GUEST
ARTICLE - Cynthia D'Amour
Virtual Chapters in Associations
In today's busy world,
many associations are exploring the idea of developing and
investing in virtual chapters. On the surface, it seems
like a fairly easy way to keep members connected — and has
potential to make your association a lot of money once you
get past the sunk costs.
As with any potential
new product or service, it's important to do competitive
intelligence work identifying your competitors — new and
old.
It's a common mistake
to assume competition is the same for all products and
services. When you venture into the on-line world, all
sorts of new players can line up to compete for your
members' dollars.
For example, one of the
associations I recently worked with was considering
instituting virtual chapters.
We went to the web to
explore the competition. When I did an Internet search on
what should have been the association's key word, over
250,000 listings were found. An entrepreneur was named in
three of the top five listings.
The association, who
claimed to be "the source" for this profession and
education, did not show up until the third page — and that
was a listing for one of its 100 chapters. The national
association did not show up until the fifth page.
Most Internet research
says that surfers rarely go beyond the first three pages
of search results.
The entrepreneur with
the top listings has a no-fee membership web site directed
to the exact same members as my client.
The entrepreneur
offered tons of articles, chat rooms, bulletin boards,
career services — including job postings and mentoring.
He also had an alliance with a vendor to be able to
provide education programs at special rates for his
members.
It looked like he made
money on the ads and commissions off the variety of
for-pay services such as the education programs.
As I dug some more, we
learned that he also had over 3,000 members!
Venturing onto the
Internet for virtual chapters will possibly put your
association into stiff competition with Internet marketing
savvy entrepreneurs who can offer their memberships for
free.
On-line associations
are often one person organizations supported by alliances
and automation and their overhead is practically
nonexistent.
Plus, they can offer
practically everything you do — on-line education
programs, on-line community, books, CDs, software,
advertising opportunity for supplier members, etc.
This research begs a
tough question: Why should your members pay your dues for
a similar virtual chapter that they can access for free?
Loyalty is not as
common with members as it used to be. It's not realistic
to expect members to pay hundreds of dollars in dues "just
because." Guilt that belonging to your association is the
"right thing to do" also has lost some of its persuasive
power.
So what is an
association to do? The two areas where I don't see on-line
entrepreneurs venturing much:
-
Lobbying — Why should
they get involved in this non-profit focused area? Some
rock and mortar association is already doing the work —
plus, the entrepreneurs are focused on making profits.
-
Face-to-face
interactions for members — some on-line entrepreneurs
try to encourage local hookups; however, I haven't seen
a lot of success in this area — it takes more manpower
than they want to invest.
Your in-person chapter
involvement opportunities may be the piece that gives you
the edge over the Internet entrepreneurs.
Should you venture into
the virtual world? Perhaps.
However, be aware.
There's a whole new bucket of competition out there — who
have been marketing on-line for years. Do your research
diligently, go into it with your eyes open and have a
clear head about the opportunity cost.
 Cynthia
D'Amour is a growth strategist and leadership coach
who works with associations that want to get more members
involved in their association.
www.chapterleaders.com ©2004 Cynthia
D'Amour
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