Keep It Small

Posted by Katie Roper

May 1, 2019 2:11:00 PM

Vendors love the Environments for Aging conference, but encourage organizers to keep it small.

To help our clients make good decisions about where to spend their marketing dollars to reach senior housing and long-term care companies, Quantum Age surveys vendors (exhibitors, sponsors, or attendees) at the major industry conferences. Environments for Aging (EFA), held last month in Salt Lake City, Utah, got overwhelmingly positive reviews.

Well Worth the Money

Everyone who responded to our survey either “Strongly Agreed” or “Mostly Agreed” that EFA was worth the time and money to attend

  • Brand-Building: 90% felt strongly that the conference was a great place to build brand awareness with buyers;
  • Current Customers: Almost ¾ of respondents agreed it was an excellent place to connect with clients;
  • Lead Generation: Slightly fewer (70%) felt the exhibit hall was an excellent place to generate new interest among prospects.img-business-conference

Exhibitors were generally happy with exhibit hall traffic, both in terms of volume (65% Strongly or Mostly Agree) and quality (63% Strongly or Mostly Agree). Respondents felt that show floor visitors were eager to engage.

Official networking events were less popular, with comments about small venues and inadequate alcohol.

Insider Tips

We closed the survey by asking and open-ended question: what suggestions do you have for vendors hoping to get the most out of the show. There was a clear theme about planning ahead:

  • Reach out ahead of time to invite people to your booth;
  • Advertising in the show directory is a great way to get noticed;
  • Pre-show brand awareness is a big help;
  • And, for show organizers, there were a number of pleas to focus on smaller and more intimate sites, rather than large convention centers.

The Environments for Aging Conference focuses on the people developing, designing, and decorating senior housing buildings, so it’s not ideal for all vendors. But if your product is appropriate, attendees and exhibitors agree that it provides excellent value for money. Next year’s event is April 25-28 in Louisville, KY, for more information visit https://www.environmentsforaging.com.

Wondering if EFA is the right place for you? Let’s chat – kroper@quantum-age.com

 

 

And watch this space for our next vendor survey, focusing on the national Argentum conference.

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Heading to San Antonio for Argentum? Some Travel Highlights from a “Local”

Posted by Donna Paglia

Mar 28, 2019 10:36:21 AM

Very soon, participants of Argentum’s Senior Living Executive Conference will be collecting in San Antonio, Texas. If you’re like most busy professionals, you might find yourself under the gun to schedule meetings, let alone plan a little time to get out and see the sights. The good news? This town is packed with things to do – restaurants for every taste (and budget); shopping; adventure; and plenty of spots to simply relax and unwind. And take it from me, a resident of San Antonio, the choices can be overwhelming.

Downtown. Every tourist (and local) loves the Riverwalk. This is a must do, and it’s free! Stroll this 15-mile beautiful winding pathway, stopping along the way for a bite to eat, pick up a souvenir or two, and snap a few pics. Most restaurants have menus posted outside and offer both indoor and outdoor seating. You can also “ride the river” via Go Rio San Antonio Cruises for a narrated, guided tour of the area for appDowntown_SA_Croppedroximately $9-12.

The Alamo. If this is on your bucket list, you’ll be happy to know it’s an easy 7-minute walk from the convention center and open 9:00am-5:30pm daily. Consider the San Antonio Missions as well if you have time to immerse yourself in some San Antonio culture and history.

Dining. So many places, so little time! If you are staying in the downtown area, a few great selections would be Mi Tierra or La Margarita (for some Mexican fare and fun); Battalion (a restored firehouse) or Nonna (both are excellent Italian favorites); Bliss or Feast (both are unique New American); or Bohanan’s (amazing steaks and seafood). Start your day with an amazing breakfast at OCHO (Havana Hotel), Bird Bakery, or NOLA Brunch & Beignets. Reservations are required for most of these restaurants, and some are closed on Mondays.

