Research as a Catalyst for Sound Association Decision Making presentation given by Jodie Slaughter, FASAE at the CESSE Annual Meeting in July 2011

1. Research as a Catalyst for Sound Association Decision Making

3. Research you can conduct yourself with no/little budget

4. When to call in a professional

6. Allows you to hear from new audiences

7. Validates or contradicts whims and curtails lurching

8. Surfaces new product ideas/unmet needs

9. Provides insights on competitors

10. Tests ideas and assumptions

11. Determines product/service pricing, positioning and distribution

14. Research 101—Definitions Primary research: Collecting data that doesn’t already exist Secondary research: Collecting data that already exists Qualitative: Deeply descriptive and anecdotal information Quantitative: Findings that can be expressed numerically and applied to confidence intervals (statistical reliability)

15. Research 101 Qualitative Research +Quantitative Research =Sound Research

16. Research You Can Do Yourself No Money…No Problem

18. Electronic survey instruments*

20. When do you need a professional?

21. CESSE Member Mini-Case Study Budget: ~ $6,000,000 Members: 5,862 – 6,120 (20% growth in corporate) Why: New exec loves data, needed myth-busting and voices from broader audiences, never did it before What: 69 interviews, two focus groups, electronic survey (19.5% response rate), enviro scan When: Late 2007 What’s next: Repeating in 2011

23. Very small (older) segment revered sacred cows

24. Time-consuming and potentially troublesome elections were not necessary

25. Academics had been over-represented in association decisions

27. Effective when contemplating key decisions

28. Major change

29. Strategic planning

30. Program development

31. Must be informed by qualitative phase

32. Seeks a measure of “practical significance”

35. CESSE Member Mini-Case Study

36. CESSE Member Mini-Case Study In their own words: “As a result of the information we gained from the survey, we were able to better identify our current audience as well as identify our potential audience and in one short year we were able to increase our total membership by 3%. “ Megan Bricker Director, Marketing & Membership Services

37. Thank youJodie Slaughter, FASAEjslaughter@mckinley-advisors.com

38. “If there is one phrase that sets remarkable associations apart from their counterparts, it’s “Data, data, data.. [In remarkable associations, ] whether qualitative or quantitative, research is always put to use, not put on the shelf.” -7 Measures of Success – What Remarkable Associations Do that Others Don’t

39. Do you want to be remarkable?