Matrix Group International

Category: Content Marketing and Social Media

Using Video to Promote Your Meetings and Conferences

We all know that video rules. Check out these amazing video statistics from 2021.

I recently attended Non Dues a Palooza (NDaP) in Nashville, TN. NDaP is devoted to helping associations and nonprofits learn new ideas for generating non-dues revenue. Yes, I attended in person and it felt great! Teri Carden, the conference organizer and CEO of 100Reviews, uses video to promote her meetings and make them feel special. Here’s what she did for NDAP:

Ahead of the conference, Teri invited her speakers and attendees to record and share a video about why they were excited to be attending NDaP. Teri used Gather Voices to make this happen. Check out the video promo page. Maybe I’m just a conference marketing geek, but I found the videos compelling and I wanted to watch them all!

When I checked into my hotel, there was a welcome letter from Teri that contained a QR code. The QR code led me to a video from Teri, welcoming me to Nashville, inviting me to the pre-conference happy hour, sharing highlights for the next day, and providing me with contact information if I have questions. In typical Teri fashion, the video was fun, authentic and super helpful.

At the happy hour at the end of the conference, she asked a few attendees to talk about their experience, what they learned, and why they loved the event. These videos were shared in an event debrief put together by Association Briefings (another great touch – more on that later), and it was so fun to hear the takeaways from fellow attendees. And by the way, now she has video marketing material in hand for her next event. Genius!

Whether your next conference is in person or virtual, I’m sure you can use these ideas to promote your event, provide your attendees with useful information, and make all of your attendees feel welcome and special.

September 27, 2021
What Are Natural Language Queries and Featured Snippets and Why Do They Matter?

When it comes to search engine optimization there’s one very important thing to always keep in mind: Google doesn’t like cute, Google likes clarity.

When writing any online content, whether it’s for your blog, about us page, store or resources, you must always consider the Google gods, and craft your content accordingly. While “writing for Google” can sometimes feel inauthentic, like you’re trying to game the system, it’s important to remember that what is good for Google and SEO, is also good and beneficial for your target audiences. It’s actually a win-win!

Two very important factors to consider for search engine optimization (SEO) when crafting your content are natural language queries and featured snippets.

What are natural language queries?

Natural language queries are web searches reflecting your normal spoken language like you might express if you were asking the question verbally of another person. As voice recognition features become more and more commonplace, this method of searching behavior becomes more relevant and deserving of attention.

What are featured snippets?

Featured snippets are special call-outs shown in Google results above the link to the result from which the snippet came. They are selected by Google systems that determine whether content on a page would make a good featured snippet for a user’s search request. Google results with featured snippets extend the authority of the page for the given search.

Here’s an example: a few years ago, I blogged about canonical URLs. Go ahead and perform a search in Google for this exact string:

what is canonical url and why should i care

You don’t need to enclose the string in quotes, just paste it into your browser and search. Notice the very first result for this particular query is my blog post titled with the same text. This demonstrates the power of natural language queries; by making the page title reflect the way a user might ask a question, Google has given it priority. Despite the millions of web results describing canonical URLs generally, this one rises to the top for the given search string.

But notice something else: Google also provides a featured snippet where, from within the page, it found a paragraph sufficiently, and briefly, offering an answer to the natural language question. The page didn’t include anything special around that paragraph and, in fact, you cannot “tell” Google what to use as a featured snippet, this decision is made by their algorithms. But the page was written to be informative and address a specific question.

So what does this mean for me?

First, consider pages of your site that answer questions about your mission or purpose. For example, you might have a page that describes “Our Mission” or “About Us” and consider the natural language query users would ask to find that page. It is unlikely that a Google search for “Our Mission” will find your page but a query like “what does {your organization acronym} do?” will. Consider giving pages like this a title that better reflects a natural language query.

Second, consider the other calls-to-action placed on the pages above. If someone finds your mission page directly from a Google search, what else do you want them to see, learn, or do? What authoritative message do you want them to hear regarding your position within your industry? Once you start getting natural language queries to land on these pages, they become more important as entry points to your website that inform and engage your audience.

Lastly, consider the content on pages like this and make sure they have a concise description or answer to the natural language query you’ve designed for them. This will encourage Google to use that content as a featured snippet. You don’t want the user’s journey to end by reading the Google snippet and going no further, so make it engaging as well as informative.

Hopefully this helps you with these concepts and enhances your content strategies!