Want to venture out a bit? Hop in a Lyft and head to the culinary and cultural destination called the Pearl (7 minutes from downtown). Unwind with live jazz music at Jazz TX (make a reservation if you can). Book a spa treatment at Hiatus. Or enjoy shopping or dining at one of the many options available. Check out Supper (inside Hotel Emma), Southerleigh, and Cured.

Another great spot for an afternoon of shopping, golfing, or dining is La Cantera. Approximately 20 minutes from downtown, this outdoor shopping venue is a favorite. You’ll find Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom’s, Macy’s, and everything in between. There are many fabulous restaurants including Perry’s Steakhouse, an excellent spot to impress a client or enjoy a special evening. La Cantera Resort & Spa is across the street and offers exceptional spa services and two championship 18-hole courses.

If adventure is calling you, consider Top Golf (high-tech sports entertainment complex anyone can enjoy), iFly (indoor skydiving venue), or Bowlero (small and large bowling events with interesting “lane side” menu options). All are within 20 minutes from downtown.

 

 

With so many options, it’s no wonder San Antonio is a popular favorite for many who make the “conference scene.” And, with a bit of this insider’s recommendations, here’s hoping this trip is your best yet!

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The 4 Keys to Maximizing Your Sponsorship Expenditures

Posted by Bruce Rosenthal

Feb 11, 2019 9:58:00 AM

Companies invest a lot of money in sponsoring membership associations. And for good reason: These associations can be ideal markets for companies, and companies that align with associations as sponsors can increase the likelihood of achieving their business goals with the association’s members. The power of affinity is significant.

Seems like an ideal situation. What can go wrong? Confidential interviews with sponsors of several leading associations are revealing:

· “Often we didn’t utilize the sponsorship benefits.”

· “As much as we would like to be a sounding board in the blogs or publicity at events as a sponsor, we did not always have the time to allot.”

· “We didn’t ask enough of the association. I could have asked more.”

  • “Our company’s challenge was keystaking advantage of what was available to us as a sponsor.”

For most companies, sponsorships are a marketing expense, not a philanthropic expense. If sponsorship was a philanthropic expense, companies would sponsor because it was the right thing to do, it was supporting a good cause, and the company executives want to feel good about their contribution.

Marketing expenditures, on the other hand, require a much more rigorous justification. Based on the way your company justifies its marketing expenditures, here are four ways to maximize the value of your sponsorships:

1. Understand your company’s sponsorship value proposition. Based on the association’s membership; communications to members; opportunities to engage with association leaders and other sponsors; etc., determine why your company wants to be a sponsor and what your company expects to gain as a sponsor. Be specific, including metrics if possible.

2. Negotiate with associations. Whether associations offer a standard list of benefits or a customized program, your company is in a position to negotiate. Based on your sponsorship value proposition described above, suggest to the association benefits that will help you fulfill your goals (while adhering to the association’s mission).

3. Appoint a liaison. Identify someone on your internal or outside marketing team to be accountable for implementing the sponsorship program for your company. This person should be knowledgeable about your company’s sponsorship value proposition and the association your company is sponsoring.

4. Implement the sponsorship. To have a successful sponsorship, work with the association’s staff to develop a plan with action items and deadlines. Then devote the time and resources (human and otherwise) necessary to implement the plan.

Some companies view sponsorships passively. Sponsorship jargon for implementing sponsorship benefits is activate. Companies should activate sponsorships with the same methodological approach they would use to implement a marketing campaign or advertising campaign.

If you would like more information about how your company can maximize your association sponsorship expenditures, contact Quantum Age.

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Will I See You at LeadingAge?

Posted by Katie Roper

Jan 15, 2019 10:15:00 AM

If you’re involved with the senior living industry, sooner or later you hear the question: “Will I see you at LeadingAge?” While there are lots of different state-level meetings of this association of senior living organizations, the question invariably refers to the Big Kahuna of conventions, the national LeadingAge conference (in Philadelphia in 2018, in San Diego in 2019).

As usual, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question for vendors. But to help our clients and others determine whether—and how—they should invest in LeadingAge, Quantum Age decided to survey the companies who either exhibited at or attended the Philadelphia conference this year.

