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Smart Marketing for Associations on Valentine’s Day

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By Linh Hoang |February 14, 2014
EventsMarketing

Happy Valentines Day!

Associations that represent greeting cards, flowers and chocolates are having a great day but you can get in on the action too! According to the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association, the average consumer spends $116.21 on Valentines Day and here’s what they’re spending it on:

Gifts Most Often Given on Valentines Day (Allowing for multiple gifts given)

Candy 47.5 %
Flowers 34.3 %
Cards 52.1 %
Jewelry 17.3 %
Dining / Eating Out 34.6 %
Clothing 14.4 %
Gift Cards 12.6 %
Other Gifts 11.2 %

Why not partner with one of these companies to help you get the word out about your association? Start small with a local company and see if it would be worth it to go bigger.

See how associations like Donate Life America are leveraging holidays like Valentine’s Day. They have made today National Donor Day to bring attention to heart donations.  To help get the word out, they have developed a share-friendly “Got Heart” graphic on Facebook and it already has over 1791 shares after only one hour.

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Donate Life America also shares stories that tie into the holiday. It sends a strong message when you can put a real face to your cause. Check out Ray Gabel’s story here. He received a heart transplant on Valentine’s Day when he was in his twenties, which inspired him to work in the transplantation community at an Organ Procurement Organization (OPO), where he met his now-wife, who is a liver recipient. Isn’t that the perfect story for both Valentine’s Day and National Donor Day?

It is also a good idea to look outside of your community. BuzzFeed has great Facebook-friendly articles, and to celebrate National Donor Day, one of their reporters, Hannah Gregg, came up with this 12 Incredible Stories of Life-Saving Organ Donation article which many of Donate Life America’s partners and State Teams also shared.

Also in honor of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d share this article by Katie Bascuas, association editor of Associations Now, 14 Reasons to Love Associations (Reprinted with permission. Copyright, ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership, February 13, 2014 Washington, DC.). Even if you don’t have a campaign you can get in on the action by sharing someone else’s or you can write 14 interesting facts about your association or industry.
Linh Hoang
Smart Marketing for Associations on Valentine’s Day

Linh has been with fusionSpan since 2012 and enjoys working with all of our non-profit clients on their CMS, AMS, website and event management needs. She heads up the professional services department, which strives to provide exceptional support and valuable consulting for projects and staff of any size. Linh also enjoys planning fun events for fusionSpan staff and loves any excuse to get us all together to eat and be merry! Prior to joining fusionSpan, Linh was the Membership Coordinator for the National Association of Workforce Development Professionals and Event Specialist for The Balcom Group. Linh has a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from George Mason

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