May 21, 2021
Are you Team Live or Team Pre-Recorded During Virtual Meetings?
I’m attending and speaking during the techsytalk GLOBAL conference this week. Liz King Caruso, the organizer, ran a poll on the first day and asked attendees if they were on Team Live or Team Pre-Recorded. Turns out 100% of the attendees voted Team Live. And yet…

I attended a couple of conferences last week where meeting planners and vendors were extolling the virtues of pre-recorded: you can have more sophisticated graphics, you eliminate the chance of speakers’ Internet connections going down, you can edit away mistakes by speakers, speakers don’t need to be available the specific days of your conference, yada, yada.

So why did 100% of Liz’ attendees (at least during that session on Day One) vote for Team Live?

Eight months into this pandemic and I think meeting attendees’ expectations have shifted. They are looking for live and authentic gatherings, even if they aren’t perfect.
- Live gives attendees a reason to attend your meeting on specific dates and times.
- Live gives attendees a chance to interact with speakers beyond chat.
- Live allows attendees to set aside x days and hours for your meeting and concentrate their involvement.
- Live creates energy.
Don’t get me wrong. Live isn’t necessarily easier or harder. It’s just different. And if you offer live sessions, you need to plan for live. You need backup upon backup. You need staff to support live. You need a vendor that knows, understands, and embraces live.

Does your entire conference need to be live? Absolutely not. But I do think that these days, any successful conference needs live elements. Live can take on many forms: live discussions, live speakers, live video meetings, live networking.

Go Team Live!
November 17, 2020
Why New Member Onboarding is So Critical to the Member Journey

Imagine this. A person (or company) has made the decision to join your organization. What happens afterward? Does she get a giant welcome packet that she won’t read? Does the packet contain current or outdated information? Does he get nothing for a few weeks while you process the application and add him to lists? Does he immediately begin to get all the newsletters and promotions for the various products and services you offer?

Last week, I did a webinar with the wonderful Jonathan Cooper from the National Association of Episcopal Schools (NAES), a longtime Matrix Group client. Just over a year ago, NAES replaced its paper welcome packet to a digital onboarding campaign for new staff at member AND non-member Episcopal schools.

NAES used its existing membership database, MatrixMaxx (from Matrix Group, yep, my company), and MailChimp to welcome new staff with carefully crafted messages over a 90-day period that introduce the association, the staff, the Biennial conference, key publications, the staff, consulting services, the daily meditation, and so on. The emails are NOT all about selling. They are meant to welcome new staff and show them how NAES can help them in their jobs.

What kind of results is NAES getting on this onboarding campaign?

The emails are getting amazing opens and clicks. One email gets close to a 90% open rate! Yes, the list is small, but they never previously got this rate of opens on other emails.

NAES members regularly email back after receiving an automated email. The key here is that the emails are really well-written, they are warm, and they sound authentic.

NAES is seeing increased use of their library and increased registration at featured meetings. For example, a webinar designed for new Rectors usually get 7 or 8 attendees. This past year, this webinar had 19 attendees!

Marketing automation is extending the reach of this small-staff association. To me, well-crafted automation actually ends up being more high-touch because members get more frequent, relevant, customized communications. There’s simply no way that NAES could send out this level of communications if the messages were manually crafted and sent out.

AssociationsNow did a nice write-up of the webinar. You can read it here.

What happens in the first 30-90 days of a member’s journey with your organization matters. Really matters. Because it’s during those first few days, weeks, and months that your new member decides to engage with you in a meaningful way. They made the decision to join. Now it’s up to you to help them make the decision to stay.

June 17, 2020
Don’t Pile on the Tech Debt by Developing in an Old Platform
I blogged recently about the dreaded tech debt. I blogged about how to identify it and describe it. We all know that tech debt sucks!

But what do we do about the tech debt we’ve got and how do we prevent it from happening in the future?

My number one piece of advice is to STOP piling on the tech debt by continuing to develop in your old software or platform. Think you’re not doing it? Here are some examples:
1. You have an old version of your content management system. You don’t have budget to upgrade to the latest version, but you really need new functionality that won’t cost very much to implement, so you go ahead and approve the work. Why this is bad: When it comes time to upgrade your CMS, this new functionality will likely need to be redeveloped, thereby adding to the upgrade cost.
2. You have an old version of your membership database and it’s not in your budget to upgrade this year. You need to bring a new Learning Management System ( LMS) online and you want to implement single sign-on between the membership database and the LMS, so you approve the project to integrate with the old membership database. Why this is bad: You’re probably not using the latest SSO protocols, and you’ll need to upgrade the SSO when you upgrade your membership database.
I know that in the real world, we can’t keep everything upgraded. But we should be upgrading and maintaining our mission-critical systems since they are the most dynamic and most used.