Overwhelmingly Positive

Not only did 2/3 of respondents “strongly agree” that it was worth the time and money to attend LeadingAge, but fully 82% crossed the Net Promoter threshold and said they would recommend to othleadingage-pa-2017-recapers that they attend. That’s a very high number.

  • Leads: About half of vendor marketing personnel agreed that it is a good place to uncover new leads;
  • Current Customers: About half of respondents agreed that it is a good place to connect with existing clients/customers;
  • Brand-Building: Fewer (30%) called LeadingAge a good place to build awareness of your brand.

Most interesting, only 24% of respondents felt that the exhibit hall traffic was strong, and only 35% felt the networking events were excellent. So why the positive rankings? In reading the open-ended responses, it’s clear that people really value the “unofficial” events and informal networking – both with senior housing prospects and with other vendors.

Unofficial Events and Informal Networking

Quantum Age assisted a number of clients with these unofficial events. Here are a few examples:

  • Focus Group: A client of ours is considering launching a new service. We convened a focus group of senior housing operations executives to provide feedback on the idea. It was a great discussion and led to the company deciding to hold off for a year before launch – a much cheaper way to uncover the challenges than blundering into a premature offering.
  • Invitation-Only Reception: We used some local connections to book a “happy hour” gathering in a private room at a Philadelphia brew pub. This gave everyone a chance to recover from the day’s activities and re-group for party-hopping later in the evening. And it gave the host an excellent opportunity to show some love to current clients and build relationships with new prospects.
  • Masterminds Roundtables: To share best practices and build community among senior care industry professionals, Quantum Age hosts several Masterminds gatherings geared to specific disciplines—B2B marketing and architecture/design, among others. While some participants are initially hesitant to share openly with other companies that might (or might not) be competitors, by the end of the sessions all attendees enthusiastically engage, participate and swap business cards with their peers.

We closed the survey by asking and open-ended question: what suggestions do you have for first-time exhibitors? Several that I really enjoyed were:

  • Plan ahead and plan carefully for meetings and receptions, because they are often better than the “official” events;
  • Take the time to network with other exhibitors, in addition to attendees;
  • Get a booth close to the food station, not the door, because everyone makes a beeline for lunch!

If you’re considering exhibiting at LeadingAge 2019, October 28-30 in San Diego, and would like some help getting everything planned, organized, and implemented, Quantum Age does this every year for clients large and small. Ask me – kroper@quantum-age.com

 

 

And watch this space for our next vendor survey, after the national Argentum conference.

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Best Practices of Social Media’s Top 3: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn

Posted by Karen Taylor

Nov 6, 2018 3:21:00 PM

Ever since social media platforms took over our lives, they have moved forward with a continuous evolution. In the beginning, long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC) providers just posted marketing content and crossed their fingers. Today each platform offers a range of strategic marketing tools to help businesses promote their products, services, and brands, while also helping to attract prospects and customers.

Here are some of the many ways that the big three leading social media platforms — Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn — have advanced their marketing opportunities over the years.

Facebook — Leading Social Media Platform

Promote-Your-Brand-On-Social-Media

Facebook continues to be the reigning champ of social media sites. More than just a meeting place for friends, Facebook has grown into a venue for businesses to market themselves through interaction with customers and self-promotion. In 2016, over 93% of marketers were using Facebook to promote their companies. It’s become the platform of choice for LTPAC solution providers that want to showcase their technology expertise, for example.

Here are just some of the many ways marketers are using Facebook to promote their businesses and brands today.

  1.  Business Pages: These pages let businesses identify themselves, not just through listing product offerings and services, but also by sharing links, images, and posts on a customizable page.
  2. Classic Ads: Facebook offers its own form of advertising with Facebook ads (also called Marketplace Ads), which appear in the side columns. They include text, images, and click-through links.
  3. Promoted Posts: These let page owners pay a flat rate to have their individual Facebook posts reach a certain number of users, thereby, increasing a post’s reach and impressions.
  4. Sponsored Stories: These are a type of Facebook ad that shows a user’s interactions, such as a Facebook “like.” They seek to capitalize on the word of mouth marketing concept.
  5. Facebook Exchange (FBX): This tool lets advertisers take advantage of ad retargeting through real-time bidding. Advertisers can target audiences based on their web history data.

