YGM Total Resource Campaigns

Are you planning your fall Total Resource Campaign (TRC) now? One of the first things on your timeline is most assuredly to promote it to your members and community.

In the YGM TRC world, you know that all communications and promotions should be centered around your members. If the focus is put on how involvement in the TRC through sponsorships benefits the members and their businesses, that communication will be more successful than if it is focused on how the TRC helps the chamber.

Now, we know TRCs help chambers. They give you a deep dive into strategic planning. They give you funds for your budget for an entire year. They bring in new volunteers and new members.

But Total Resource Campaigns – if done well – are also really beneficial to your members because they allow them avenues of contact with their target audiences that they might not have otherwise had. Let your pre-TRC marketing reflect that.

How do you do that?

Don’t simply announce in your newsletter/e-news that your TRC starts on whatever date. That’s boring and not informative.
Tell the story of your TRC by telling the story of your members. And let them tell their own stories, either in print or video.
Ask successful volunteers for the names of businesses they worked with that saw significant growth as a result of their sponsorships. Ask that volunteer to do a 60 second video interview with the business owner about how the sponsorship helped them reach their target market.
Include information in your communications pieces regarding the different sectors that were reached in your last TRC and how your sponsorships helped your member businesses reach those sectors.

Above all, you cannot overemphasize in your communications leading up to the campaign that the TRC is about finding ways to best assist member businesses in furthering their unique missions. Find new and different ways to say that. Even if you grow tired of saying it, your members won’t grow tired of hearing it. Because for them, the chamber should always be about how you can be of service to them.

Do your communications pieces communicate the right messages? If not, now is the right time to discover that and make any changes necessary.

If you need any help with a communications review, let us know. We are here to help you.

If you were to jot down the number of sponsors your chamber currently has, what percentage of your members would be on that list? For most chambers, that number would most likely be less than 50 investors.

Do chambers want additional sponsors? Do they want more members as event partners? Of course.

Current Model?
Consider the following scenario. Is it familiar in your chamber?

The Annual Meeting has arrived, and the event is a little shy of meeting budget. Chamber staff members place calls to a few board members or existing sponsors to secure the needed funds. Once the allotted amount is met, everyone moves on to the execution of the planning the event. Then, it seems, the event is barely concluded before the attention is redirected to the golf tournament and raising funds for it. And thus, the cycle continues.

In that scenario, a select few businesses – often, those who appear closest to the organization – continue to monetarily undergird the needs of the chamber, while the majority of members never contribute beyond paying their dues. That majority of members miss out on sponsorship and publicity opportunities, often because they weren’t aware that those opportunities existed.

Do those members feel that they cannot sponsor Chamber events? In our experience, yes, businesses often feel that way. They want to sponsor, but they feel like they can’t access the opportunities or are simply unaware of them.

Try a New Approach
A Total Resource Campaign works to break this cycle and to increase a chamber’s sponsorships and member engagement.

A Total Resource Campaign – or TRC, as we call it – will open up a wealth of opportunities for chambers to increase non-dues revenue. In a first year TRC, 80% of the businesses who sponsor have never sponsored a chamber program previously.

Why do such a large number of new sponsors come forward in a TRC? The answer is simple. They have never before been asked to participate in chamber life at this level.

Volunteers Make a Difference
Simply conducting a campaign will not change the engagement. A large portion of the dynamic change is due the utilization of a larger volunteer base than in the past.

When volunteers take the business development opportunities offered to them through a TRC and discuss with members (and potential members) the sponsorship opportunities available, members begin to see sponsorships as marketing and advertising opportunities available through the chamber – not as philanthropic donations to the chamber.

Move Forward
Total Resource Campaigns are amazing ways to promote the chamber in the community and within the chamber membership itself. TRCs increase exposure in terms of membership, sponsorship and volunteer involvement.

Done well, a TRC can show local businesses in a very specific way why sponsoring the chamber is good for business – both for an individual business and for business as a whole for the community.

Improve Your TRC Communications

Improve Your TRC Communications

Why a TRC Changes the Way Chambers View Sponsorships