Transcript
Let's get started. Is everybody seeing the slide? Michelle, are we seeing the slide? Yes, we are. Okay, great. Okay, so welcome everyone and thanks for joining us. For the next hour, we're going to talk about something most chambers overlook. It's your publication. Not the layout, not the design, not the ad sales pitch, it's the role a publication can play in your chamber's overall strategy. I'll take you through a framework, give you seven practical tips, which you'll also get as a PDF, and end with a one thing that you can do this week to move the needle forward. I'm Ed Rzepsminski and I'm president of Chamber Marketing Partners. We've been helping chambers of commerce produce relevant publications as non-dues revenue assets since 2010. And our core business is being a resource and a project manager for chambers that are producing their publications in-house or those who want to convert to in-house. We also do a small number of turnkey projects. And personally, I've been producing publications for chambers of commerce since 1991. And I believe I'm the only vendor that's gone through and graduated from WACE's Academy program. Okay, enough about me. Let's dig in. So let me start with where every publication should start, with a question. What is your publication really doing for you? Let's sit with that for a second. Not what it does at the surface. Yeah, it gets produced, the ads get sold, and issues get distributed, or they sit in the storage room. But what is it exactly doing? And for a lot of chambers, honestly, the answer really is it checks a box. It generates some revenue, it lists the members, and boxes sometimes sit in a storage unit or the conference room. And then when it's time to do another one, the boxes get thrown out. "It's the way it's always been done." people say, and everybody moves on. But when a chamber publication is positioned right, it can also be so much more. Positioned the right way, a chamber publication plays three strategic roles. One, it reinforces the chamber's value. It shows what the chamber actually does, so businesses see the chamber's value proposition. And second, it promotes the members in the community. And third, it generates real, consistent, non-dues revenue. Not as a goal, but as an outcome. So, there's three roles. Okay, so here's the framework I want you to carry out of this webinar. Most chamber publications fall into one of three categories. One is the reference. It's a directory. It lists It has lists and ads. There's no real point of view. Two is the ritual. "Oh, this is the way we've always done it." And it's usually kind of a jumble of a whole bunch of different stuff and listings. And then number three is the asset. It has a defined audience, a defined message, and it creates a journey for the readers. So, as we walk through the next slides, ask yourself honestly, which category is my publication in? Okay, so tier one is the reference. This is a yellow pages approach for those of you who are old enough to remember the yellow pages. It's a directory of members, categories, and phone numbers with ads nested among the listings. There aren't any articles, there's no real reader journey, there's no point of view. Maybe a couple of yearbook pictures with headshots of board members, and who really cares about that other than the board members? The chamber story is barely visible, if at all, in the chamber's own publication. And advertisers buy in the same way that they bought into the Yellow Pages ads because that's where the listings are. It's transactional. It's not strategic. Now, it's not a bad publication. It's just a limited one. Kind of a dinosaur, actually, since online is really built for listings. And who doesn't use Google or whatever to look up listings for stuff? So, if this is you, you're leaving a lot on the table. Tier two, the ritual. The tell is a single sentence you've probably said to yourself, "We have to do the directory again." Those words, have to, tells us everything. It's a ritual publication that's usually a jumbled mix of articles and ads and listings and committee pages and board photos. It's produced because it's always been produced that way. And the content, does this sound familiar? Just pick up the content from last year's book. Nobody's going to read it anyway. Here's the diagnostic. Ask some staff and maybe some board members and some key stakeholders about your publication. Ask, "Who's this for? And what's the one thing we want them to walk away with?" If everybody has a different answer, or maybe they can't even answer that question, you might have a ritual publication on your hands. And don't fret, many chambers live in this space. Tier three. Now, this one, this one's the asset. It's built by answering three questions first. You know who it's for. You know what your messaging is. And you know how it's reaching that particular audience. Every page leads somewhere on purpose. And the chamber is why it exists, not as a section or a letter, but as an engine. Here's what changes when you reach this this level or this category. Revenue stops being the goal, revenue becomes the outcome. Advertisers stop being hunted and they start calling you because the publication has earned its way into their marketing process. I'll tell you a story about that uh exactly that in a few slides. So, how do you actually get to that tier three, that third category? It starts with a planning tool that's almost embarrassingly simple. It's just three questions. Who's your audience? What do we want to say to them? And how are we going to reach them? That's it. It's simple. It's deceptively simple. Because the real work isn't asking the questions, it's answering the questions with specificity. So, let's go over each one. Question one, who's our audience? The ritual answer is our members in the community. Okay, well, that's pretty vague. It could describe any chamber publication which actually means it describes none of them. The asset answer is specific. New residents loc- relocating from another state. Existing small business owners. Prospective corporate relocators. Maybe it's high tourist high income tourists that are staying for more than a week. Maybe we're targeting bleisure travelers, those that are in town for business and extend a few days for pleasure. Your audience determines everything downstream, the tone, the topics, the channels, the ad inventory, what you're going to sell, even the size of the publication. But, if you skip this step, nothing else really works as well as it could. Okay, so question two. What do we want to say to them? That's the key is the messaging has to be