Association Field Report (March 19, 2020)

 
Transcript:
Hi, guys, it’s JP. I wanted to give you an update from the field here on the 19th. First of all, I’m thinking about all of your organizations and your members and yourselves as you’re navigating this. And, what I’m trying to do is, give you almost a daily step-by-step. What we’re going through, what we’re feeling, and maybe just some observations for you that that I hope are helpful and encouraging to you as well. We’re going to get through this, I believe we’re going to play baseball this year, we’re going to find a way to do it. And, excuse these if they’re a little bit rough, because I’m doing them by myself at the office.
Some observations for you.
First of all, really important right now to reinforce engagement. And I’m going to give you a couple stories about sponsors and some of our discussions with them. A team member of ours this morning said, “Hey, I called an advertiser of ours in San Francisco, they’re on quarantine. We just called to say, ‘Hey, we’re thinking about you. If there’s anything we can do, let us know.’” The response was, “Oh my gosh, thank you so much for reaching out to me.” I can guarantee you that kind of long-term investment in these folks is really important.
The second thing is that we’re getting insertion orders daily for premium positions in magazines. So some of this business effort is moving into new areas. Very encouraging. Folks want to do business, but they may be going into some different formats. You might want to think about that.
Third is that we’re actually receiving some inbound requests. People are calling us for our association clients, asking if they can sponsor a webinar for association clients. This is because it’s so important for us to be engaging, and not to fall back and stop communicating, but actually to do it with the right tone. Be very proactive about it.
Over the years, your association has probably put a lot of work in establishing itself as an important business channel for your suppliers and your core members. That hasn’t changed. In fact, what we’re hearing is some of these suppliers actually want to become more active. We had a sponsor that actually wanted to sponsor a postponed meeting with the concern that eventually this thing is going to get scheduled and they wanted to be first in line for when it does happen.
We’re going to get through this and I really want to encourage you and reinforce the importance of staying engaged.
Hope this is helpful. We’ll talk to you tomorrow with something new, I hope. Thanks, bye bye.