, you also may want to look for an in country broker. For example, List Marketing Australasia (LMA) provides direct marketing list services for Australia and New Zealand. Please note that privacy laws vary across the world. So be sure to work with reputable mailing list providers that follow local regulations.

There are additional issues in global membership marketing that I will be posting on shortly. These include language, response vehicles, and response rates.

In the meantime, feel free to share your experiences in the area.

Postal Options for Global Membership Marketing

To a large extent, membership marketing still relies on direct mail to acquire new members and renew them. But one of the biggest challenges in global membership marketing is the postal expense surrounding these activities.

You can use the USPS Postage Price Calculator to calculate just how much it will cost you to mail just about any piece to any country in the world. For example, if you drop a one ounce letter into the international mail stream, you will pay $0.94 per letter. Considering mailing up to three ounces at non-profit rates in the US is $0.175, it is easy to see how the cost to service a member outside the US can be expensive.

The post office makes some other less costly international mailing options available for larger scale mailings. These are priced by piece and pound and carry additional requirements. These mailing options include:

1. International Priority Airmail (IPA). This equivalent to First Class Mail in the US and claims a 3-7 business day arrival to the delivery country. Each IPA mailing must weigh a minimum of 11 pounds.
2. International Surface Air-Lift (ISAL). This is equivalent to Standard Mail service and claims a 7-14 business day delivery. Each ISAL mailing must weigh a minimum of 50 pounds.
3. Global Bulk Economy (GBE): This method uses surface transportation. Mail is presented to the International Bulk Mail Center and then dispatched by the USPS® via surface transportation. Delivery times average 21 to 35 days after the mail arrives at the USPS gateway. There is a minimum volume requirement of 100 pounds per mailing.

But probably the most cost effective and timely method for most organizations trying to serve global members is to use one of the mailing methods above through an international mail consolidator available under the USPS Postal Qualified Wholesaler program. These companies receive additional postal discounts from the USPS and will also:

• Pickup from local domestic mail-shop
• Sort and separate mail by country
• Apply bar coded postal permit
• Bag separated mail
• Deliver mail to the airport for transit

My production manager tells me that in a recent mailing he did to the Pacific Rim of 26,000 pieces of mail, the postage savings of using an international mail consolidator ran around $8000 in comparison to mailing independently. Here is the link to a list of companies serving as a Postal Qualified Wholesaler.

How is your organization acquiring and serving global members?

Managing Global Membership – One Organization’s Philosophy

ASAE and the Center’s Marketing and Membership Conference had some very useful sessions.

I found comments from Dan Rex, Deputy Executive Director and Director of Communications and Marketing for Toastmasters International to be particularly of interest.

He spoke about his organizations global growth and the philosophy that they have followed. Toastmasters “now have nearly 226,000 members in 11,500 clubs in 92 countries.”

It appears to me from the presentation that Toastmasters is following a pretty tightly controlled global strategy. For example, Toastmasters has resisted the temptation to establish offices outside of the US. All staff is based out of their California office.

Additionally, they have made the decision to provide limited customer service hours from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Pacific Time and customer service is only in English. Their policy states that “Toastmasters International does not have the World Headquarters staff resources or financial sources at this time to provide oral or written translation services. Communications sent to or sent by World Headquarters will be in English. It is understood, however, that change to policy will be considered in the future as the translation environment changes.”

Toastmasters has done only limited translation of their extensive materials driven by specific numbers of clubs in a language group. I saw Spanish, French, and Chinese transitions on their web site. Wisely, Toastmasters also tightly their trademark and copyrights with a clearly outlined policy and pro-active enforcement.

They do, however, give volunteers and prospective clubs many downloadable tools and resources to help them get started. In essence they have made membership self service through the web. And volunteers from around the world have been the key to launching new clubs and producing their growth and success.

By the way, here is a link to their 10 Tips for public speaking.

What do you think of the global membership philosophy employed by this group?

A Comparison of Association Membership in Fifteen Countries

I am putting together data for an article in Global Link newsletter for the ASAE International Section Council. I came across a great paper that reported on comparative association membership in 15 industrialized nations. Unfortunately, the paper was presented in 1992 and drew data from the World Values Survey completed in 1983. Since then at least four additional World Values surveys have been done.

