More Than Marketing: The Power of Strategic Communications
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Recorded live at ASAE's Marketing, Membership, Communications + Tech Conference, guest host Nikki Golden, CAE, of Association Laboratory, welcomes Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP, editor-in-chief and director of content at the American Academy of Actuaries, for a conversation on the evolving role of association communications and marketing. Together, they explore how the two disciplines work hand in hand to build trust, engage members, and advance organizational goals. They also discuss the growing influence of AI, the importance of strategic storytelling, and why communications professionals must continue developing the skills needed to lead in an increasingly complex and technology-driven environment.
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Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.
Transcript
Nikki Golden, CAE: [00:00:00] Welcome to this month's episode of Association NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Nikki Golden, CAE, managing director and strategist at Association Laboratory. I'm also incoming vice chair of the Communications Professionals Council of ASAE.
We're recording today from ASAE's MM&C Conference in Washington, DC, where association professionals from across the country and industry are gathering to share ideas, build connections, and explore what's next for the community. Today, I'm talking to Preeti, who is one of my fellow council members, and so we're excited to be here with you.
Preeti, do you wanna introduce yourself?
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Yeah, sure, Nikki, I'm so excited to be chatting with you. I am Preeti Vasishtha, and I am the editor-in-chief at the American Academy of Actuaries, and I'm also the director of content. I've had various roles in [00:01:00] communications throughout my career at associations in Washington, DC, so I'm really excited to be here.
Nikki Golden, CAE: Great, and since we are at MM&CC+Tech, I'm wondering, what do you think is so valuable about this conference for the communications community?
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Yeah. First off, this is my first MM&C+Tech. Oh, great. Yeah. I've been to ASAE's, but this time I was like, "I have to go to MM&C+Tech." So I think one of the things that when I was doing the research for my...
I was planning my schedule, looking at all the sessions, and one thing that struck me, I was like, "Wow, I can go to this. I can go for this. This really speaks to me. This session really speaks to me." And when I was doing that, I realized this conference, this event is really built around our jobs of marketing and communications, right?
Nikki Golden, CAE: And membership.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Yeah, and I'll get to that.
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah. You're right, and tech. Like, the three, like, let's- Yeah ... like the pillars of a, a stool.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Yeah. And when I was looking at the sessions, I wasn't even looking whether [00:02:00] it's marketing, whether it's tech, whether it's branding. I was just going, "Yeah, I can go to all of these."
Yeah. So I think that's the power of this conference. I also feel the name represents all the four tools of an organization, right? We are the main characters here.
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Right? This is about us.
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: So I wasn't struggling to find meaningful, sort of, sessions. Say, "Ah, I don't know which ssession I should go to at this spot."
So I think that was really great, and I know, Nikki, you've talked about this previously, but really, you can look at it as three or four distinct areas. Yeah. But none of us really is sticking to our lane. It's also interconnected.
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah, very much so.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: I think MMC and tech gets that complexity of our lives, and it just showcases the reality of what we are doing in our daily lives.
Nikki Golden, CAE: And it creates that commonality among these four different groups that really need to work [00:03:00] together in order to have- Agreed ... a solid engagement from your members. So I agree with that. Exactly.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: So coming to our favorite question, we've talked about this a lot.
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: And we can go on talking about this a lot.
We talk of marketing and communications, so how would you, Nikki, what do you see as the differences between the two?
Nikki Golden, CAE: I really think of marketing as really driving that brand awareness. There's a lot of product sales that are involved in it. And communications, I think, really manages that narrative and that storytelling relationship across all the stakeholders.
You really can't have one without the other. I think we often talk about them as if they're in competition, but really they should be working hand-in-hand, right? Because you can't really sell a product or have a brand without having that storytelling aspect in the background. And I think oftentimes we are pitted against each other, and what I really like about, I [00:04:00] think, this conference and I think the way that the councils work together, is that we really see how much the two need each other, and where one kind of lane stops and the other one starts.