Twitter — Highest Number of Users

As one of the main social media platforms in number of users, Twitter is highly leveraged by ma

rketers. In 2016, about 76% of marketers worldwide started using Twitter to market their business. It’s an ideal platform for LTPAC solution providers to engage industry-related conversations.

Here are just some of the many ways marketers are using Twitter to promote their businesses and brands today.

  1. Ads Campaigns: Twitter Ads let you build a tailored campaign around your goals, audiences, and budget to promote Tweets, drive traffic to your website, and attract new account followers.
  2. Promote Mode: This monthly subscription service automatically promotes your company’s tweets with the aim of attracting a larger audience each month.
  3. Ads for Agencies: This tool allows agencies to create, manage, and realize the best results out of multiple campaigns using dedicated Twitter support and resources.
  4. Twitter Cards: Allows companies to attach rich photos, videos, and media experiences to Tweets, which help drive traffic to a website.
  5. Twitter Lists: These are a curated group of Twitter accounts. You can create your own lists or subscribe to lists created by others to reach highly targeted groups in the LTPAC segment.
  6. Twitter Chat (Tweetchat): A scheduled, organized topical conversation on Twitter centralized around a specific hashtag, which provides a way to acquire more followers.

LinkedIn — All Business All the Time

With over 562 million users, LinkedIn is all about building networks and connections, increasingly through promotions. In fact, over 91% of marketing executives list LinkedIn as the top place to find quality content. Also, LinkedIn makes up more than 50% of all social traffic to B2B websites and blogs.

Here are just some of the many ways marketers are using LinkedIn to promote their businesses and brands today.

  1. Company Pages: Pages help others learn more about your business, brand, products and services, and job opportunities using your unique URL.
  2. Showcase Pages: These function like sub-domains of your company page, allowing you to spotlight specific areas of your business, such as your quality scores, your antibiotic resistance program or other ongoing initiatives.
  3. Sponsored Content: The content appears in the feeds of LinkedIn members who follow your company, and may also be shown to members who fit your audience criteria.
  4. Ad Campaigns: LinkedIn offers two advertising options: self-service ads and managed campaigns. Both options let you target a unique audience among the site’s members by job title, function, industry, and more.
  5. Sales Navigator: An advanced sales tool that aids sales teams, organizations, and individuals in building and nurturing customer relationships.

While Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn began as simplistic social media platforms, today they are anything but. Now they offer marketers an array of sophisticated opportunities to promote their services, products, and brands. Such promotion takes time and effort. Social media is no longer just a “five-minute job.” But executing a consistent, well managed social plan will help you achieve your marketing and sales goals.

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SEO: Old-School Tactic or Leading-Edge Strategy?

Posted by Karen Taylor

Oct 26, 2018 2:59:00 PM

Are you confused about Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? If so, you’re not alone. Some believe SEO is history and no longer important. Others say it’s more important than ever. But what’s the reality? Is it obsolete or is it essential to successful marketing programs? We’ll break it down for you in this post.

First of all, SEO is not obsolete. It’s more important than ever. However, outdated SEO methods are obsolete and need to be replace with new SEO tactics.

The ongoing updates and changes to Google’s search algorithms are the very source of confusion for many of us. But the changes aren’t arbitrary. They are created both to improve search and to close loopholes that spammers are exploiting. It’s our job to keep up.

ultimate-seo-guide

SEO spammers work diligently to abuse SEO to their own advantage. They break all of the rules. As a result, they ruin SEO tactics for the rest of us. For example, if your long-term care residence has an excellent reputation and receives frequent referrals, a “black hat marketer” might attempt to mimic your brand with similar words or phrases—all in an attempt to draw consumers to their sites instead of yours. Perhaps an app marketer might bid for paid GoogleAds with the name of your app just to scoop up your customers behind your back.