relevant to the audience. Looking from inside out, which is the ritual move, this is what it sounds like. Here's what the chamber does. Here are our programs. Here are committees. Here are staff. It talks about features. It can read like an annual report because, honestly, sometimes they are an annual report. But from the outside in, which is where the asset move is, it sounds different. Here's why this community is worth betting your business on. It talks to the audience about what matters to them, about what's in it for them, how it benefits them. The chamber still shows up in the content, but as the engine, as the driver, not the subject. All right, so question three. How will we reach them? What's the format? What's the frequency? How often are we going to do it? What's the channel that we're going to get connect with them through? It's chosen to fit the audience, to connect with them where they are. Print, an annual guide or quarterly magazine, it's a high-trust publication. It's visible. It has a long usable life. And it's best for like residents, people relocating, newcomers, visitors, that kind of thing. Then the digital component, a digital magazine or content hub that's searchable, that's shareable, that lives online 24/7. So with both a print and a digital extension, they've got to work together. They've got to be together. You connect with the people where they are and how they're consuming their information. The print anchors the trust. The digital extends the reach and broadens visibility. QR codes, among other things, link the two of them together. A quick note for chambers struggling with their value proposition. Print is very cash-intensive, which means printing can be really expensive, and it requires a bunch of cash. If your chamber's value proposition is weak, then a publication may not reach the goal you want it to. Don't be afraid of the cash. Plan for an asset publication first. I've talked with several chambers over the past 12 months who wanted to produce a magazine because they thought it would help the chamber grow. They were more smaller chambers. But then I asked them, "Okay, if I'm a business in your town, why should I join your chamber? How does it benefit me? What's in it for me?" Now, the right answer should be, "I'd love to tell you about that, but would you mind telling me a little bit about your business first?" Or another one another good answer would be, "I'd love to tell you, but tell me, what are the some of the things that are currently holding your business back?" Okay, those are two really good answers to the question, "Why should I join?" Instead, I usually get a list of features. "We've got mixers. We've got networking events. You can meet other business people. You got marketing and sponsorship opportunities." And honestly, if you don't ask anything about me and my business, I could care less about that stuff. Or maybe I do, but you don't know unless you ask. Some chambers have even struggled to come up with features. So, if you're in that space, I'd suggest you build a value proposition first for your chamber. Use your website. Bolster the website with benefits, not features. Use social media to build the chamber's value proposition, then layer in the print. A little later in this presentation, I'll share a powerful tip that can help you build a strong value proposition. And now I You notice I was saying benefits and features. There's an old adage, "Features tell, benefits sell." We'll do a whole 'nother webinar on features and benefits. Okay. Those three questions aren't just a planning tool. The answers create your sell story to sell advertising. What audience your ad will reach, what the messaging is for that audience, and how your ad connects with them, how it gets to them, where they're going to be. Answer these three questions and you're building your advertiser pitch at the same time. It's the same work, it's two payoffs. This is why asset publications generate more revenue, not because they hustle harder, because they've done the work and the pitch is already written. Okay, I want to tell you a story. Years ago I was working with the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce, yes, the Beverly Hills in Los Angeles, uh on their community guide. And one day a real estate broker called us. Uh it was an advertiser. Not in response to an ad campaign and not during the ad renewal season. It was just a cold call. He said, "This is the most comprehensive overview of Beverly Hills I've ever had. I give them to my high-end home home buyers and prospects. Can I order a few more boxes?" He called because the guide had earned its way into his sales process. And that's what an asset publication does. And I've watched this pattern play out for more than 30 years now. The publications that get this right don't chase advertisers. The advertisers end up chasing them. As an aside, selling really isn't about pitching. It's more about solving problems and asking questions before making a pitch. Clearly a problem was solved for this real estate broker. And sometimes, yeah, we're forced to make a pitch. I know I'm talking a little bit about selling. Sometimes we're forced to making a pitch, so having done the asset class work, the pitch is clear and concise. And you can use it as an example, just like this one. Oh, well, tell me about the publication. Well, this guy from real turn Beverly Hills, blah blah blah blah blah. That's a powerful story. And it'll do either resonate with somebody or not. And if it doesn't resonate with them, the salesperson gets to know and they get the opportunity to move on. Makes their job easier. One more quick story. We're currently helping the Malibu Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce in California produce a publication. And it started out as a visitor and community guide. Then mid-project, there was a devastating fire that wiped out almost all of Pacific Palisades and some of Malibu. So, there was a delay a delay in the publication and the focus was shifted. Still a visitor's guide and community guide, but we added in a rebuild section where renovators and contractors could advertise. Why? Because we changed the value proposition of the guide. The guide is now it's mailed to businesses and residents in Pacific Palisades. Yeah, I know it was wiped out, but because they have forwarding addresses at the at the mail post office, it reaches those people where they moved to, connecting those contractors with the people who need their services. So, you see that was kind of adapting to the environment and that attracted these contractors. Okay, let's zoom in on one more