Most organizations we work with want their website to be intuitive and easy-to-use, but how do you actually accomplish that in a design? There are two strategies to make a tool intuitive: Match experience Remove choices Match Experience Imagine that you bought a new car and when you went to drive it off the lot…
I have a friend, Mike, who is a part-time lawyer and part-time university professor. He loves teaching and he has often told me he would happily stop “lawyering” and teach full- time if he could. “Why don’t you?” I asked him the first time he mentioned this. “Because I have a JD (jurors doctorate) and…
This Halloween, I’m heading down to New Orleans for a vampire themed costume ball. While I was doing research on where I might go and what I might attend, I realized that I could use ChatGPT to help. I quickly generated information on exactly what I was looking for. This poses a problem for many…
There’s a famous mansion in San Jose, California called the Winchester Mystery House. The legend is that Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester Rifles fortune, was haunted by the ghosts of people killed by the rifles. She saw a psychic who told her that she had to build a house for the ghosts and she…
“Join for networking,” is a clause I’ve found at the top of many associations’ membership offers. It’s an interesting benefit to focus on, because I’ve never met someone who actually likes networking. It’s sort of like saying to a potential member, “Come to a party where you don’t know anyone.” So why is networking highlighted?…
Yesterday, I joined a meeting on membership and marketing with CalSAE. The facilitator posed a question to the group asking how people were using video like TikTok to reach potential members. No one had a successful strategy. One of the executives on the call insinuated that it was a distraction. “Members join for a reason….
What belongs on an association website’s homepage? It’s the most important page on your site because it’s the most visited page. The challenge is determining what you should say, how much information you should provide, and what the order that information should be displayed in. It’s Tetris for experience design. Your organization is unique and…
In behavioral psychology there’s a concept called “loss aversion.” Loss aversion is the tendency we have as humans to prefer avoiding losses over equivalent gains. Of course we all prefer avoiding losses, but loss aversion says that our response to potential losses is more dramatic than to gains. The potential of losing creates more avoidance than…
“They’re not the only game in town anymore,” a peer recently told me, “I bet they’re having to learn how to compete like most private companies do.” We were discussing associations and the challenges of pitching membership. We live in a time of great abundance. The people that you’d like to become members have more…
A common marketing mistake that association executives make is that their messages have low relevance to a member or potential member. The messages don’t stick in their minds because it doesn’t connect with their situation. Critically important marketing where this low relevance issue manifests is in your membership offer. Rather than being intrigued by a…