Fortunately, Google is smarter than the black-hat fraudsters and is constantly evolving its methods to thwart them. But it’s important to keep an eye on your social media and report any black hat activity directly to Google.

Here are three examples of SEO tactics that have evolved from old-school to new-school methods.

1. Aim for High-Quality Link Building

In the old days, companies could guest post on other websites all over the internet, dropping their site link along the way like breadcrumbs. The more links they had, the higher they would rise on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Back then, there was no regard for the quality of the sites to which companies would hitch their wagons. More was always better, and that was the point. That was then. Now, you can still benefit from link building. But you need to link to legitimate, high-quality websites.

Here are a few tips to stay on the right side of Google:

  • Aim for quality over quantity. Today, one great link is better than 100 low-quality links.
  • Link to relevant websites. For example, do they rank for keywords that are important to your company?
  • Link to authority sites. The more authority a website has, the more link juice it can pass on to other sites.
  • Create reciprocal links. These are links that are both from your website to a quality site, and from the quality site to your site.

2. Create Useful, Quality Content

Gone are the days of generating tons of low-quality, “content-farm” copy — a common practice in the past. Today, content has to be excellent, add value, and engage visitors.

Google has made it abundantly clear that providing quality content that answers users’ questions is the way to get rankings and engaged traffic. In fact, Google saves the first SERP page for companies that provide their visitors with quality experiences.

As a result, the content of a site is crucial when it comes to ranking now. Here are a few tips:

  • Create Newsworthy Content. Google has developed algorithms that rank companies with the best content higher. Content that inspires real engagement gets a significant boost on search engine results, as well.
  • Make Your Content Credible. Use original links, research, reviews, citations, and testimonials to build authority.
  • Compose Useful Content. B2B and B2C customers go online to learn things about your strengths, your solutions or your quality rankings. So give them information they can use. Build content that’s instructional and helps solve problems.

3. Keywords

Keyword “stuffing” used to be de rigeur for ranking. Now it will just get you demoted on Google. You can thank black-hat users who abused the search tactic. This doesn’t mean keywords aren’t important. They are. But it’s how you use them that matters. Stuffing has been replaced with proximity, density, frequency, and prominence.

  • Keyword Proximity. Place your keywords in prominent areas of your web pages. Also, keep them a reasonable distance apart.
  • Keyword Density. Manage the proportion of keywords to the total number of words on a webpage. A basic rule of thumb is anywhere from 2% to 8%. Hint: place them where they sound natural and make sense
  • Keyword Frequency. Monitor the frequency with which specific keywords appear in your text.
  • Keyword Prominence. Keyword prominence refers to how close to the beginning of the web page, sentence, title, H tag, and meta description your keywords are placed. They should be placed as high as possible.

In a nutshell, SEO is not dying, but it is just getting smarter. And so should all of us. It’s important to dedicate the time, effort and resources required to optimize your SEO strategy.

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Content Confusion? Consider These Options for Modern Content Marketers

Posted by Karen Taylor

Oct 8, 2018 2:49:00 PM

Options for promoting organizations used to be simple: print ads, brochures, and press releases were the mainstays. Today the content marketing landscape is much more diverse and has expanded far beyond merely old-school methods. Now, to conduct content marketing campaigns that work, marketers need to create a wide range of content. What’s more, they need to use their content tools in the right order to move prospects through the buyers’ journey (the marketing funnel) — including attracting, nurturing, and converting.

So, what are the options and where do they fit into your marketing strategy? Here’s an overview of a number of content tools organized according to the three basic stages of the buyers’ journey.

Stage 1: Top of the Funnel

Goal: Attract Prospects

This is the widest end of the funnel, because your goal is to attract all potential future customers. This is often called the “discovery phase,” because the first goal is to help likely prospects discover your organization.

