Matrix Group International

Month: May 2019

Your Member Journeys ARE Your Brand

I conduct a lot of branding and user experience workshops. And my design team works on a lot of corporate identity kits; we redevelop logos, templates, print collateral, email templates, yada, yada.

While logo, font, and color are certainly important aspects of a brand, we believe that the user experience is the largest driver of the brand experience.

Why? Because an organization can have the most beautiful logo and color palette in the world, but if the user experience is crappy, the brand will be crappy.

And to us, the user experience is ALL the ways in which people can interact with the brand. What do you stand for and HOW do you make that known? What are your signature benefits and HOW do you deliver them? Why do people and companies join and HOW do they join? HOW do you answer the phone? HOW quickly and completely do you respond to emails? HOW easy is it to find information on the website and make a purchase? HOW does the brand respond to adversity?

Of course, strong brands must have a strong visual identity. That’s where beautiful websites, social media pages, videos, meeting microsites and publications come in. These brand representations must be backed up by strong and consistent member journeys.

If you have members and customers complaining about your store or membership join form, know that these experiences are hurting your brand. Resolve to fix them. Fast.

May 20, 2019
Don’t Redesign Your Website, Redesign Your Member Journeys

I read a lot of Website Redesign RFPs (request for proposal). They almost always focus on the need for better navigation, a great search, a content management system (CMS) with lots of functionality, a better mobile experience, yada, yada.

Here’s the problem with these RFPs: they almost always focus exclusively on the website and CMS. What’s wrong with that?

Well, when we meet with prospects and clients and ask them about their target audiences, goals and most important member journeys, they almost always describe journeys that cross systems. They describe flows through websites, especially membership databases, CRMs, learning management systems, online communities, and other properties.

In other words, organizations want it to be easy and intuitive to join, renew, register for an event, purchase a publication, access the library, search for content across their myriad properties, etc.. But when they issue RFPs to improve just the website and make statements like, “the membership join form is part of the AMS, that’s not in scope,” they are missing the point. The flows from email to CMS to AMS, for example, are some of the most important journeys a member can make through an organization’s digital properties. Issuing an RFP then for just the website is incomplete and almost guaranteed to fail. You might end up with a beautiful website, but your join flow might still be broken and awful.

I get it. Communications is usually in charge of the website, IT is in charge of the database, education is in charge of training, marketing is in charge of promotions, yada, yada. It’s really hard to get various departments talking to one another, let alone optimizing user flows together. But they must talk and work together to craft intentional and amazing member journeys.

May 14, 2019
The Best Way to Develop an Elevator Speech for Your Organization
I conduct a lot of branding and strategy workshops. My Creative Director Alex and I conduct them and we cover a lot of ground. We ask about the history of the organization, what they stand for, their signature benefits, why individuals and organizations join and why they remain, and so much more!

My favorite part of the workshop comes when we ask clients how they describe their organizations to:
- Their mom
- Their neighbor at a BBQ
- A 12th grader
- A 5th grader
- A legislator
The discussions usually begin with talk of mission, vision, and values. We dissect a lot of industry jargon and we unravel a lot of acronyms.

Inevitably, the best descriptions come when staff and members tell us how they describe their organizations to 5th graders. There’s something about stripping away the acronyms and the jargon that usually produces a succinct and compelling elevator speech.

Some of my favorites from over the years:
- A trade association: We help our members make money and stay out of trouble.
- A union in the construction trades: We make the buildings in our city beautiful.
- A company that manages a database of government RFPs: We help the federal government get the highest quality work, for the least amount of money.
- A professional society in engineering: Our members make the world’s waterways safe for commerce and travel.
The next time you’re struggling with a way to describe your organization, try talking to a 5th grader. Then capture the language that resonates best with said 5th grader, make it graceful, write it down, and train your staff and members to use that language.

What’s the Matrix Group elevator speech? We help associations and nonprofits create amazing member journeys. We do it through web, mobile and social.

What do you think of our elevator speech? What’s YOUR elevator speech? Please share!
May 9, 2019