I think people are tending to understand that a little bit better nowadays than they used to. But if I'm thinking about the way that we're going to be, how you think about which is which, conversions, sales, market share, that's a marketing ownership area. But building that, shaping public opinion, including your members' opinion, your stakeholders' opinion, really managing information that people need to know is really where communications sits.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Yeah, I so agree with you. So marketing really, it's so easy to quantify. It's here, right? Yeah. What are the metrics? But when it comes to communications, ah, it's a longer story. It's about the trust, it's about the storytelling. That's so hard to quantify.
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah. And, but you're right. But it's the backbone of that marketing, a conversion- Yeah
oftentimes.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: And without [00:05:00] marketing, communications can only do so much. So you're right, they go hand-in-hand. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah.
Nikki Golden, CAE: So I think along those same lines, like when you're talking to people who are outside of the marketing and comms, I think, what do they often get wrong about that work? And then along with that, how does that misunderstanding really affect the way that the organization can move forward?
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Such a great question, and again, I'm sure we can have a discussion. But I feel, you know, the most persistent misconception that I've felt is marketing i- is our work is about execution.
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: And that strategy is somewhere else. Yeah. It's like we are known as the newsletter people, the co- or they'll write something up, or they'll do social media.
Nikki Golden, CAE: Or they're just putting
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Yeah ... Ah, they're just putting out... Eh, it's easy. They'll just get it done. And we really are just doing sort of the hands-on role. I think our job, our role is so important to how an organization is [00:06:00] perceived both internally and externally, and that perception has a lot of consequences, right?
Yeah. Whether your members are renewing, whether policymakers think of you as a credible source, whether the journalists will pick up your phone when you make a call, or even your non-members or the members you, people you want to acquire as members, they even really even know about you. So all of this sort of feeds into what we do. And your other question really was about what, what impact does it have on the organization? So the downstream effect of this is that marketing communications, we are brought in too late.
Nikki Golden, CAE: Oh my God. We could have a whole session about that.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Told you. So it's like-
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah, 'cause you don't need to know until it's time for us to message.
Why would you need to know at the front end of this project?
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Yeah.
Nikki Golden, CAE: Why would we want your insight into the stories that we've been telling, what the brand voice is, or any of even pricing for the marketing side?
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Yeah. [00:07:00] You're right. And it's just a general example. The organization is working on a major initiative, major project, and okay, all the details are done, and someone at the end will say, "Okay, let's think about how we are gonna communicate this," right?
And that's when we're brought in, when sometimes it's too late. But I think if we have a place on the table right from the get-go, the organizations make better decisions and wiser decisions. Why? Because we are thinking of the audience right from the get-go, right?
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah, 100%. I think when we do projects with our clients, the projects that are implemented well are when marketing and communications has a seat at the table for the entirety of the project, because they're not just handed a slide deck and saying, "Communicate this to the members."
Yeah. They're able to think strategically about it. They are understanding the why and how decisions were being made all along the way, and so they're constantly [00:08:00] thinking about what is the story that we need to tell to get people to understand why we're making the decisions we're making. It's very hard to do that when you've just been brought in at the end of the topic and somebody gives you a highlight of what has been, like, 12 months of planning.
And you don't have all the information, and so something gets lost.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Yeah ... what's the message? Who is the audience? When are we trying to reach them? What is our success metrics? So those are some of the sort of questions that communications we guys-
Nikki Golden, CAE: And how can we use our various vehicles to really drive home that message instead of just focusing on one place. Yeah. Yeah.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Yeah. So talking about audience, we mentioned that a lot in our discussion right now, Nikki. So how do you think we guys in marketing and comms can really help with that connection with members? What's our role there?
Nikki Golden, CAE: I think our role is kind of that, a through line of the brand and the story that we're telling.
I think oftentimes it's our role [00:09:00] to bring in what is the mission of the organization? And can we keep that as that North Star? And what is our strategic plan? Can we talk to the things that we are, we've learned through the strategic plan? What are the things that are impacting our members? How can we better communicate them to help them understand that we're aligned with their goals and their needs and their wants?