Because they know nothing about your company or even, perhaps, why they need your solution, educational content is the cornerstone at the top of the funnel. Going hand-in-hand with education is generating interest, so they’ll reach out to learn more about you.

In long-term and post-acute care, this stage is all about introducing yourself to the local community. Choose content that will showcase your brand’s vitality, activities and, of course, photos of happy, engaged residents. Don’t limit your choices only to older adults—also provide content that reaches out to their adult children, who often play crucial roles in choosing care providers for their loved ones.

To reach the vast universe of potential prospects at this first stage, you need educational content. Here are some examples:

  • Blog posts — educate, entertain, and enlighten from your own company website
  • Enewsletters — similar to blog posts in their purpose, but containing more bits of information and delivered on a regular schedule
  • Social media posts — regularly posting on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., provides an opportunity to educate, entertain, and enlighten people who aren’t aware of your brand
  • Short, entertaining videos — videos are among the most effective marketing tools to build awareness
  • Webinars — a great way to educate prospects about how your strengths or solutions make their lives better
  • eBooks — provides an opportunity to communicate a new idea to ideal prospects in an easy to read format
  • Guides — people love learning about innovative ways to improve their business processes

Stage 2: Middle of the Funnel

Goal: Nurture Leads

At the middle of the funnel — called “the consideration phase” — the goal is to turn newly acquired prospects into actual leads. Leads are potential customers who have taken a definitive step into your sales funnel by sharing their personal information (name and email addresses) with your company in exchange for some piece of valuable content.

Valuable content at this stage includes more detailed information about solutions to their problems. Think: evaluation and building trust versus hard sells.

At this stage, your sales funnel narrows down to those who have shown specific interest in your brand. Now, you’ll be speaking directly to the people who think your business might be able to help them. Create content that informs, nurtures, and clearly differentiates you from your competitors.

For example, post-acute care providers, especially skilled nursing and rehabilitation, need to reach out to both consumers and potential referral partners at this stage. Create consumer and B2B marketing content that shows why you are the best choice for ongoing health and wellness and the best place for hospitals to refer their discharged patients.

ContentMarketing810

To reach the universe of prospects at this stage, you need nurturing content. Here are some examples:

  • Case studies — create use cases of your strengths or solutions showing how they solve customers’ problems
  • How-to — detail how your products or services work
  • Demo videos — showcase how your products or services work visually
  • Product descriptions/data sheets — share all of the features and benefits succinctly

Stage 3: Bottom of the Funnel

Goal: Convert Customers

This is the narrowest part of the funnel. It’s where leads are turned into customers. At this point, leads remaining in the funnel are interested in what you have to offer. The job is to convince them you’re worth it, so they’ll become customers. Also, they need to feel confident that you’re the right fit fo

Long-term and post-acute care is a deeply personal service industry. When it’s time to convert, choose content that highlights your quality, safety, five-star ratings—anything that puts you ahead of local competitors. To clinch the deal with B2B partners, your data will speak volumes—show them why you’re the most qualified and least risk to a hospital’s quality ratings..

To convert your prospects at this stage, you need sales content. Here are some examples:

  • Testimonials — your potential customers care about what your current customers say about your strengths and solutions
  • Reviews — positive industry reviews will relieve any lingering fears about pulling the trigger
  • Comparison Charts — show how what you offer is different from what your competitors offer

At first glance, it may seem overwhelming to face the prospect of producing so much content to run a well-orchestrated content marketing program. But once your organization begins to see the results in attracting more prospects, nurturing more leads, and converting more customers, you’ll wonder how you ever marketed without a wide range of quality content.

 

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Why and How You Should Align Your Company with Associations

Posted by Bruce Rosenthal

Sep 27, 2018 12:25:49 PM

 

An effective way for a company to get its marketing messages to its target industry or profession is to become a corporate sponsor or partner of the trade or professional association or associations that represents those companies or individuals.

 

Sponsoring or partnering with an association has four key advantages:

 

1. The power of affinity: While sponsoring or partnering is not an endorsement by the association, there are advantages of being identified to the membership as a “sponsor” or “partner.”

