Top Tips for Successfully Marketing Your Association’s Mentoring Program
No matter how well-conceived and run your mentoring program is, its success will ultimately be determined by your ability to engage and excite your membership. The marketing of your mentoring program is going to compete with a host of other messages and priorities and you will have to work hard to gain attention and spur action.
Here are our top tips for effectively promoting your mentoring program.
1. Enlist internal champions early
It is important to line up your internal stakeholders early – not only to sell the idea to the board, but also to secure on-going communications support. Think ahead about the champions the program will need for success. If your organisation has State Chapters or other groups whose support you will require to communicate with members, get them on the bus now.
2. Get the Marketing Department on board
In our experience, Association marketing teams can get very nervous about “over-communication” with members. Make sure that you explain the mentoring initiative to your marketing department and secure their support for your communications plan in advance. Any roadblocks to your marketing once you start to roll out could seriously compromise the reach and effectiveness of your mentoring program.
3. Send a Personal Message from the Top
We have found that the one piece of communication that is most effective in grabbing attention is a personal email from the CEO or other (very) senior executive. The greater the seniority of the sender, the stronger the signal that this is an important initiative, and in our experience the sharper the rise in application numbers.
4. Communicate in waves – and keep the waves coming in
A successful mentoring program requires significantly more than a single “announcement” email. Remember that your members are not sitting at their desks awaiting the launch of this program. You need to cut through their busy days and inboxes if you want to get engagement.
If you are planning to make your mentoring program an annual event then don’t forget that communicating the success of this year’s program is an important part of marketing for next year.
Read more about the member communication stages on the Art of Mentoring website
