CSCMP Roundtable Marketing Guidebook

CSCMP Roundtable Marketing Guidebook

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Table of Contents Section 1 Introduction 4 CSCMP Mission CSCMP Vision CSCMP Goals Section 2 Roundtable Marketing Objectives 4 Support the CSCMP Mission, Vision and Goals Know Your Market Reviewing Event/Meeting History Analyzing and Profiling Membership Surveying CSCMP and Industry-Related Memberships Focus Group Sessions and Executive Meetings Roundtable Promotion and Branding Section 3 The Marketing Roundtable Officer Position 8 Role and Responsibilities The Roundtable Marketing Plan Strategic Marketing Tactical Marketing Getting Started For Roundtables without Previous Marketing Experience For Roundtables without Marketing Resources Section 4 Marketing Communications 11 Meeting Announcements Newsletter Roundtable Website Literature Meeting Follow Up Local Press Section 5 CSCMP Corporate Support 15 3

SECTION 1. INTRODUCTION Marketing is the process of understanding the value of your product/service, creating a consistent message to present your offerings, and bringing this message to your target audience in order to achieve strategic objectives. Over the past several decades, CSCMP has developed a strong reputation and brand as the preeminent worldwide professional association of Supply Chain Management professionals. When you market your CSCMP Roundtable, you are representing CSCMP as a whole to your local market, so you should keep the mission, vision, and goals of CSCMP in mind. CSCMP Mission The mission of CSCMP is to lead the evolving Supply Chain Management profession by developing, advancing, and disseminating Supply Chain knowledge and research. CSCMP Vision The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals is the preeminent worldwide professional association of Supply Chain Management professionals. CSCMP exists to: Provide opportunities for supply chain professionals to communicate in order to develop and improve their supply chain management skills. Identify and conduct research which adds to the knowledge base of supply chain theory and practice. Create awareness of the significance of supply chain to business and to the economy. CSCMP Goals Provide leadership in developing, defining, understanding and enhancing the logistics and supply chain management profession. Enhance member value through education, networking, research, communication and other services. Operate with sound business practices. SECTION 2. ROUNDTABLE MARKETING OBJECTIVES At a minimum, your Roundtable Marketing should have objectives to support the CSCMP mission, vision, and goals, to know your market, and to promote your roundtable and events. In order to accomplish this, you need to know your market and effectively promote our roundtable and your events. Support the CSCMP Mission, Vision, and Goals The first objective of any CSCMP Roundtable should be to support the mission, vision, and goals of CSCMP. This means focusing on delivering quality programs and activities that are truly educational. Roundtable events should provide opportunities for supply chain profession- 4

als to communicate in order to develop and improve their supply chain management skills. Everyone should be treated equally and have an opportunity to dialogue with their peers. Roundtables are in a unique position to create local or regional awareness of the significance of supply chain to business and to the economy. How you market your roundtable and events should support the CSCMP mission, vision, and goals by operating within the policies and bylaws of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. Know Your Market Consistently drawing a diverse and knowledgeable audience to your programs is a challenge faced by every roundtable. If you experience a drop in meeting attendance, or have trouble increasing your meeting attendance, you may be targeting an audience that does not have a strong presence in your local roundtable area. Roundtable Marketing is responsible for understanding the local community and market. There are several methods for enhancing your Roundtable s knowledge of the market to better target your programs and events to a large local audience. Methods include reviewing your event/meeting history, analyzing and profiling your local membership, surveying your membership and possibly the membership of industry-related organizations, or conducting focus group sessions or executive meetings. Your roundtable may use some or all of these techniques to determine the educational interests of your market. Thus you will be able to provide high quality targeted programs for your CSCMP Roundtable events. Reviewing Event/Meeting History Over time, your roundtable has likely tried and tested a variety of event topics, meeting formats, and advertising/meeting notifications. But over time, most roundtables also experience a turnover in roundtable officers, and can forget why things are done a certain way or what has been tried in the past. One possible solution to the difficulty of maintaining a history of your roundtable s experiences is to establish an officer position for the Historian. The goal of this officer is to maintain a history of the roundtable s experiences. Specifically, CSCMP s Roundtable Positions Matrix (available at www.cscmp.org) recommends that the Historian have the following responsibilities: Maintain a list of roundtable officers over time. Maintain a list of roundtable programs over time. Maintain a file of all events/meetings, programs, press releases, and so on, as a compilation of the roundtable s activities over the years. With a good history and some thought put into analyzing the information saved, you can make good use of many pieces of information, including meeting type (tour, speaker, etc.), topic, location, attendance (individual name, title, and company), cost, date, time, and comments from the roundtable officers regarding the event. Maintaining these records will assist future marketing efforts. 5

