Association Media & Publishing (formerly the Society of National Association Publications [SNAP]) announced a new membership structure, resulting from a complete assessment of overall member value and experience within the association. "For over 30 years, Association Media & Publishing has served the professionals and publications that educate, inform and engage members of trade and membership associations," stated Amy Lestition, CAE, executive director. “However, our former structure only counted publications (and usually one at that) from each association. We know that associations are doing exciting work in a wide variety of media, and believe our new structure will not only address these products but better capture those professionals, responsible for their creation and management.”
Association Media & Publishing has created membership categories based on staff engagement with the association, rather than the former format of having the association publications as the members, with dues based on advertising revenue. The changes have been rolled out to a significant portion of the membership who review and renew their membership in December each year.
The former structure forced associations to pick one media product, usually the magazine, as the member, which meant the association wasn’t capturing data on the full range of media associations produce, according to Jim Vick, CBC, group publisher of IEEE Spectrum brands and president of Association Media & Publishing. "We recognize many associations today have broad ranging media portfolios, such as websites, association wikis, blog posts, podcasts and streaming video for member education. We want to include those professionals, and their body of work, within our Association Media & Publishing community," he said.
Association Media & Publishing worked with The Coulter Companies to analyze current member composition and participation, membership value and market opportunities prior to crafting and presenting the new model for board discussion and approval in October 2009.
Dues rates will be based on the number of individuals who participate in Association Media & Publishing. This gives associations the option of engaging multiple staff in educational content, professional discussions, networking opportunities and a myriad of other activities. In addition, independent consultants that provide media and communications services to associations have a better membership fit within the new structure. Service provider members will find a consolidation of dues categories when they update their 2010 membership.
Association Media & Publishing underwent an extensive rebranding initiative over the past year. Working with The Coulter Companies, Eason Associates, Inc. and Hammock, Inc., the organization has launched a new name, membership structure, publications and website. As the final step in their overall rebranding efforts, Association Media & Publishing is re-launching all member communications vehicles in 2010. Signature (formerly Association Publishing) will launch with the association's January/February issue. Final Proof (formerly In Touch) and Sidebar (formerly SNAPSight) will hit e-mail boxes in January as well.
"These changes allow Association Media & Publishing to create a unified family of names for our publications," noted Lestition. "As we look towards launching a new blog as well as adding to our robust social media presence, we wanted to ensure our community would identify our products easily."