strategic point. The chamber is why the publication exists, not as a section, not a welcome letter from the president, but the engine. The ritual treatment looks like this. You have a president's letter, you have a board page, so you have some headshots. You've got a committee list, you've got member listings. Okay, we've all seen that. The asset treatment looks different. Success stories are woven throughout the content. Member voices are proving the value. Committee outcomes are described instead of the committee names. You use examples. You're showing readers what's in it for them. The chamber is visible in most section, not as the "Hey, we're the chamber and we're so great." But here's something that benefited a member or benefited the entire community. As an example, you could say, "Well, the issue was blah blah blah blah blah. The solution was blah blah blah blah blah. And the chamber facilitated bringing together uh all the resources to affect the solution." That's not "Hey, we're the government affairs committee. We're so great. We do all this good stuff." That's an example. It's an outcome that readers and people who say, "I don't know what a chamber of commerce does." can look at that. And you can reuse that in your website, social media. That kind of stuff is gold and powerful for building a value proposition. Okay, strategy's done. Let's get practical. The These are the seven tips to help move your publication from a ritual publication to an asset. These are actionable. You can start right away. And you don't have to go in any particular order. And by the way, you're going to get a PDF of these tips, too, after the webinar. Tip number one, embrace who you are. Whether you're a tourist town, a bedroom community, a rural area, a growing city, or a major metro, lean into it. Stories that reflect your own town's heart and soul resonate so much more than data points. And critically, they give advertisers a defined audience to buy into. So, your Monday morning move, write one sentence that starts with "This community is the kind of place where" Don't finish it. Share it with your team. If you can't finish that sentence, that's your first writing project. Figure out who you are. Embrace it. Love it. Tip number two, Start with the three key questions before any publication, before any campaign or actually any project, answer who, what, how. Remember, this is the planning framework and the sell story in the same three answers. So, at your next publication planning meeting, don't start with the table of contents. Start with the three questions on a whiteboard or wherever. Don't move on until you have clean, specific answers. Tip number three. Include interviews with locals, residents, business owners, newcomers. Why did they move here? What keeps them here? What are their favorite places to go? Where do the locals go? That's gold stuff. Why did they start their business here? Why did they move their business here? Doesn't have to be long, just a couple sentences, but those are gold. Their words add emotional connection and they tell your community story in a way your staff never could. Pick three people this week, one resident, one business owner, one newcomer. 10-minute conversations. Record them on your phone. Most phones transcribe automatically now. On the iPhone uh version iOS version, I don't know, 150, whatever it is. Uh when you're on a phone call or even you've got your voice recorder, just turn on the voice recorder. If you're on a phone call, you can click on the the record the call and it'll say I'm recording the call. You got to get permission to do that, but it'll transcribe it. So, you don't have even have to write it. It's right there. Tip number four. Collect and share those member and chamber success stories. Short and specific did you know moments. A permit issue was solved. Uh partnership was made. Visibility was boosted. Now, we we all know somebody. We all know people that they were invited to a mixer, a non-member or these two people that, you know, you know them, you thought that if they got together something good would happen. They met at a mixer and they started something together. That's gold stuff. How did the chamber help or facilitate the solution? Solution to something. Ultimately, just two or three sentences each and they can come from the interviews in the previous tip. These stories can help answer the question, "What's the chamber done for me lately?" It answers it better than any mission statement really could. Email your team, your staff, your board. Ask them, "Send me one story, just two or three sentences about a member we helped in the last 90 days." Maybe even formalize a membership survey asking those questions. And don't do anything with the replies yet. Just start collecting them. Make it a habit to do that periodically and build that that that that archive of stories that you could use. Tip number four. Tip number four told you to start collecting. Tip number five is how you keep doing it. Create a repeatable, I call it a greatest hits system. Build the process. It could be a shared spreadsheet, a shared folder for assets like pictures and stuff. Share them in newsletters, share them in reports, in the guide, on the website, social media. Make it a chamber highlights reel. It's always ready for funders, for new members, for partners, for board, what have you. Maybe create a spreadsheet, a shared spreadsheet named something like chamber greatest hits, a Google sheet or something you know, shared internally. Just five columns. The date. The name of the member. The topic, what it was. What's the story? And then the files folder, where you if you have any pictures or stuff that you're sharing or archiving, what folder is it in? Share that across the whole staff. That's it. That's a simple system that you can build to start storing this stuff. If you have to do it in an actual folder in your desk, fine. Start sharing storing those things. And again, your transcripts, too. Those are gold. Remember earlier I said print is cash intensive and that if your value proposition is weak, a publication may not hit the goal you think it will. Well, here's the tip that helps you fix that. Tip six. Tip six is powerful and it's structural in building a chamber's value proposition. Tell a we asked, we listened, and we delivered story. Surveys are powerful storytelling tools. They're not just data. Find the top three issues that businesses in in your community are facing. Find the resources within the membership to help solve those those issues. Work through the top three issues with round tables, resources, outside experts, wherev