COVER STORY
Reach Further with Your Assocation By: Jeff Arakelian, RCE and Warren McKenna, CAE
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very organization strives to stay relevant, build If communication is the heartbeat of our relationships loyal relationships and serve its constituents. The with members and the public, we need to do our very REALTOR® Association of Sarasota and Manatee best at communicating. To add capacity and expert is no exception. In 2018, we embarked on a multiresources, we engaged a firm that specializes in brand year strategic program to engage our members and the development and marketing for associations, McKenna public in more measurable and compelling ways. Design Group. Collaborating with RASM’s marketing We partnered with Chicago-based marketing firm team, McKenna Group re-engineered our email McKenna Design Group to lead us through a strategic marketing, updated the look and feel of our website process that would yield and enhanced our a new tagline, magazine, messaging. McKenna also sub-branding system, pulled back the curtain, “RASM is much more than access to Member Services Guide to say this— “RASM is the MLS. Let’s show members and the and Business Partner Dimuch more than access rectory to accurately reto the MLS. Let’s show public the value we bring and present flect RASM’s brand: one members and the public it in a clear and invigorating way.” that inspires members to the value we bring and reach further with their present it in a clear and membership. invigorating way.” RASM CEO Jeff Arakelian adds, “the charge for COMMITTING TO MEMBER SUCCESS RASM became clear. How do we turn passive members into passionate ones and passionate members into RASM first started with the need to make better brand ambassadors?” marketing and business decisions based on data. To Working with staff and leadership, we developed that end, we launched the first of a biannual member a new tagline to communicate an essential brand satisfaction survey. We garnered 1,783 responses from promise to our members “Reach Further.TM” this important survey. It identified more than 9 out of 10 are aligned with our mission. Not surprising, A TWO-WORD PROMISE top RASM programs are tied to transactions (lockbox, forms, market statistics, etc.). What was insightful In just two words, we can accurately communicate is that members also valued professional standards RASM’s brand. Having a tagline keeps the focus on training, our website, weekly emails, our magazine. everything we do to serve our members and the And this got us thinking. community. Think of it as a paired down version of our 6 | ELEVATE [ SEPTEMBER 2019 ]
