The key to growth for many associations and non- profits is the growth of their membership. Each year the membership grows but also there can be a drop due to attrition, making it even more important to attract new members.

The associations are dependent on not just their membership fees but also external funding. However, this funding source is usually tied to the membership growth numbers so it still all comes down to membership numbers being the key to success for an association. Marketing costs can make it expensive for an association to grow.

Marketing involves offline and online marketing such as a website and email campaigns. Most associations don't have the resources or skills to market online, so they resort to the tried and true methods of paper newsletters, ads in local business publications, and possibly an occasional email campaign.

When an association needs to market more to increase growth in membership, the costs to do so can be high relative to the return they get in new membership "sales". What are some ways that an association can use to increase the growth of their membership without the high cost of traditional marketing?

One idea is to use the concept of affiliate marketing, which is a type of online marketing that has been around for several years but only now is beginning to branch out beyond pay per click or pay per sale. Affiliate marketing used effectively can increase membership without the high marketing costs associated with the traditional methods.

So how does an affiliate strategy work in the context of an association or non-profit looking to increase their membership? The fundamental idea of affiliate marketing is to reward someone for referring you business. That referral can take many forms such as a sale, a lead, or a click on a website. Another name for affiliate marketing is performance marketing. In other words the merchant pays when an event tied to their performance occurs. In the case of an association wanting to increase performance in signing up new members, we could set up a system where a reward is paid to someone referring a new member.

Most non-profits and associations may not be comfortable with paying for new members, but there are other ways. For example the referring member could get points for making a successful referral. At the end of the year the members with the most points could get some special recognition - e.g. a bottle of wine, or their names on the association's website, or invitation to an executive dinner. It doesn't always have to be money in exchange for the new membership. If money is not a big issue, the referring member could maybe get a small discount on their next year's membership.

The key idea is to make the members affiliates for the association. The affiliates who refer the most new members get recognition from the organization and some sort of reward for helping the association boost their membership numbers.

Communication is one of the extra benefits of establishing an affiliate strategy for your association. You get to communicate the new programme to all the members, who can now also be called affiliates. They will be incentivized to go out and talk up the organization, creating an army of sales people spreading valuable word of mouth advertising to new members. Communication can also be online in the sense that the new members could have an affiliated link back to the website of the mother organization, from their own websites. Increasing qualified traffic to your site can also result in higher conversions or new members signing up.

Competition is a good thing too. Some of the existing affiliates will try to compete with each other to see who gets the most new members at the end of the year or whatever period you have chosen.

Another benefit of the affiliate strategy is that the affiliates can take the new members under their wing, invite them to the first few meetings, and introduce them to other members. In other words, a mentorship system has been enabled as result of the affiliate programme. The increased competition and communication between the association, affiliates, and new members can result in not only an increase in membership, but a closer relationship with all the members and the organization.

Websites are one way to route qualified new members to your signup page. The affiliates put links or banners on their sites and have a link back to your site, with their affiliate code embedded in the link. If the new members signs up after visiting via an affiliated link, then the affiliate gets the credit for the referral. Coupons can also be used in such a way that the affiliate id is encoded in the coupon they give out. Some coupon systems can also provide a discount to the purchaser so that they have some incentive to use the coupon, guaranteeing the referring affiliate their credit.

Email can also be used as a way to recruit new members within the affiliate strategy. Some of the affiliates may have their own mailing lists of customers, partners, employees etc. They probably send out a newsletter now and then to their base of contacts. In this newsletter they could mention your organization and the benefits of joining. The email could include a link to your site and once again it could have the affiliate id embedded in the link.

Email campaigns should be managed carefully so that the affiliates are not seen to be spamming their readers with your signup page. It is vital that your members have an email opt-in system so that their readers have agreed to get email from them and also have a way to opt-out at any time.

Automation of the affiliate programme is important. You don't want to have to spend hours explaining to your members how it all works. Make sure you have a plan to train your staff in the use of the system, and get a system that makes most of the signup and tracking automatic, so that you can focus on evaluating the benefits and tweaking your programme. Otherwise you will be back in the situation of having high marketing costs which may not justify the added memberships for that period. The image of your organization will improve just by the fact that you have adopted some clever internet marketing technique to the special needs of your association. Some members will appreciate the fact that their member fees are not being spent on expensive offline ads, but instead on building the membership from within.

Make sure you spend the time in the upfront planning of your affiliate strategy and select the right software based on your requirements. There are many packages - hosted and non-hosted available. For an association needing just the basics, there are several which could meet your needs. The key is to plan as much as possible before jumping in and purchasing a system.

Done right, an affiliate strategy can bring you value in terms of new members and improved relationships with your existing members.

