Marketing

The Australian Hairdressing Council (AHC) based in Newcastle, New South Wales sets standards for salons and represents the professional hairdressing industry nationally. The AHC wanted to improve their marketing efforts through increasing brand awareness and engaging web users, where they would normally be lost once leaving their website.

The way in which we use social media is evolving each day and estimates indicate within the near future the majority of adults will obtain their information from social media networks rather than search engines. This may already be the case for you whether you have realised it or not. Social media networks continue to grow in terms of users and reach and there is no doubt they will become a primary source of referral traffic to your website and blog.

Member retention is a crucial aspect of any association and improving retention rates is on everyone’s to do list. The reason is simple with statistics and industry findings indicating that on average a business loses 50% of their customers every five years. This can also cost an organisation up to 7-10 times more than retaining existing members.

Not only are retention techniques important but new member recruitment is also vitally crucial.

Content is Key

Innovation is about having a new idea, device or process that is viewed as having a better solution to a problem that meets a new requirement or market need. Innovative ideas are being shared with us every day whether we realise it or not.

Associations and their members, sponsors, staff, committee and stakeholders face obstacles day in and day out and knowing the answer is not innovation. Rather innovation is all about asking the right questions.

First Step

Drupal is an open source content management platform that powers millions of websites and online applications. The framework is built, used and supported by an active and diverse community of people from all over the globe. What makes Drupal so unique is that it allows you to easily organise, manage and publish content with an endless variety of customisation.

One of the major challenges associations face is organisational change and knowing how to manage staff efficiently during a major transition. Enabling “forgotten” staff to be leaders is one of the steps that allows leadership from the back office.

Leadership is all about maximising the efforts of others towards a common goal, which is where the idea of encouraging leadership from the back office was established.

Why you need back office contribution

Traditionally, knowledge was only accessible to a privileged few and it was valued, protected, guarded and used only in controlled environments. Now with the development of the internet and mobile networks ‘Connect Communications’ emerged and has arguably disrupted the market for knowledge more harshly than other industries. The disruption continues and the potential effects on the institutionalised education have not yet been realised. 

Trends of current digital disruption within the education sector

Personaliation is the Key

Trends are changing, demographics are shifting, and the tech revolution and consumer demand for increased personalisation of services are present, varying the customer decision roadmap.

Does your association or Not-For-Profit organisation website currently offer encrypted HTTPS connections to members and web visitors? Are you using HTTPS by default for administration logins? These are important questions to ask yourself and if your answer is no or you are unsure you may be putting both your site and users at risk.

Privacy no Longer  

This year marks the 10th anniversary for Aspedia where we reflect on past major achievements, as well as planning for the next 10 years of technology advancements and innovations. View our past 10 years of Growth [Infographic].