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Suzanne Carawan

By: Suzanne Carawan on March 31st, 2015

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Q1 2015 HighRoad Highlights in Email, Automation & Inbound

HighRoad News & Events | Lead Generation & Growth Strategies

mailto:demo@example.com?Subject=HighRoad Solutions - interesting article
Notes from HighRoad's Q1 Innovation Call

While I love launching anything new & seeing it work, I find it even more enjoyable when you can continuously perform. The road to mastery begins with a combination of humility, gratitude and the desire to always ask two questions:

  • What went right? 
  • What can be improved? 

Today marked our second year of our Quarterly Client Innovation Program which aims to keep our client partners more in the loop about what we're doing and how we're adapting to our ever-changing world. We could have gone the traditional route of webinar (slides & conference call), but we decided to keep innovating and hold the call using our newest partner, Zoom (Try it out for yourself) . We adopted Zoom's high quality video conferencing capabilities to help improve our internal communications, but found it so powerful, that now we use it for everything. (In fact, we now say things like "lemme zoom you real quick" all the time).

Why point this out as part of our Q1 Innovation Call? It shows that we are always pushing, always trying to find new ways to communicate and do the job better. We provide a supportive environment where we can test, talk and tweak. Ron pointed out in his opening of the call that this is what has been at the core of HighRoad from the get-go when the company only focused on integrations between BlueHornet and the AMS.

Some of the ways that HighRoad has changed during Q1 is through completely overhauling our sales structure and approach. We have expanded to include an Account Management team that will serve as your one-stop-shopping point of contact for renewals, add-on projects or new work. Additionally, we welcomed Lisa Campo as our newest consultant to the newly renamed/re-org'd MarTech Consulting Team to work within our growing Inbound practice. We also will be joined by a gentleman named Chris Park who will join our Development Team in mid-April. Don't be surprised to see additional new faces throughout 2015 as we ensure that we have the right resource-to-client mix required to deliver superior quality service and solutions.

As we have successfully partnered with our clients, the vision of what integration means has expanded. The HighRoad portfolio now is based on automation of which integration is a major part of it, but just a part. The Automation Portfolio now includes:

The Innovation Call also covered our 2015 educational & market initiative to push the evolution of digital marketng in associations. After receiving the results from the 2014 State of Digital Marketing in Associations and seeing how far behind in marketing automation that associations are in comparison to the corporate market, we took it upon ourselves to open the dialogue through HighRoad U. We connected with our partner, Demand Metric, to do the study and have just opened the 2015 data collection phase for the second installation of the study. Participation will take roughly 15 minutes and get you a $5 Starbucks gift card for your time & attention.

HighRoad U was launched in Q3 of 2014 and is powered by InReach's learning platform.The online portal is a free resource for association professionals and is filled with original and curated content that has been selected as being applicable or particularly helpful for associations. HighRoad U includes the following educational programming for 2015:

  • Friday Webinar Series--every Friday at 3 pm eastern to cover hot topics in digital marketing
  • Innovation Roadshow--free seminar designed for association board members & executives to explore topics that are changing association core business practices
  • Inbound Lunch Bunch--free monthly brown bag lunch series that meets in person at ASAE HQ in Washington, DC and virtually via Zoom to talk about the evolving world of inbound

The call also included some recaps of events we've attended as well as a quick shout out to the American Academy of Family Physicians who was awarded the Industry Leader Award from Abila. We are so proud to have architected and developed AAFP's award-winning solution, but even happier that it's having the intended business impact on the organization. Congrats!

The last part of the call covered recent client work. Ron reviewed the launch and new updates to email preference centers that are now available by looking at the Canadian Society of CPAs snazzy new multi-lingual, hyper-personalized newsletter. The newsletter is sure to be the next award winner due to its function and its form. Ron also demonstrated a new method for encrypting email preference center information to ensure that personal data is not exposed in any way.

What does Q2 have in store for HighRoad? Quite a few events, the kickoff of our Inbound Lunch Bunch on April 2nd, the awarding of many more CAE credit hours and our first stop in New York City for our May 15th Roadshow stop. We're heating up and hoping that we're influencing the weather to do the same!

We hope everyone has had a great first quarter and is ready for an even better second quarter! And, if you are a plan-in-advance type of person, the Q2 Client Innovation Call will be held on Tuesday, June 30th at 12 noon eastern.

Thanks for a great quarter & we look forward to working together in Q2!