However, just because a particular subject area, location, or event format was unsuccessful in the past, that does not mean it may not be of interest to your membership as it changes and grows. Analyzing and Profiling Membership An examination of your roundtable s current membership records may reveal people from companies in your area that can give you insight into regional business interests. In studying your membership, look at individuals titles, what companies they work for, what kind of companies those are (whether domestically or internationally focused, for example),and geography (are your members spread out geographically, concentrated in sub-zones, or highly concentrated in a single city). Research into the kind of companies in your roundtable region may reveal local needs that you may not have thought about. Are businesses in your area involved in distribution? International trade? Manufacturing? Examination of the CSCMP membership profiles may also reveal global trends or topics that would be of particular interest to your local market. This kind of research can help you focus on programs that can draw a greater audience, provide better quality topical material, and increase meeting attendance. A profile of your membership is an excellent resource to have when developing questions for surveys or focus groups. You may also consider partnering with other industry-related organizations in your area such as WERC or APICS to survey their membership for interests related to those of CSCMP and your roundtable event topics. Surveying CSCMP and Industry-Related Memberships Surveys of your current membership can give you valuable insight into the needs of your market. Sample surveys are available on the CSCMP website. A survey does not have to be a large, formal affair. You can make good use of note card surveys (just a few questions) at the end of your roundtable events to seek feedback on the topic just presented, to solicit input on new topics of interest, or even to recruit new officers to your roundtable board. An e-mail survey works especially well as a brief follow-up to an event. A simple e-mail directed to the attendees of your recent meeting thanking them for their participation can include a few questions to help you better focus your programs or solicit feedback on your most recent event. As with the survey note card, usually only a few questions can be asked in an e-mail survey. People tend to feel too busy to reply with a lot of information after every CSCMP event they attend. Internet-based surveys* can be useful when you want to conduct a more thorough survey of your membership (with more questions). You may decide you want to do a large-scale survey in order to gather better information for your membership profile, to understand what other organizations your membership is active with, and to seek input on programs, meeting locations, and event day/time. Online survey tools can usually be acquired for an annual or responsebased fee, and have become much more user-friendly in the last two years. 6