Because I think about both marketing and communications, we're really the voice of the member, and it is our job to make sure that everything that we are putting out is communicating what they need to hear. And not talking, because I think a lot of associations do this, we talk about ourselves as, "We are giving you this."
And our members don't care about that. They wanna know, "Is this gonna save me time? Is this gonna save me money? Is this going to teach me something new and put me ahead in my career?" And we need to do a better job of being that member voice at the table so that we can put them front and [00:10:00] center in any of the messaging that we're doing.
And also, again, just think through the mechanisms that we have at our fingertips. Director of content is so great because that's that 2,000-foot view of, yeah, okay, that was a great magazine article, but did we miss a little piece of it? And can we do, you know, an audio interview, or can we make sure that it's posted on social media and driving people back to that?
Whenever we have an education session, can we post people back to that article? And so really thinking more holistically about how all the pieces fit together, I think really helps with that engagement strategy.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: I agree. And you made a excellent point, Nikki, when you said, "We are the voice of the member."
And I think one opportunity for organizations to use marketing and comms strategically is use words, use language that our members use. I feel like-
Nikki Golden, CAE: How often do we get into such inner, internal jargon. All the time. All the... We have an acronym.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Yes. I know where this is on the website. I know we call it XYZ, [00:11:00] but our members call it totally something else.
Yeah. And that's where we come in. Yes. And say, "Hey, you know what? Members want to be seen and heard in our content, in what we are sending to them. So if we can use their language."
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah. We're golden. Yes. 100%. We really do get lost in our own- Mm. ... internal speak. For sure. And sometimes that does translate to the website.
Oh, yes. Where we make things harder to find because we're not thinking about it from the member perspective. Absolutely. We're thinking about it from the departmental, you know-
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Absolutely ...
Nikki Golden, CAE: internal. It's internal.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Yeah. Yeah.
Nikki Golden, CAE: I feel like the elephant in the room at this entire conference has been AI, maybe for the last three conferences that we...
ASC Annual, last year at CTAC. So how do you think AI is changing communications and marketing, and where do you see it really making the biggest impact?
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: That is such a big question. We are dealing with some really big topics here. But yes, AI is the elephant in the room, and in my readings, and [00:12:00] even at the sessions here, I'm not surprised to hear that marketing and- Yeah
comms is one of the top areas that has been most impacted. We are living it. Yeah. We're seeing it.
Nikki Golden, CAE: So obvious- Because everybody thinks they can get rid of us and just use AI.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: And I'll get to it in a minute, but really the lowest hanging fruit, right? First draft, summarizing reports, comparing two reports, seeing audience engagement patterns and data.
So all that's really quick, really fast, and I think it's great for smaller teams- Yeah ... who struggle with bandwidth. I think that's fabulous. But what I'm realizing in my work as we get more and more AI savvy or just adopted more, is the need for pause.
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Because just because something is done quick and fast, it doesn't mean it's great quality.
Nikki Golden, CAE: And so just because you can use AI for something doesn't mean you should use AI for something. 100%. What did the keynote speaker say yesterday? She had sloth mode. Yeah. Which is where you really need to slow [00:13:00] down and take your time. Yeah. I totally agree. I think that people are very quick to jump in and use it for the easiest use case, but we really need to start thinking about it more from a perspective of efficiency.
Can it help us do something we weren't able to do before? And can it take away maybe some of the manual work that we do? If marketing people and communications people, we're writers, so do we really need it to write for us? I don't think so.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Which is exactly my point. To me, coming from a content perspective, a lot of things that are AI written read the same.
Yes. It's AI slop, right? It's that vague- Confident sounding
Nikki Golden, CAE: And it's almost more work to double check the AI than it is to just write the first draft myself.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: I think that- Yeah ... for marketing and comms, it becomes even more important that we hold onto our voice.