 

2. Brand exposure/differentiation: Most associations have many dozens or hundreds of business firm members. By being one of a very small number of corporate sponsors or partners, companies will be more distinctive and will stand out in a crowd.

· Promotes a positive brand awareness, strengthens a brand and distinguishes the brand from competitors’ brands

· Enhances credibility and reputation by being affiliated with the association

resources-blog

· Fulfills the company’s philanthropic goals

· Fulfills the company’s social responsibility goals

· Improves consumer confidence

 

3. Thought leadership/business intelligence: Many companies affiliated with an association have information that is of value to members. Some associations allow only corporate sponsors and partners to disseminate this type of content to their members.

· Positions the company as a knowledge leader

· Identifies opportunities to educate members

· Identifies opportunities to provide strategic guidance to the association

· Provides access to data about the association’s industry/field

· Provides access to data about the association’s members

· Provides access to information on the needs of members so the company can provide targeted content

 

4. Business development/growth: The three advantages above all contribute to business development opportunities for corporate sponsors and partners.

· Provides access to a targeted group of key clients and prospects

· Creates potential for a more enhanced customer experience

· Affords a way to reinforce advertising with the association

· Generates stronger leads

· Increases the likelihood of referrals and recommendations as a result of having an “inside track” with the association, its board and its staff

 

There are many ways in which companies can collaborate with associations as corporate sponsors or partners to achieve the goals of the company and the association.

 

Content and Information

· Guidance for association members in the form of white papers, case studies, how-to guides, research, interpretations of regulations, etc.

· Thought leadership to inform the association and its board of directors regarding strategic planning for the association

· Information and data that can support the association’s public policy

· Data from the company about members and non-members in the industry/field/profession

· Information about trends in the association’s industry/field/profession

 

The Power of Affinity

· Support for the association’s vision and mission

· Opportunities for the association to influence corporate partners on issues affecting embers, public policy issues, etc.

· Corporate partner participation in disseminating the association’s messages to various audiences

Access

· Provides the association’s staff access to senior-level executives in sponsor and partner companies whom they might not otherwise meet

· Provides the association’s members access to senior-level executives in sponsor and partner companies whom they might not otherwise meet

 

Membership/Corporate Partner Prospecting

· Opportunities for membership recruitment of prospective members who are the company’s clients

· Introductions by the sponsor or partner company to other companies that might be interested in affiliating with the association

Corporate sponsorship or partnership of an association can be an important part of a company’s communications and marketing strategy. Sponsorship and partnership offers advantages unavailable to companies that aren’t aligned with associations in this way.

Quantum Age has extensive experience working with healthcare and aging services associations. To learn how to identify associations that would be a good match, negotiate corporate sponsorship and partnership agreements and effectively manage partnerships and sponsorships, contact us.

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Recruiting for the future? Find your ‘why’ first

Posted by Meg LaPorte

Sep 4, 2018 12:06:00 PM

How are you going to attract future generations to join your workforce? Experts recommend these best practices:

 

  • Be purpose- or mission- driven
  • Listen to your staff
  • Empower workers with some level of autonomy
  • Be a diverse and inclusive organization.

 

Blogger Alaina Love, chief operating officer and president of Purpose Linked Consulting, in a recent post on Smartbrief.com, outlines what Generation Z—individuals born between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s—is looking for in their work and their careers.

 

According to Love, research backs her assertion that Gen Zers are “among the most purpose-, passion- and values-driven talent cohort in the workforce.” This is evident in how they make purchasing decisions, what they seek in their employers and the direction of their career trajectories.startwithwhy

In fact, a recent Deloitte study of Gen Zers and millennials—those born in the early 1980s through the mid-1990s—found that both generations want business leaders “to take the lead in solving the world’s problems, to shift organizations’ motives from inordinately focusing on making profit to balancing social concerns, and to be more diverse, flexible, nurturing of and generous with its employees.”