Even with a web-based survey, be conscientious of the respondent s time, and insure that every question is necessary and useful.* * One of our marketing committee members has conducted research on various Internetbased survey providers, and has performed many online surveys, as well as e-mail and postcard surveys. If you are considering an investment in online survey tools, feel free to contact Cynthia Miller for more information on what has worked well in her survey experiences. Also, CSCMP Corporate will administer surveys via Zoomerang if you would like to do an online survey but don t have the resources to execute it. After a large-scale survey (either a first-time survey, or perhaps an annual membership survey), you should consider reporting the results back to your membership. This could be with a simple presentation summarizing your key take-aways from the analysis being presented in a few minutes at one of your roundtable events. In addition to sharing more knowledge about the local market and members interests, you will be showing the membership that you value their contribution, and increase the response rate of your next survey. Focus Group Sessions and Executive Meetings Another way to obtain excellent information about your local market is to conduct a focus group or executive meetings. A focus group involves individuals from various companies/ organizations, while executive meetings are generally conducted one-on-one with a single company s executive (or executives). A focus group is made up of people directly from your membership list. Advise the group about the purpose of the focus group and inform them that their views will be used to shape the local organization in the future. Based on local needs, one of the roundtable officers should act as a facilitator of this discussion. The facilitator prepares a list of concerns, questions, and perceptions of the local market for discussion. The questions should be posed one at a time, allowing a pre-set amount of discussion time for each question. Another roundtable officer acts as a scribe for the focus group, to capture any ideas that come out of the discussion. Recording the session could prove very valuable, if you have the technology to do so. Conclusions of the session should be summarized and distributed to everyone that participated in the session. Meetings with executives at the major logistics companies in your area can provide useful information on trends occurring in your local market. You can use your membership profile to identify what companies have an interest in CSCMP and would possibly allow an executive meeting. Don t be put off task if it takes some effort to contact and meet with these executives, as the outcome can be very valuable to your program planning and roundtable marketing efforts. Executive meetings may be conducted informally, but roundtable officers should prepare and distribute an agenda, to make the best use of time and in respect of the time of the professional you are meeting with. The agenda can consist of topics for discussion that will encourage interactive discussion of logistics trends, perhaps revealing insights on a global or national level as well as insight into local trends that may impact your program planning. 7

Another option is to conduct breakfast or lunch meetings with board members of other industry -related groups in your area such as WERC or APICS. Distinguishing programs and coordinating meetings to avoid overlap with these groups can increase attendance at your roundtable events. And, of course, copies of all records should be maintained by the Roundtable Historian (discussed earlier in this guide). Roundtable Promotion & Branding You have an obligation to CSCMP to maintain the credibility and quality of the CSCMP brand, and its recognition as the preeminent worldwide association of supply chain management professionals. Make use of the CSCMP logos available for download on the CSCMP website under Roundtable Resources. Have clean, clearly printed branding at your events. For example, some roundtables have a banner with the CSCMP logo and the roundtable name on it. Others have a table drop cloth to display at the registration table for their events. There are probably countless ways to promote your roundtable and events, both common and innovative. The most common tool of course is the meeting notice itself. This may be an e- mail, or a printed flyer, or newsletter regarding your upcoming roundtable event. You could also have the promotion for the next available at your current event, to give people something to remind them about your next event. Some roundtables have printed business card-sized listing of their events for the entire year, which can the be distributed at every event, and even at other events, such as the CSCMP Annual Conference Roundtable Luncheon. Few roundtables have the funds for posting ads and such promotion. However, CSCMP actively promotes the organization and its roundtables in press releases, magazines, mailings, newsletters, and on the CSCMP website. Specific marketing and communications instruments are covered in greater detail in Section 3 Marketing Tools. Also, many local business journals will post free meeting announcements if proper advance notice is given. SECTION 3. THE MARKETING ROUNDTABLE OFFICER The Marketing Roundtable Officer position exists to bring focus to marketing the roundtable by spearheading the effort. Role and Responsibilities The Marketing Roundtable Officer position should have broad oversight of the development of the plans to market the roundtable. One of the top priorities of the marketing officer is the development of the roundtable s marketing plan, including strategic goals and tactical objectives and tasks. In addition, the marketing officer should assist in program development, providing ideas for speakers, topics, events, and so on. Depending on the structure of the roundtable board, the marketing roundtable officer may have oversight of the roundtable s program announcements, newsletters, and other member communications. 8

