Chatter Buzz

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We’re the NRAA [National Renal Administrators Association], a trade association for dialysis providers in the United States. We provide education, advocacy, and services to our members. We also have a for-profit entity called the “Renal Services Exchange,” which is a subsidiary of our association. They’re our service-driven arm that provides additional services for both members and nonmembers. We’re based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with additional resources in Atlanta, Georgia. I am based in Santa Cruz, California. We have a group of government affairs professionals who are based in Washington, D.C.

What are your role and responsibilities?

I’m the executive director of the association.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal in working with Chatter Buzz Media?

We had undergone a rebranding, and we wanted to develop more of a marketing strategy and brand awareness. We needed the ability to communicate internally to our membership, but also externally to the community at large. We also wanted to get into the social media space. So, we really had an all-encompassing goal of more dedicated resources to marketing, communications, and public relations. We’ve been in business for a while, but we wanted to take our association to the next level.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

We put together a one-year strategic marketing plan. Within that plan, we really wanted to develop the ability to address any issues that might come up in the right manner. Chatter Buzz Media has been working on branding our actual products and services, so they’ve handled everything from our educational efforts to the actual products or services we offer. They helped create a branding, logo, and design for each program and service.

Chatter Buzz Media created the branding for benchmarking reports, and then they helped create different ways of getting the information out to the membership, through either electronic banners on our website or through information about our services when we go to exhibits. They have probably created six to eight different kinds of logos that help represent the kinds of things we offer.

We got them involved with our programs and committees right from the beginning, so they could fully understand what we’re trying to do, what our goals and accomplishments needed to be and what role they would play. We do many different workshops, conference calls, and webinars throughout the year, and then we do two live annual conferences. Chatter Buzz Media is in charge of creating the whole presence for all those meetings as well as developing the social media aspect for the meetings.

What was your process in selecting Chatter Buzz Media with which to work?

We initially had a consultant assess our organization from a marketing, branding, and communication perspective to see what we might need. That person helped create a formal RFP [request for proposal] process, and then we went out to several different firms that we either knew or were part of the association community. One of our board members had come into contact with Chatter Buzz at an event. He thought the speaker was engaging and had some unique ideas and approaches, so we thought we should reach out to them when we needed to create a strategic campaign.

When did you start working with Chatter Buzz Media?

We started a limited engagement in July 2013, but our formal agreement began in April 2014.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics, metrics, or general feedback from their work?

They have created a huge social media presence for us, particularly on LinkedIn and Twitter, the two that we decided to focus the most on. They created a group page and company pages. They were able to grow what used to be a dormant LinkedIn group of maybe 20 people all the way up to around the 750 range within the first six months and have done just as well with Twitter.

They’re also redoing some things we exhibit at a few conferences every year. They’re helping us revamp what our exhibits should be – that’s a work in progress for us.

Our presence on social media has been positive for us in that it helps us understand who our members are, and then potentially target those who might be interested in us but aren’t yet members. So, they’re really helping us identify and piece together a lot more about targeted messages. They’ve established the ability to help target different audiences. They’re digging deep into the data, and I think that’s really essential.

They’re instrumental in our efforts to both retain members and get new members. They’re also proactive in thinking about things we may want to consider doing, things that we may not have done before. When we had a new membership campaign drive, they built a new microsite just for people to sign up or request information.

Is there anything unique about Chatter Buzz Media that really makes them stand out compared to other companies?

They’re totally committed to our organization. We really work with them as partners, and they embrace who we are and what we’re doing. I think that’s really important to us, and they have exceeded our expectations on that account. They’ve been engaged with committees. They attended our strategic planning meetings. They understand the marketing, communications, and public relations side of our organization. They know who we are and where we’re headed.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or something that you might do differently?

I can’t think of anything either of us would do differently.