In other words, organizations that meet these criteria will attract and retain the best of both generations and be better for it. How so? Love cites yet another recent survey of Gen Zers, in which half of the respondents are influenced in their purchasing by “a brand showing dedication to social impact, by giving proceeds to charity, being environmentally conscious, having strong values, or projecting an impact-driven image.”

Find your why

The evidence for becoming a purpose-driven organization is more overwhelming today than ever before. And one proven way to make purpose a priority is to discover your organization’s “why”—as in, why your company exists and why it does what it does. Known for delivering one of the business community’s most popular TED Talks, Simon Sinek has helped thousands of companies and millions of people identify their whys.

As a senior living provider, whether you are for-profit or not-for-profit, finding your why is an imperative that yields many benefits. In most cases, your why is not your official mission statement. Rather, it’s a simple, yet compelling statement that stimulates buy-in from others. An authentic why helps you maintain perspective, build a positive corporate culture and create a trustworthy organization that is connected to a purpose-driven business.

What’s more, living that why will help you attract others who are driven by purpose, inclusiveness, diversity and empowerment. As Love notes, next year, Gen Z will comprise 32 percent of the population, surpassing millennials as the most populous generation. How prepared is your organization?

To learn more about how Quantum Age can help you identify, cultivate and execute your why, contact us.

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Adopting New Media Without Abandoning Traditional Media Relations

Posted by Bruce Rosenthal

Jul 27, 2018 11:23:00 AM

Embracing new media formats and communications platforms is smart, but abandoning traditional media relations altogether can carry big risks.

The Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein explored the shifting corporate views on media relations and reporters. When he and other business reporters contact companies to write profiles about the company or the company’s industry, they are often rebuffed, Pearlstein notes in the column, “’No comment’: The Death of Business Reporting”. Sometimes the corporate communications director simply responds that the company’s executives are too busy to be interviewed for the article.

“Such is the sorry state of corporate media relations these days,” Pearlstein writes. “Even the prospect of a positive story can’t crack open the door to the executive suite.”

There are two reasons for this new approach by corporate communications departments, suggests Alan Murray, head of Fortune magazine, in the Post article: “One, they don’t trust us. And, two, they don’t need us.”

The reference to “trust” is a reflection of what is happening in politics and the media. The reference to “need” relates to the increasing reliance on “owned media” – such as websites, Internet search engines and social media – instead of “earned media.” Pearlstein cites a Corporate Executive Board study that reported corporate communications officers no longer report to the chief executive; they report to the head of marketing or the chief financial officer—a telltale shift.

Even public relations agency guru Richard Edelman promotes the need for corporations to “set up corporate news operations to communicate directly to employees, customers, investors and the public,” Pearlstein notes.

Traditional-Media-vs-New-Media-Which-is-Beneficial

Savvy companies employ several strategies to leverage today’s media forms without losing the value of traditional media relations.

· Adapt to the many and varied types of new media to convey corporate messages to internal audiences like employees and investors, customer audiences and consumer audiences. Websites, social media and search engine optimization (SEO) all have a role in a company’s “toolbox” of communications strategies.

· Focus on messaging and content—they’re still paramount. Not too many years ago, companies could adequately convey their messages with a press release or a media interview. However, the whole media world has changed. Effective communications now necessitates a strategy that focuses on website postings, Tweets, Facebook postings and LinkedIn articles. But it’s not that easy: the same message that was disseminated a few years ago in a two-page press release cannot be as easily conveyed in a 280-character Tweet or a two-paragraph Facebook post.

· Don’t ditch traditional media relations. Pearlstein talked with some corporate executives wh

 o said they fear negative stories, so they believe it is too risky to engage with reporters. One executive told Pearlstein “What [company executives] don’t realize is that by not responding, by not engaging, that is communicating a message that [the media is] not worth their time. And when the time comes that they need the media to explain something important and complex, they will have no credibility.”

As an agency focused on healthcare and aging services, Quantum Age is uniquely positioned to help companies adapt to many types of media, develop quality messaging and content and create a media relations strategy. Please contact Quantum Age for more information.

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Topics: media