Public relations activities are important in roundtable marketing. The marketing officer should engage in these activities, including letter writing, relationship building, and writing press releases as appropriate. Branding is another important area of roundtable marketing. How you use and present the CSCMP brand can have a significant impact on your continued success in marketing your events. Finally, the marketing officer should manage surveys and feedback that helps the roundtable structure its programs and plans. The Roundtable Marketing Plan The Roundtable Marketing Plan is a document that lays out the vision, strategic plan, and tactical tasks for the marketing of your roundtable for the upcoming roundtable year, The marketing plan can be as simple or as detailed as you feel is necessary, but essentially serves as the roadmap for what your roundtable wants to accomplish in marketing for the year. The planning process should allow the roundtable officers to contribute ideas to help identify your marketing needs so you can develop a marketing plan to meet these needs. It is the responsibility of the roundtable marketing officer to develop the marketing plan, but all of your officers have a contribution to make and should participate in the process. And remember, when it s all said and done, your marketing plan is still simply just that: a plan. You will probably alter your direction and tactics as the year progresses, based on the effectiveness of your efforts, but the plan gives you the metrics to measure whether you re accomplishing plan gives you the metrics to measure whether you re accomplishing what you had intended at the beginning of the year. Strategic Marketing The marketing process, and roundtable marketing activities, can assist the roundtable in determining: What is the roundtable trying to accomplish? What are the steps to achieve this mission? What resources are required to achieve this mission? Do you have the right direction and resources available to support your roundtable s mission? The Marketing Plan then becomes your roadmap to insure the roundtable s success. Establishing strategic marketing goals will help focus your marketing efforts. Set clear, specific, measurable goals, such as: Increase meeting attendance by 15% Increase membership by 10% Establish member expectations through a survey 9

Tactical Marketing Once you have documented your specific marketing goals, the marketing plan also needs to include the tactical steps to complete those goals. For example, some ways marketing may be used to increase meeting attendance could include: Developing a standard meeting notice format Targeting your event message to different member profiles (which may involve sub-tasks of conducting a survey, analyzing your membership statistics, determining the key profiles to categorize your membership, and then writing and correctly distributing event notices that cater to the individual members interests) In tactical marketing, continually measuring progress made toward accomplishing your strategic goals will help keep the marketing efforts focused and provide check points during the year that may indicate adjustments to the plan or tactics are necessary. Getting Started To get started, assess the current state of your roundtable s marketing program, as well as marketing successes and/or challenges. What is the current marketing strategy? Where did it originate? Who is responsible for the strategy? Is it working? Who knows if it is working? What is the market? Once you understand your starting point, you can begin to build a strategy for the future. An incoming marketing roundtable officer should schedule time to sit down with the previous marketing roundtable officer to review any marketing strategies currently in place. Also, make sure that you understand the Roundtable President s vision for the upcoming year. Remember, your marketing plan should be in alignment with, and an extension of, your Roundtable President s strategic plan for the roundtable. Draft out your Marketing Plan and present it to your Roundtable Board for refinement and agreement before the new roundtable year begins. Also, many marketing materials are available on the CSCMP website. These marketing materials can be accessed under the Roundtables link on the website. For Roundtables Without Previous Marketing Experience If your roundtable has never had a marketing roundtable officer position, you still have advisors who can help you get started. Anyone on the Marketing Process Team, and the Roundtable Advisory Board, can advise you and provide guidance as you are establishing this new role on your roundtable board. Two great opportunities for meeting these advisors in person is at the 10

