Interview with a Member

Meet Bob Waller, President and CEO of Association Headquarters. He's also the Chair of the new Outreach and Engagement Task Force.

 

We’ve asked Bob to give us the inside scoop on AMCI’s direction and priorities, and what marketing success will mean.

What is the Outreach and Engagement Task Force - what does it do?
Our charge is to provide state guidance and insight into AMCI’s objective of increasing business opportunities for the members.

The marketing strategy talks about thought leadership - how will focusing on that and content development help AMCs?
It’s important that AMCs, in order to grow their business lines whether full service or project-based, must be thought of in the same way as stand-alone executives. A great way to achieve this is to focus on areas where we can showcase our expertise in various disciplines of association management. It also positions AMCs as effective solution providers by addressing association’s needs and priorities.

What are some of the major initiatives you're taking on this year?
Several – we are looking to improve our internal communications to the members and to build on our existing platforms such as LinkedIn and Twitter as well as our website to make the information and conversations taking place more interesting and helpful. We are currently reviewing the results of the association executive/volunteer behavioral research undertaken in the last quarter to see what messages we can craft to help our members better understand what prospective clients are looking for, and help our prospective clients better understand the value of the AMC model. We are developing new and expanding previous marketing metrics to show the real impact of our efforts. And we plan to involve our entire membership in creating content that makes AMCI the ‘go to’ organization to find leading thinking in association management.

What will success look like to you?
We will be more effective at communicating the depth and breadth of the expertise and resources AMCs can provide to volunteer-led organizations so the AMC model is a more often considered and selected choice, thereby increasing new business opportunities for our members.

If a member would like to get involved, is there an opportunity?
Yes, in some of the various marketing initiatives as we roll them out – and at the end of every quarterly newsletter we have a call for content. So if you have a great infographic, case study, or best of/top ten list, let us know so it can be considered for future use. We’d also like to hear from you on what topics and information you would like to see addressed by us.