Launching a successful fundraising campaign is much more complicated than it appears on the surface. On the surface it would seem that if you have a worthwhile non-profit cause that you are promoting, people would buy whatever you are selling because they want to help your organization. In reality, constructing a fundraising campaign is more like launching a small business. You must choose a product or service to sell, market that product or service, and keep tabs on customer satisfaction; all while making sure that you are generating the revenues that you need to accomplish your organization's goals.

First, let's look at some examples of how not to do fundraising. I can clearly remember being practically held at gunpoint by a coworker, who said "You know, my daughter is selling girl scout cookies, I just wanted to know how many boxes of girl scout cookies can I put you down for?" My response would be "Uh, three?" She responded with "I will just put you down for five, they aren't expensive you know." Why does this tactic not work? Because it often leaves a bad taste in the customer's mouth and resulted in me hiding from other coworkers, whom I knew had daughters in girl scouts.

Cookies seem to be a harmless product that appeals to everyone. Candy bars are much the same, since they typically have mass appeal. I remember my grade school sending us out to sell boxes of candy bars that usually ended up being bought by my parents. But not everyone likes cookies and candy bars. Why not actually market a product that people want or need?

Much of your fundraising efforts and marketing strategy needs to focus on who your target market is. Who do you think will contribute to your charitable cause, and what product or service do those customers desire? Answering this question is where the fundraising planning should begin.

Let's use an example of an international student group at a major university. While there are virtually dozens of individual international student groups, we will focus on the generic, overarching international student association. Now let's suppose that these students want to raise money so that they can bring in guest speakers or to display an information booth at a local event. Whatever their reason for needing a fundraiser, they will need to turn to those who are willing to support their cause.

It is safe to assume that the target market of the international student association is other international students. Now that we have defined the target market we need to develop a product or service that the target market would find to be valuable; cookies and candy bars? Maybe. How about instead of the traditional methods, we look at something that these foreign-born students could actually use, an international telephone calling card. Doesn't this sound like a much better idea? Not only is it useful, but also it can save the students money when they phone home. As we know, college students are frequently short on money.

This is an example of a fundraising campaign that put some thought into the target market and what product or service would match up with the needs of that target market. If you are in the international student association and trying to raise money from other international students, you understand that these other students want to contribute, but they live on a strict budget. Using international telephone calling cards will not only save them money when they call home, but it will also generate the needed revenue for the student association.

There are companies who offer these international calling cards that offer huge savings over calling internationally using the traditional methods. These phone card companies offer the fundraising group a residual income of 15% on the web recharges sales. There is no actual selling involved, since you simply offer promotional codes for the student to use. These promotional codes give the students a couple of dollars of free airtime to try the service out. If the students like the product, and recharge the phone card, the student association receives a 15% commission off of that recharge. This commission does not just happen once either, it happens every time the customer buys a web recharge on the phone card. One such phone card company that offers this service is "Send Global". You can visit http://www.sendglobal.info to learn more about the affiliate program.

This example, which happens to be a real life example, can generate big revenues for the international student association, while providing a needed service. No more do you have to pester coworkers or friends into donating money, only to have them resent you later. No more cookies or candy bars being sold to people who don't eat sweets. Now, you can actually help the members of your group and those interested in assisting your group. Fundraising campaigns are obviously much more complex than they first appear. A successful fundraising campaign requires a well thought out plan that identifies the target market and identifies an appropriate product or service that the target market will want to utilize.

As in any business, once you've been the publicity business for a while you start to discover those little insider secrets that make life so much easier. Those little tricks of the trade that typically give the old pros an unfair advantage. That's what this article is about. We try to cover some of the little know facts of the publicity game that might make your life a bit easier. I'm going to cover some of the little know facts of the publicity game that can make your life a lot easier.

One of the very powerful ways of getting completely free publicity is to somehow get associated with a non-profit organization. By rule, all advertising venues are required to give away a percentage of their advertising to non-profit organizations. The twist here is that the stations have to give away the space, but they can decide who to give it to. If you can put together professional looking advertising and commercials, you're probably going to be high on the list of groups that get PSA's (public service announcements). Of course, that presents a problem for organizations that aren't non-profit.

Let's say you own Tom's Hardware store. Obviously, Tom's Hardware store doesn't qualify for non-profit status, so how can you benefit from the PSA's? You can do it by associating yourself with a non-profit. This can happen either by starting your own non-profit branch of your company or you can sponsor something for an existing non profit.

Let's look at both. First, you can establish your own non-profit branch.

Suppose Tom's Hardware put together a package where supplies and advice was available to families in medical need, similar to Ronald McDonald House. You start it up and then apply for government grants to help fund it. You get local churches and philanthropists to make grants that translate into help for needy families. You have some of your sales people on hand to help walk-ins deal with problems. And you promote heavily for all the "good work" being done by the "Tom's Hardware Support Center" and the other individuals and groups helping you. Yes, it'll help the cause a great deal, but every time you get the name of the non-profit and their work out, Tom's Hardware gets a plug.