June Leadership Forum held annually in Chicago and at the Roundtable Annual Business Meeting held each year at the CSCMP Annual Global Conference. For Roundtables Without Marketing Resources If, as is the case with some roundtables, you have a small board of officers and do not have the resources to elect a Marketing Roundtable Officer, your roundtable can still accomplish many of the tasks discussed in the roles and responsibilities above. For example: The Programs Officer may have responsibility for overseeing the continuity and disbursement of event announcements. The Secretary may be responsible for submitting copies of your event announcements to CSCMP Corporate for posting on the CSCMP website and CSCMP newsletters. The Hospitality Officer may be responsible for having CSCMP literature and marketing materials available at the registration table for your events. The Membership Officer may decide to work with CSCMP Corporate to conduct a survey of your membership. The President may decide to dedicate a board meeting (or a defined segment of one) to discussing how the roundtable can undertake some marketing efforts without a Marketing Roundtable Officer. Even without a Marketing Roundtable Officer, your roundtable can, with the existing resources, take some of the measures recommended in this guidebook to improve the marketing of your roundtable. SECTION 4. MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS Perhaps the most important element in creating and sustaining a roundtable brand are the way CSCMP roundtables communicate information to their constituency. CSCMP recognizes roundtable activities as one of the three was of achieving its educational mission. As a result, both global and local considerations should be accounted for as a roundtable s message is communicated. A roundtable s marketing message encompasses more than just meeting announcements, even though they are an important part of the overall message. There are a multitude of ways to communicate. Roundtables have used various combinations of mailing, faxing, and e- mailing to distribute meeting announcements. Multiple of these methods may work well for your roundtable, or perhaps you have already tried something that you know does not work well for your roundtable. Communications tools should be reviewed on a regular basis. Below we discuss several key communication tools. Meeting Announcements Knowing your roundtable audience, both current and targeted, will drive how meeting announcements are distributed. Developing a schedule of topics and dates early in the year, and communicating that schedule will allow potential attendees to mark their calendars for interesting events. To date, roundtables use mail, fax, and e-mail to distribute announcements and invitations. 11

Some points to keep in mind regarding announcement mailings: One folded page is preferred for mailing. Consider whether preprinted paper or heavy bond will add value to the message. Include: date, time, location, cost, driving directions, speaker, abstract, registration instructions, roundtable contact name, and future events. Since this is usually the most expensive form of distribution, determine whether a portion of the mailing list could be faxed or emailed to reduce costs. Use returned mail to update the current database information. Consider processing cycle time involved with mailing to include speaker confirmation, design, printing, duplicating, stuffing, and mailing. Recipients should receive meeting announcements 4 weeks prior to the event. Corporate CSCMP should receive the notices 6 weeks prior for publishing on the CSCMP website. Use the CSCMP logos available on the CSCMP website to maintain a consistent look and the CSCMP brand. Some points to keep in mind regarding faxing announcements: Limit the use of an intricate graphics as they often do not transfer well by fax. Include: date, time, location, cost, driving directions, speaker, abstract, registration instructions, roundtable contact name, and future events. Consider using Corporate CSCMP s resources for broadcast faxing versus using an independent service, as well as compared to mailing costs. Fax from an electronic copy to improve transfer quality. Use undeliverable faxes to update the current database information. Recipients should receive meeting announcements 4 weeks prior to the event. Corporate CSCMP should receive the notices 6 weeks prior for publishing on the CSCMP website. Use the CSCMP logos available on the CSCMP website to maintain a consistent look and the CSCMP brand. Some points to keep in mind regarding e-mailing announcements: If e-mail proves effective for your roundtable, go for it. This tends to be the lowest cost option for sending meeting notices. Limit the use of graphics as they may not translate well for all recipients. Include: date, time, location, cost, driving directions, speaker, abstract, registration instructions, roundtable contact name, and future events. The subject line should be informative and concise to capture the recipient s interest. Depending on the size of the mailing list, a service can be used to distribute the announcements. Use undeliverable messages to update the current database information. Recipients should receive meeting announcements 4 weeks prior to the event. Corporate CSCMP should receive the notices 6 weeks prior for publishing on the CSCMP website. 12