Make 2020 the year you burn down that tech debt!
February 11, 2020
How Your Digital Marketing Should Change in 2020

Your website, social media pages, videos, email newsletters, email campaigns – they’re all elements of your digital marketing toolbox. It’s the start of a new year. How should your digital marketing change in 2020? I queried my staff and here’s what we came up with:

Experiment With a Mix of Short- and Long-Form Content

Is short content better for social shares? Is long content better for SEO? If you’re not being intentional about the topic AND length of your posts, you should be. Here’s a great analysis of short- vs. long-from content from CopyHackers. TLDR summary: Great, long content is incredibly difficult to write, so shorter is probably better for most organizations, but you need to be intentional AND test your content with your audiences.

Video on All Of Your Social Media Pages

Facebook, Twitter Instagram and LinkedIn LOVE video. According to Animoto, video is consumers’ favorite type of content on social media. Facebook and LinkedIn prioritize posts with video. If you’re not posting original video (as opposed to embedding a YouTube link) on social media, what are you waiting for?

Podcasts Are Huge and Growing in Popularity

There’s no doubt about it: podcasts are hot! According to Podcast Insights, 51% (144 million) of the US population has listened to a podcast – up from 44% in 2018 (Infinite Dial 19), and 16 million people in the US are “avid podcast fans” (Nielsen Q1 2018). Podcasts give you the ability to reach your audiences in a new way, they allow you to share serialized content in a convenient way, and they are easier to produce than video. Could this be the year you launch a podcast?

Expect Some Turmoil In Your Communities During This Election Year

Nearly every association and nonprofit will say they are nonpartisan. BUT politics has infiltrated every aspect of our lives. Just in case comments and conversations about the economy, healthcare, trade, or the environment (name your topic) turn rancorous in your communities, be sure you are prepared with monitoring and policies. What will you do if an online discussion about manufacturing best practices turns into a nasty exchange about trade with China? Be prepared!

Focus on Storytelling for Authentic Content

I’m rewatching The West Wing and I’m struck by how effectively the show uses storytelling to frame policy positions. Storytelling is effective because stories create connections with real people and they create memories. Here’s a great post from Brandignity about the advantages of using storytelling in marketing.

Create Personalized Prospect Cultivation Funnels

We’ve all done this: signed up for a white paper and then gotten endless, automated follow ups from a random company. This is marketing automation gone bad. Marketing automation will only work when your emails and landing pages are thoughtful and personalized for each member, customer or prospect.

Coordinate Your Platforms Better

No one web page, email or social post will cause the conversions you need, whether it’s membership signup, meeting registration, publication sale or advocacy involvement. So it’s time to really deepen your awareness of all the marketing channels you own and how they work with one another. No longer can you have the meetings team sending out emails that the web and marketing teams don’t know about. An editorial calendar is a good start. Charting user journeys through your systems is another.

How will your digital marketing evolve in 2020?

January 2, 2020
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
What REALLY Matters for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
I do a lot of SEO consulting for clients. Clients want to know: how to optimize their websites for Google, how to drive more organic traffic to their sites, and what keywords they should focus on for optimization.

At Matrix Group, we spend a lot of time on the mechanics of our client sites so that search engines can easily find them and index content.

But here’s the single, most important question I ask clients to ask themselves when developing their content and SEO strategy:

What are people typing into Google where YOU and YOUR SITE are the answer?

Because most people want to go direct to content AND because Google is so darn effective, a huge chunk of your members, customers and potential customers simply type a natural language query into Google. They will type questions like:

When is the ABC conference?
What do I need to do to become a ….?
What is the best training for (fill in the blank) professionals?
How many credits do I need to become a ….?
How much does it cost to…?

If you don’t know what your members and customers are typing into Google, find out by:
- Looking at the incoming organic search terms driving traffic to your site. Most of this information is blocked by Google, but it’s worth looking to see what’s available in your Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools.
- Looking at the search terms and phrases people type on your site search. If you aren’t logging this, start now and look at the report monthly.
- Asking your customers what they typed into Google recently where they either expected to find a link on your site or expected a resource related to your profession or industry.
- Going to https://trends.google.com and researching the top queries related to your business.
Once you have a collection of these valuable search queries, make sure you have content (and lots of it) that matches those queries. Heck, you should be writing blog posts, news items and FAQs that perfectly match your most important queries.