The other alternative is to simply become a sponsor for a charity. Call the Red Cross and offer to mount a major blood drive for them. You organize your employees but you also invite the Bloodmobile to be on hand near your shop on a certain weekend. You might even toss in a discount coupon for anybody that donates blood. Now, suddenly you can officially send in press releases and clips to be used as PSA's (for free) promoting the "Tom's Hardware All City Blood Drive".

There are other ways to maximize this opportunity. Suppose Tom's Hardware were to call the local paper and offer to write a column on home building, or maintenance, from a professional's point of view. You can hire a local writer to do the actual writing, but have them answer questions or address various themes that seem interesting to the general public (curtains, wallpaper, carpeting, etc).

Now the paper will feel great about the fact that it's offering a regular column that's drawing readers. Of course, the column can officially be headed "Tom's Hardware Answer Man" making you not only the authority, but also keeping your name out there for all to see.

A similar strategy can be done on local radio stations. You can call and discuss doing a radio program. Usually the station will ask newcomers to buy the time themselves. In essence, you're starting with an infomercial, although to the listening audience it sounds like any other talk show on the air.

Obviously, you could just pay for the time and plug your company at all the breaks, but that usually isn't necessary. In Tom's case, he has a long list of suppliers who all want their products to be advertised.. So now you can get on the air, complete with your own sponsors, and not have to pay anything to consistently have your name out there in the public's eye.

During the various breaks you'll end up doing ads for "Delco Paint---the one to have", etc. Every area of publicity had tons of these tiny areas where you can make things work more to your advantage. That's one of the things that makes publicity so exciting. My members are constantly coming up with new, exciting ways of getting lots of publicity. One of the biggest thrills you'll have is coming up with a new way of getting publicity and being successful with it.

The Internet can be a scary place for those looking for a home-based business opportunity. The fear of not connecting personally with others is one concern and many people have been "taken" by online scams in their search for a legitimate business and are fearful to take any more risks. One way to overcome fears such as these is to market your online business locally. By simply offering the person a contact that they can speak to and possibly even meet face to face you will making the statement that your business is legitimate and trustworthy.

It is effective to market your online business locally primarily because potential customers and business recruits prefer to have the option of speaking with the business owner face to face. By attracting customers locally, you can maximize the opportunities to meet with them. You will no longer be that "someone they found online," but someone that they will be able to relate to and feel confident doing business with.

But how do you market locally? Here are some excellent tips:

Besides the common local advertising routes, such as Newspaper Ads, Yellow Pages, Etc., another effective (and inexpensive) way to advertise locally is to post business related flyers around your community. Many grocery stores, libraries, bookstores, and office supply stores offer bulletin boards for this purpose. Make yours stand out and be recognized, yet professional enough to warrant someone trusting you with their business. Also, if possibly have a tear-off section on your flyer so they can take your number and leave your flyer.

Look for events geared toward work-at-home businesses. There are organizations, such as the National Work at Home Mom Association, that hold events across the nation to help promote the work- at-home business owner. At events such as these, you can purchase a booth and make hundreds of local contacts, as well as sales, all in one day.

Reach out to your community. Join your local Chamber of Commerce, get involved in community events and become known to those around you. Pass out flyers and hand out business cards to everyone you meet. Door Flyers also work well for marketing - pick one neighborhood a week and go door to door. Be consistent with your marketing with door flyers, too. If a potential customer sees your ad repeatedly, they will feel more inclined to use your services in the future. Magnets can be great promotional items as well. You can have magnets printed with your business information and hand them out to people that you speak to about your products. Potential clients can keep these on their refrigerator or filing cabinet. You can also leave flyers, magnets or even catalogs around town in places like doctor's offices, hair salons, etc.

Volunteer in your community for marketing success. Diana Ennen of Virtual Word Publishing, Inc. suggests, "Volunteer at school events such as PTA meetings or community functions. When your child's school needs a flyer, volunteer to do it and attach your card to it. Look to see where you can also inexpensively advertise. Often ads in the kid's yearbook or community events newsletter will get your more exposure than the expensive ads in the daily newspapers."

Direct mail is another great tool for gaining local clients. Get the Yellow Pages out and write a professional letter or send your brochures or postcards to those that would be interested in your products or services. Send a mailing to local businesses that my be interested in offering your products to their customers. For example, if you sell home décor products, send a professional letter to real estate agents in your local area. In the letter, describe how your products would be valuable for them to use as thank you gifts when they sell a home.

It's important to talk to everyone you possibly can about your business. You can find prospective customers in line at the grocery store, while waiting at a doctor's office, or even while playing at the park with your children. Let others know that you are excited about it and believe in it. If the people around you hear the excitement in your voice, they may become excited about your business, too! You'll be rewarded with more sales and a business that prospers from year to year.