Use the CSCMP logos available on the CSCMP website to maintain a consistent look and the CSCMP brand. Newsletter Many roundtables use a newsletter to communicate information and significant events. Communicate both roundtable and CSCMP information using this method. As e-mail has become more prevalent, the cost and overall effort of producing the newsletter has been reduced. A meeting announcement can also be included. This type of communication provides an additional vehicle to reinforce the CSCMP roundtable brand. Most newsletters can be done quarterly or annually depending on the specific need of each roundtable. Use the timing of the newsletter to reinforce major roundtable events such as seminars and career days. Some ideas of information to include in a newsletter include: Promoting major events such as roundtable seminars, tours, and dinner meetings Communicating comments from the roundtable president Introducing the roundtable cabinet Requesting volunteer support Posting of position notices Featuring interesting articles Roundtable Website Many roundtables have developed their own websites with CSCMP s approval. Roundtable websites can be linked to the Corporate website as well. Contact CSCMP s Education and Roundtable Services for more information on how to receive approval for a CSCMP roundtable website. The roundtable may have a webmaster or a specific roundtable officer that is responsible for updating the roundtable website. Keep accurate and timely information on the website. Out-ofdate information won t help attract more attendees to your next meeting! Post your full year s meeting schedule including topics, dates, and locations. Including meeting registration information in advance on the website can be helpful to meeting attendees as well. At a minimum, keep up-to-date information regarding roundtable events on your website. Most people will go to your website either to find out about an upcoming meeting or to find contact information for your roundtable officers. In addition to your officers information, make it easy for users to find out who to contact to volunteer for the roundtable or who to contact for more information on upcoming events. Other information to post on your website: Current and past newsletters Announcements regarding student scholarships Roundtable survey forms and results 13

Literature CSCMP has a wide array of literature for those interested in knowing more about the mission and purpose of CSCMP. Corporate will send these materials to your roundtable. You can display this literature at your roundtable events including meetings, seminars, and career days. Announcements made during the event should include a reference to the availability of the literature to all attendees. Available literature includes: What It s All About CSCMP s purpose, objectives, and programs Careers in Logistics features career paths and possible employers CSCMP Membership Application Annual Conference Brochure Major Roundtable Event Brochures Meeting Follow Up Follow up with meeting attendees is one of the best opportunities for direct, personalized communication. Approximately 25% of the attendees at any given meeting are first-timers. New roundtable attendees are perhaps most open to contact and potential volunteering. Make a point of identifying first-timers at your roundtable events. Insure that at least one roundtable officer spends time welcoming the first-time attendees to the meeting. After the event, follow up with first-timers within a week. Local Press Although often overlooked, the local press can be an excellent source for communicating the roundtable message. Having a consistent approach will allow the roundtable to form its message in a way that will emphasize the CSCMP brand. Depending on the roundtable location and city population, local press will have varying degrees of interest in publishing the information. Having a grasp of a few press-related items will be of great assistance. Understand publishing frequency, deadlines, and lead-time requirements for all newspapers and periodicals within the roundtable geographic area. Also, insure that the editor understands the importance of logistics and how readers could be impacted. Provide specific information regarding the event to be publicized, as well as background information on CSCMP, such as the literature materials covered earlier in this guide. Determine whether the newspaper may have an interest in writing an article on an event speaker or any individual associated with the roundtable. The bottom line is that breaking news events will determine what gets published, but the stronger your marketing communications are, the more likely it is that you can get press on your roundtable events and activities. 14

SECTION 5. CSCMP CORPORATE SUPPORT The CSCMP Corporate Education & Roundtable Services department staff assists CSCMP s roundtables around the world with various tasks, projects, and events. From shipping CSCMP literature to forwarding a mailing list to designing a seminar announcement, the staff supports roundtable cabinet members in their effort to efficiently and effectively manage their local roundtable. Roundtables should take advantage of CSCMP Corporate s maintenance of the CSCMP website, www.cscmp.org. The Roundtables section of the CSCMP website contains a wealth of roundtable information, including: Your roundtable can use the Drupal system to post events, manage registrations, print registration lists, etc. Your event will be listed in the Find a Roundtable link and will include information regarding your roundtable s upcoming events, a list of roundtable officers with contact information, and a link to your roundtable s website. CSCMP corporate also makes a concerted effort to market the roundtables throughout the year, through literature such as the Roundtable Newsletter, as well as with a number of roundtable events at the Annual Global Conference, including the Roundtable Annual Business Meeting, the Roundtable Hosted Luncheon, and the Newcomer s Welcome & Orientation. We hope this guide has provided you with ideas and direction for your roundtable marketing efforts. Direct any questions and comments to CSCMP staff or to the roundtable marketing process team. 15