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: And how do we stand out in a sea of content that just seems like it's reads the same, sounds the [00:14:00] same.
So I think we really need to hold onto that. Yeah. So I think our jobs are becoming more about that. How do we hold onto our originality?
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah. And the subject matter expertise too.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Absolutely, right. So I think that AI slop kind of land, I think that's... That human function, that judgment, is really very important.
A couple of things that I've heard here, I thought I would share them with you, is there was a speaker from the American Marketing Association at the pre-con, and she said something pretty interesting. They have a study coming out, but she said that basically our jobs are already changing, right? But also now it's gonna start impacting our titles.
So what they are saying is that we're not gonna have them so segmented, like a social media specialist- Right ... an email person. We are really looking at someone who has strategy. They can look at AI as a whole and see, where does it fit in our workflow, right?
Nikki Golden, CAE: Just like email and websites did once upon a time, right?
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Once upon a time. So I know there's that little bit of deja vu [00:15:00] here.
Nikki Golden, CAE: I know. But this is gonna solve all our problems. When have we heard that before? I... No.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Nothing ever does. No. And lastly, I feel that this has been going on in my career a lot. I feel like I'm continuously having to learn. It's not even trying to keep up, but I think things are moving so rapidly and evolving so fast that we are now in an environment of continuous learning, and I think that's a mind shift because it's usually, "Oh, I've done this course, I've done the program, I can move on, I've mastered it."
Not really. Not in today's AI-driven world. That's what I'm learning.
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah. But I think that's also fun, right? It's interesting to think about new ways to work, again, that take maybe some of the more manual and, let's be honest, boring part of our jobs, and really be able to put some deep thought into a higher level of strategy.
So I like that aspect of it. I love that. But it is a lot. There's a lot out there, and it's hard to evaluate, and it's hard to get people to talk about real use cases, [00:16:00] not just esoterically, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we could do this?" But like, how are you actually doing this? And what is the tool of choice that you're using to make that connection between, like, all the places where you hold data?
It would be great to have one tool that can just look through it all and give you some magic answers, but I don't think we're there yet.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Yeah, we're not getting there. Yeah. Every, every tool, AI tool has a different area, its strength. Yeah. And you have to figure out-
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah ... what goes where. Yeah. How do you use that?
And just play around a lot too.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Which is fun. Uh, yeah. So we talked a little bit about this already, but what do you think, going forward in our roles, what skills are gonna be important, Nikki, in this AI world that we are living in?
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah, I think that's such an interesting question because I think we've been coming at it, again, I think a lot of the world is looking at it as a replacement for things, and I really think that it's going to require us to really think a little bit more [00:17:00] strategically-
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Yeah
Nikki Golden, CAE: about how we're spending our time, what we are doing- What works well, how we can automate some things that are maybe a little bit more time-consuming and manual, but that really move the organization's message forward. So I think critical thinking, I think strategic thinking, I think that kind of helicopter view of the landscape of all the activities and all the content being created by the association, how you can really make those connections between an article, a webinar, a podcast.
That's gonna become so much more important as AI is kind of scooping up all of our data and we are moving from maybe an SEO world to, I forget whatever they're calling it. AEO. AEO world. And so really being able to make those connections to ensure that your content is being found. But I think the other thing is just being a real problem solver, [00:18:00] right?
So being able to look at what are the things that are holding us back or creating friction for our members, and is there a way, like, how can we better get our members past that friction point or remove that friction point so that they can get where they wanna go. So I think about association websites a lot.
We're all hampered by them. We all have so many resources. There's so much content on there, but it takes a real problem solver to look at it and think about, "Okay, if we can't get the money to revamp our website, is there a tool that's out there that can help us Get our members to where they need to go.
Is there some sort of AI tool that can comb our website and our members can ask a question of it, and it gets them the resources that they need? I know that there's tools that are out there and do it. I think that's a low-hanging fruit. So being able to evaluate what the issues your members are having in terms of interacting with your content, and then finding the right tool and evaluating whether it is a good fit or not, [00:19:00] I think are gonna be some new skill sets.