The 2005 World Values Survey included the question:

“Now I am going to read off a list of voluntary organizations. For each one, could you tell me whether you are an active member, an inactive member or not a member of that type of organization?”

It listed among nine types of memberships, “professional associations”. However, I have not seen anyone take these survey responses and do the association analysis again. Have any of you seen it?

So the 1992 study will have to serve as a benchmark for now.

The study showed that US membership in associations was substantially ahead of any of the other 14 nations.

At the highest levels, these nations broke out as follows:

US -- 72.7%
Sweden -- 68.1%
Northern Ireland -- 67.4%
Netherlands -- 62.8%

At the low end, memberships broke out as follows:

Spain --30.8%
France – 27.2%
Italy – 25.9%

However, the study noted, that much of the membership levels for the US came from participation in religious based memberships.

“Our data indicate that 55 percent of Americans have church or religious memberships. Except for Northern Ireland at 52 percent, every other nation is at least 20 percentage points below the American figure and in six of the countries (Belgium, France, Italy, Japan, Norway, and Sweden) less than 10 percent of respondents report membership in a church or religious organization.”

With both religious and union affiliation removed from the membership numbers, the US falls to second place with 41.2 % of those surveyed holding membership in an association. The Netherlands were first with 43.6% participation.

After reviewing the raw data, the study then controlled for social background factors and ran the data again. Based on this view,

“When both church and union memberships are excluded, there is no longer a statistically significant difference between the United States on the one hand and Canada, Great Britain, or Northern Ireland on the other hand. In addition, membership levels for Australia and the Netherlands are now significantly higher than the U.S. level, whereas without controls these two nations were not significantly different from the United States. Both the Netherlands and Australia have expected ratios of members to nonmembers that are approximately 1.5 times larger than the U.S. ratio.”

Let me know if you have any more recent data on membership participation levels by nation.

Voluntary Association Membership in Fifteen Countries: A Comparative Analysis
James E. Curtis; Edward G. Grabb; Douglas E. Baer
American Sociological Review, Vol. 57, No. 2. (Apr.,1992), pp. 139-152.

Global Membership Marketing: Similarities and Differences

This month I was fortunate to be appointed to the ASAE International Section Council. I met some very interesting and dedicated council members.

But I left the meeting with a question. How uniquely North American is the concept of affiliation and membership in associations? Is membership marketing different here in the U.S. compared to other nations and cultures.

As you may remember, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote on this topic. He said,

“Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations. They have not only commercial and manufacturing companies, in which all take part, but associations of a thousand other kinds, religious, moral, serious, futile, general or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they found hospitals, prisons, and schools. If it is proposed to inculcate some truth or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form a society. Wherever at the head of some new undertaking you see the government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association.

I met with several kinds of associations in America of which I confess I had no previous notion; and I have often admired the extreme skill with which the inhabitants of the United States succeed in proposing a common object for the exertions of a great many men and in inducing them voluntarily to pursue it.

I have since traveled over England, from which the Americans have taken some of their laws and many of their customs; and it seemed to me that the principle of association was by no means so constantly or adroitly used in that country. The English often perform great things singly, whereas the Americans form associations for the smallest undertakings. It is evident that the former people consider association as a powerful means of action, but the latter seem to regard it as the only means they have of acting.[1]”

However, ASAE’s The Decision to Join shows many common perspectives from the 2,439 survey participants who reside outside the United States. For example, “Asked about their overall attitude toward associations, the difference between these two segments [U.S. and Non-U.S} is negligible.[2]”

But DTJ did note that there are some demographic differences between U.S. and non U.S. respondents.

“By a very substantial margin, global respondents are affiliated with academic institutions . . .

Respondents outside the United States are disproportionately male, and this is the most substantial gender difference seen in any of the segment comparisons . . .

Global members are less apt to be promoters of their association than their domestic colleagues.[3]”

By the way, click here to get your own copy of The Decision to Join.

What are your thoughts on the global perspective of membership and affiliation with associations? Please share your comments.

[1]Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Chapter V, OF THE USE WHICH THE AMERICANS MAKE OF PUBLIC ASSOCIATIONS IN CIVIL LIFE.
[2] James Dalton and Monica Dignam, The Decision to Join: How individuals determine value and why they choose to belong, ASAE and The Center for Association Leadership, p.61.
[3] DTJ, p. 71