Proud of our associations
A leader in local, regional, and national association marketing services.
Our association marketing services scale from small associations to some of the leading associations in the country.
Marketing for associations is almost like marketing for yourself. When Innis Maggiore partners with these organizations, we realize we’re benefiting our business community; helping more of our friends and neighbors get the support and help they need; and bringing together causes, industries, technologies, guilds, and skills that are important to us. As a full-service integrated agency, our association marketing services scale from small associations to some of the leading associations in the country.
Some are charities, but many are not. Yet they all contribute to the greater good, which makes our contributions as much a responsibility as an assignment. We take that responsibility, to serve on behalf of associations that serve a common purpose, seriously.
Built to serve
Live a culture of service.
Innis Maggiore and our associates live a culture of service, providing association marketing services to clients that range from regional business leaders from Chambers of Commerce in Canton, North Canton, and Youngstown/Warren; to industry advocates Railway Tie Association, Cleveland American Cable Association, and National Association of College Bookstores; as well as community benefactors Family Service Council of Ohio, and the United Ways of both Greater Stark County and Mahoning Valley.
On their own, many agency associates also serve on boards as volunteers, which both enriches our individual lives and our ability to understand and market similar organizations.
Associations also choose Innis Maggiore because of the special attention they get and the results they experience. It’s not something seen as adding more work to our day, but actively participating as a responsibility. It can take the form of direct marketing to secure donations; events to engage members and drives to increase them; or content creation to connect with the association community; we apply our knowledge, experience, insights, and efforts to help them while they help others.
Associations benefit from positioning as much as consumer brands
There’s plenty of substance behind the service at Innis Maggiore, because America’s #1 Positioning Ad Agency bases all of our association marketing services on positioning strategy and differentiation.
It doesn’t matter that you’re not a consumer product found in a store, because any sort of business — even associations — can benefit from having a clearly differentiated brand in order to stand out against other organizations competing for donations, members, and attention.
Innis Maggiore is the only full-service agency with decades of experience as marketer for associations that thinks this way, applying positioning strategy to save money and use your limited budget in the best manner. With so much clutter and so many marketing messages, any association can benefit from greater focus to stand out and get stronger results.
We might employ sector targeting toward a particular industry to grow membership; use member data to improve fundraising by making appeals more personal and relevant; bring more value to the association community by connecting with influencers renowned for their impact as part of a content/education strategy; create affinity programs to solve pain points and provide tangible benefits; keep your mission top-of-mind to prospective members through retargeting efforts; or get the word out about successes and progress not known outside of the organization. No matter the associate marketing services task, Innis Maggiore always converges it with your association’s brand position.
Stark Community Foundation
Rebranding and expanding
Stark Community Foundation is an amalgam of trusts and funds designed to honor the wishes of donors who may not otherwise be able to afford the overhead of maintaining individual trust funds, as well as taking advantage of tax opportunities and other financial benefits. Innis Maggiore’s longstanding relationship with the foundation began when they asked Innis Maggiore to create their annual report and review their overall messaging.
Given that the benefits of the Foundation’s work are in the more neighborly “community” rather than a geographically defined “county,” we recommended a name shift from Stark County Foundation to the Stark Community Foundation, along with the new themeline “For Good. Forever.” We then promoted that new image and messaging through brand redevelopment and a re-imagining of their logo, while providing a sales kit to aid staff and volunteers in soliciting new gifts.
For the three-year period preceding our involvement, the Stark Community Foundation received $8.2 million in contributions. The three years after our initiative yielded contributions of $26.3 million, or a 319% increase. Greater awareness and a more tightly knitted message grew the foundation significantly. Assets under management grew 30%; donor advised funds increased from 16% to nearly 20% of monies under management; and new funds from organizational endowments have grown 75%; so that Stark Community Foundation ranks in the top 10% of all community foundations in the U.S. and continues its annual grant awards of $2 million to neighborhood associations. Our association marketing services contributed to this growth, but we’re most proud of how this growth has benefitted our local community.
Various Fuel Cell Associations
Powering Ohio’s future
What do the Ohio Fuel Cell Coalition, Wright Fuel Cell Group, and NorTech have in common? They’re gassed about fuel cells (gas batteries). Innis Maggiore’s painstaking public relations efforts for these clients on behalf of fuel cell development in Ohio resulted in several front-page stories in regional newspapers Plain Dealer, Akron Beacon Journal, and Canton Repository, scooping Connecticut, Michigan, and California, all heavy contenders in the fuel cell race.
The Wright Fuel Cell Group, which had been suffering poor exposure and under-utilization, increased to the degree of operating at near capacity for the first time since engaging the agency.
As the client put it, Innis Maggiore employed a bold and bright style when creating promotional materials touting a “Go2Ohio” theme when labeling Ohio the new “Fuel Cell Corridor” (à la Silicon Valley). By branding Ohio as the U.S.’s strongest resource for fuel cell technology, the agency helped earn the Ohio Fuel Cell Coalition campaign special notice as “the most eye catching” branding work at an International Fuel Cell Seminar. The quote was published by Fuel Cell Today, the industry’s number one trade journal and web portal. Our association marketing services shined again by attracting more business to Ohio.
Canton/Stark County Convention & Visitors’ Bureau
Helping make our area a travel destination
Canton/Stark County Convention & Visitors’ Bureau’s Visitors Guide is its single most significant initiative of the year, supporting local tourism and hospitality advertisers. For three years, Innis Maggiore designed and produced the guide, enhancing map listings with paid logo placements while beefing up editorial sections of the Guide — including “Gateway to Amish Country,” “The Best of Stark County,” and a third new section about Stark County’s claim as “Ohio’s Golf Capital.”
The agency also served as project publisher, from setting ad rates to developing promotions to reach potential advertisers. The agency broke all previous ad sales records to the point of returning revenue to the Bureau, even after expanding page count from 64 to 72 and circulation from 90,000 to 100,000.
Stark Economic Development Board
An anniversary can be good business
When the economic development organization Stark Development Board decided it wanted to celebrate its 20th anniversary “visioneering” the future instead of ruminating about the past, it turned to Innis Maggiore. Our theme, “Stark Difference” and the sentiment “Let’s look forward, not back. The best is yet to come.” provoked people to imagine a transformation from rust bucket county to renaissance region.
Subsequently, when Rolls-Royce of Britain, a global supplier of power systems, chose our area for the North American headquarters of its fuel cell subsidiary, aligning with the state-funded Fuel Cell Prototyping Center at Stark State College of Technology and fuel cell developer SOFCo-EFS, the Stark Economic Development Board sought out the expertise of Innis Maggiore to provide its association marketing services. Timely public relations efforts resulted in a cover story in the Canton Repository on Stark’s pivotal role in Ohio’s fuel cell race.
Put positioning to work for your association marketing services
Innis Maggiore believes in the missions of associations, and we want to help yours grow, serve members better, expand reach and influence, and improve learning and networking. Let America’s #1 Positioning Ad Agency help individuals, industries, and professions with association marketing based on strategy.