Yes, your website should also be mobile-friendly, be well structured, have clean CSS, have permalinks, have alt tags, yada, yada. But all of these technical requirements mean nothing if you don’t have the content your target audiences are looking for. Give it to them and make it easy for Google to match your content with your customers.
September 5, 2018
Tips for Increasing Email Deliverability
Guest post by Leah Monica, Director of Marketing

We all constantly hear about email marketing best practices to help increase our open and click rates – subject lines, concise copy, clear calls-to-actions – but what good are those best practices if our emails aren’t even reaching your contacts’ inboxes?

Why do your emails sometimes get blocked? Here’s a quick rundown on some things that can affect email delivery:

Email delivery is best for personal emails sent from one person to another person. Not surprising, right? From there, delivery rates start to go down when you send to larger groups of people, specifically when you’re sending to 20+ individuals per email, or when you use any type of list or bulk email platform.

On top of that, there are also a variety of filters that catch or reject mail, for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it’s because people are marking your email as spam (more on that another time!), but sometimes corporate filters simply decide that too much mail has come from one particular group/IP and they cut it off for fear of spam or malicious intent. For example, if you sent a message to 100 people at one of your member companies, 20 of them may get it while 80 do not.

So what can you do? Here are some immediate solutions that may help:
- Ask your members to ask their IT groups to whitelist your organization, either by domain (including anything from any of your subdomains) or by IP address.
- Remind your members to not mark your messages as spam or junk, but to simply unsubscribe or contact you if they want help getting off some of your lists.
- Watch the amount of email you are sending out. Don’t make them want to press the ‘junk’ button. Also be careful not to make your subject lines sound spammy.
- Beware of attachment sizes! Some corporate groups block emails with attachments as small as 5MB.
One of our biggest tips is to have someone on staff look at your email delivery reports each week, and follow up on a few email addresses that are marked as hard or soft bounces. i.e., call that person or the primary contact of that organization, and confirm people/email addresses. This is also a good time to ask if they can whitelist you! A couple of our clients systematically do this, and they report it is a good way to chat with the members casually, in addition to keeping their database clean. Wins all around!
July 30, 2018
Does Your Website Need Web Push Notifications?
Let’s face it. As marketers, we’re always wondering how to reach more people, get more opens and clicks, drive traffic, and get more conversions.

Mobile apps have been terrific at generating visits and conversions because of their ability to send push notifications to users. We’ve all gotten used to the notifications on our phone, as well as the numbers next to apps that tell us we’ve got announcements to read.

What if you don’t have a mobile app? You can now use web push notifications to send reminders and announcements! How does it work?
- Websites that have web push notifications ask you for permission to send you notifications when you visit the site. You can either accept or block notifications.
- If you accept notifications, you’ll get little messages that pop-up in your browser when a new article, video or product has been posted AND notification has been enabled for that update.
- You’ll get the notifications no matter what website you’re currently visiting at the time the notification goes out.
To see web push notifications in action, visit www.fmi.org or my blog at TheMatrixFiles.net. If this is the first time you’ve visited the site, you’ll see a red bell icon in the bottom right corner. If you click it, you’ll be given the option to subscribe to browser notifications. It’s that easy!

If you subscribe to notifications on my blog, you’ll get a reminder whenever we publish a new post, regardless of what site you’re surfing at the time. It’s remarkably effective and yet surprisingly not annoying. If you use Google Calendar, you can enable notifications via your browser so that Google can send you reminders about upcoming meetings.

I see more websites employing web push notifications for these reasons:
- They represent another way to get people to convert and give you permission to send them updates.
- Web push notifications are easy to opt in to because they don’t require an email or contact information, just a click.
- Subscribing and unsubscribing is very easy.
- The notifications services can give you good analytics about number of subscribers, delivery and clicks.
Here’s the bad news about web push notifications: they are not currently supported in IE or iOS. They are supported in Chrome, Safari and Firefox, so a good percentage of the web is covered. Apple has announced the web push notification support is in development and the same thing is likely happening at Microsoft with IE and Edge.

Adding web push notifications to your site is inexpensive and easy to do. Contact my team if you want more info. I hope you’ll consider this valuable tool for reaching your target audiences.
June 5, 2018