I feel like we've always had to evaluate technology, but I think it's going to be an even more important skill as we move forward in this kind of more technological bringing AI into that mix.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Yeah, and I completely agree 100%. I would also add, it's also knowing how to use AI. If an AI doesn't exist for that, like- Yeah
a tool doesn't exist, how can you use, say, any of the AI tools that we have to find a solution to your problem? How can you put AI to fix problems that are being created by AI? I don't even know if I'm making sense, but it's like using AI to find answers, you know? That may not exist in another tool right now, right?
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah. We were just talking about Lovable, which is an AI tool that I was recently introduced to, and one of the neat things I find about it, so basically it allows you to create [00:20:00] something that you would have had to otherwise have a coder do. Think about a landing page, a, a customer relation management system, something like that.
But I think one of the things that it allows you to do, because there's such a disconnect often when tech and marketing or comms talks to each other, we're using a lot of the same words, but meaning very different things. I think that this tool can allow you to create something so that you can bring it visually to your tech person and say, "This is what I want it to look like.
I want to be able to click here, and go to this thing, and I want this information to be on a dashboard that looks like this." And really just visualize, even if you're not gonna use the tool within Lovable that you've just built, even using it to visualize, to be able to better communicate to a, your technology person, your IT person, your designer person, what it is you are looking for.
I think that just opens up a whole new avenue of actually successful technology projects internally that hasn't been there before.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: I think that'll reduce our emails by [00:21:00] hundreds, just the back and forth.
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah, or like the remaking of things, or wireframing.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: I- So cool ...
Nikki Golden, CAE: Those are so hard to think through, but this tool can actually help you see, "No, this is how I wanna be able to navigate," and now how do we build around that?
Fabulous. Yeah.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Yeah,
Nikki Golden, CAE: yeah.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: So I think we are heading to wrapping this up, Nikki, but I did want to talk a little bit about our amazing professional advisory council that we have.
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: And you're coming in as the vice chair. We are all looking forward to working with you, obviously. So do you wanna talk a little bit about the projects that we've done and that we are thinking of doing, a little bit of that?
Nikki Golden, CAE: Yeah. For i- ... So the communications advisory council is basically responsible for any kind of resources or content for the communication professionals' collaborate world. And so we have been split up the last couple years, and I think it's worked really well. And we focus on three different content areas.
So how do we bring [00:22:00] content into MMC plus tech? How do we bring content to ASAE annual? So we have one group that is focused on, at the beginning of the year, really s- ... what are strong submissions, and let's put together some really great sessions to propose. The second group has been working on articles.
We have, in the month of June coming out, is going to be an article about AI and communications that two of our members of our council have written. And then we've been looking at podcasts. So you and I are participating here. I think we've had some other members who are participating in podcasts. So we are really looking to build on that next year.
And everything that we do, we are posting in the communications professionals advisory section on Collaborate. And so I think we're just building a library of content. Hopefully we'll include webinars next year. I know that ASAE has been revamping their academy, and so we're hoping to build out a channel through there next year as well.
Anybody who [00:23:00] is interested in any kind of content needs or resources, we are always monitoring that communications professionals Collaborate channel.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Yep.
Nikki Golden, CAE: And are free to let us know what they're looking for, what is missing from their toolkit, and we can see if we can create something for them to use to make their lives easier.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: This is so exciting.
Nikki Golden, CAE: It is. I- It's been an exciting couple years.
Preeti Vasishtha, AAiP: Oh, and I'm looking, really looking forward- Yeah ... to next year. Yeah, for sure. So, so hopefully we'll do some great things again. And this was wonderful, Nikki.
Nikki Golden, CAE: Absolutely. I'm so glad that you agreed to talk to me, Preeti. This has been really super fun.
So thanks to everyone for listening to this episode of Associations NOW Presents. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals, discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy, the US, and the world.
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