Guest Author: Samantha Whitehorne, Associations Now
At ASAE’s 2018 Great Ideas Conference on Monday, the three Main Stage Speakers pushed association leaders to build strong brands, effective teams, and workplaces that offer community.
Developing a brand strategy that boosts customer loyalty, becoming a leader who inspires members and teams to work more effectively, and building community within an organization are only some of the to-dos facing today’s association executives, according to Monday’s Main Stage Speakers at ASAE’s 2018 Great Ideas Conference.
Each provided attendees with strategies to help them check those item off their lists. Here’s a look at what they had to say.
STRONG BRANDS BUILD STRONG RELATIONSHIPS
William Espey, brand voice lead for Chipotle, kicked things off by urging attendees to use their association’s brand to express their values, create emotional connections, and cultivate long-term relationships.
“Everything is branding for a company—any company, any association,” he said. “Every single point of contact your customers are having with your brand is creating the brand experience in their mind.”
For Espey, the essence of a brand is its values: “Brands are simply the expression of values. … They are a value structure, a value network, that manifests itself through action and communication. That’s what makes a brand a brand.”
