Culture Shift: A New Organizational Model
Monday, August 10, 2015
ASAE Annual Meeting
Cobo Center, Detroit
Jennifer Jones, CAE, Director of Communications, MDG (@mdgsocial)
Jennifer Johnson (@JenJohnsonCAE), CAE, Director of Strategy, MDG
Dennis Sadler, Deputy Executive Director of Operations, National Association of Secondary School Principals (@NASSP)
Feeling old? So did the 100-year old National Association of Secondary School Principals. In response it partnered with a marketing and communications firm resulting in a a new brand, website, communications strategy, membership structure, and ultimately a new culture that breathed new life into its membership. Learn from their wisdom to discover a new model for association staffing that increases efficiencies, produces changes, and allows organizations to focus on their core competencies.
Executive Director JoAnn Bartoletti came into the National Association of Secondary School Principals in 2011 and set to work to implement the results of a comprehensive management study that identified vital improvements to be made in the 25,000-member organization. But after developing a strategy plan, they determined that the organization lacked the internal resources to implement the recommendations.
The solution? Partner with another company that does. Enter MDG (Marketing Design Group), a talented, nearly 40 year-old marketing agency that was surprisingly unknown until its acquisition by current President Denise Paccione, and Vinnie Polito, Founder and Managing Director of Westport, CT event-management firm VP International.
With this new blood, the firm expanded its prominence in the event-management industry. A logical next step was increased exposure among associations, so it expanded from San Diego to add a Washington, DC office. Then on July 1, 2014, MDG inked its unique arrangement with NASSP as its new, embedded marketing department, adding a Reston, VA office (the association’s newly renovated basement with its separate entrance) to MDG’s letterhead.
This involved a substantial culture change–some would say culture shock–at NASSP. Bringing the entire resources of a full marketing agency into the building increased inhouse resources and experience substantially. Plus, there was not nearly the learning curves associated with hiring multiple vendors on a project-by-project basis – with each passing day, MDG and NASSP got to know better how they worked best.
But to pay for all of this, there was a reduction in force that only three original marketing employees avoided. MDG then had to recreate behind-the-scenes processes, considered just as important as creative. (In fact, the thought and streamlining put into these processes yielded new efficiencies that helped offset newly requested projects not originally anticipated.)
Plus, NASSP’s new marketing department had to show it operated from clearly defined priorities from JoAnn Bartoletti. It wasn’t a production shop simply processing intake forms and responding to requests, but a marketing partner to each department. To realize this, it had to communicate with all of its internal customers at least as easily as its predecessor had.
MDG therefore initiated “lots of meetings” and worked for buy in so that the association staff truly understood the two-way street. MDG held kick-offs with each NASSP department and assigned strategists to work as Points of Contact (POCs) with Membership, Advocacy, Events and the Executive Office. These POCs began attending intra-departmental meetings, suggesting marketing services and leveraging the agency’s experience to deliver on everything promised. Plus more.
With this ease of access and MDG’s interest in proving itself, inevitably, POCs were asked to provide services not necessarily itemized in the initial scope of work. Further, as with any reduction in force, it became apparent that important aspects of the association were no longer owned by anyone.
This was probably the most risky point of the arrangement: if POCs over-promised beyond the capability of the new downstairs marketing office to produce, their internal customers would see the delays and mistakes the two organizations had worked so hard to prevent. Or if MDG’s efforts to avoid that outcome caused them to pull back on the reins too soon, NASSP might feel communication and responsiveness were hindered by red tape.
But MDG had a smart resolution to this dilemma: instead of fearing “scope-creep,” it was anticipated. POCs were given leeway to “over-deliver” during the initial period until it was clear that the working relationship between marketing and its internal customers was better than ever. After a few months, senior leadership on both sides met to revisit the scope of work, using the data of what each department had requested in the interim.
NASSP and MDG were thus able to reprioritize and adjust the scope based on goals and cost-effectiveness, adding some items in under a helpful “special projects” clause while postponing others. As Jennifer Jones said, “both teams understood the importance of not making the new department into a catch-all for every possible project and recreating the same circumstances that had hindered its predecessor.”
The results of the new arrangement speak for themselves:
Rebranding (logo refresh, new color palette, look and feel, messaging guidelines, new tested control package for much less cost and a tripled response rate)
Identification of messages that resonate with members
New materials that convey each proven message
Improved lead generation by active cultivation, plus the centralization of virtually unknown spreadsheets once quietly stored away on individual workstations
Increased member touch points
Expanded renewal season from 3 months out to 5 months out with 5 emails and 2 print mailings, plus expanded outreach efforts well beyond renewal date. (As Jennifer Johnson puts it, “I will never stop asking a member to renew.”)
Launched this past Spring the successful “Same Legacy. New Benefits.” campaign to revitalize the National Honor Society that had stagnated–along with a dues increase to pay for the effort.
Transformed annual conference, Ignite, into a must-attend event with a 26% increase in registrants.
Improved PR and social media by improving response time and developing strategy to guide the direction of the online presence previously established.
Conducted a Communications Audit using surveys, focus groups, influencer breakfasts with cross-tabs to review current communications vehicles, delivery methods and frequency.
Developed and implemented Communications Audit recommendations: Principal Leadership was rebranded and updated with new columns, length, format and size. Leadership for Student Activities was renamed to Advise and reduced from 9 to 6 issues per year, saving money and making the publications more relevant. The main website, NASSP.org, is undergoing a major redesign to make it more user-centric and mobile-friendly. The print news publication is being phased out in favor of more emailed news that arrives faster. A new blog has been added, School of Thought, under which the two preexisting legacy blogs now reside as sub-blogs.
These project wins mean that the culture shift has, itself, been a success. NASSP’s marketing is now smarter, more focused on strategic priorities and purposeful about what could be. Employees of both organizations were encouraged not to look at this partnership as a cost-savings, but as an investment, with the understanding the marketing dollars left over at the end of each year, a once-common occurrence, represented missed opportunities. This purposeful change has opened the door for new opportunities, like revamping its National Honor Society site and celebrating NASSP’s upcoming 100th anniversary–while feeling faster, more agile and healthier than ever.
[Disclaimer: For the past 16 years, NSI Partners has been NASSP’s search-marketing vendor and so has worked with NASSP under both models.]
Culture Shift: A New Organizational Model was originally published on The NSI Partners Blog