The Deerfield Beach, Florida Observer

"MacNaughton on Marketing "

FISH WHERE THE FISH ARE June 23, 2005

One of the most efficient ways of marketing any product or service is through “affinity marketing.” For example, if I wanted to sell a product to older mature men, I’d talk to my confidant and expert, Harry C. up in Boynton Beach and ask him to discuss it with his buddies around the pool. Then I’d take Harry’s special input and figure out where more of these older, mature men/customers lived, worked, played, chased women, you know the drill.

Affinity marketing takes advantage of the tendency of groups of like-minded individuals to form groups, associations or organizations, built around their shared interest, occupation or hobby. This makes these people much easier to reach, inform and motivate to buy. To classify what kinds of affinity groups you might look for, use the word: “SMERF”. This word stands for: social or scientific; military or medical; educational, religious or recreational; and fraternal. Most associations or groups of people can be grouped into one of those categories.

For illustrative purposes, let’s assume that you are marketing a unique product for pets, particularly dogs. It’s a special biodegradable plastic bag, specially designed for picking up pet waste. This ‘EcoSafe® Doggie Bag’ can be put in the garbage and landfill with no worries, because this specific plastic baggie totally biodegrades and turns into nothing but carbon dioxide, water and humic matter in just weeks, not decades. It does its job. It disappears. Now it follows that this product will be of interest to dog owners and environmentalists alike. But how do you find and reach them? Once you’ve found them, how do you convince them to buy this ‘EcoSafe’ product?

This is where affinity marketing comes in. Go to your local library and ask for a copy of the Thomson-Gale “Encylopedia of Associations. This is a set of three very large books chock full of the information you need. If you go to the Table of Contents, you will find listings of associations of like-minded people for each of the following categories: social welfare, health and medical, public affairs, fraternal, nationalities, ethnic, religious, veterans, hereditary, patriotic, hobby, avocational, athletic, sports, labor unions and federations, chambers of commerce, trade and tourism organizations, Greek and non-Greek letter societies; and finally, on page 2497…fan clubs.

In each of these categories, you will find thousands of associations. Each listing has the necessary descriptive and contact information, often the email address of the headquarters. This allows you to see the relative size of the group, (in terms of potential number of buyers of your product), how to reach them; and whether or not they have a newsletter or house organ of some kind. This encylopedia is a virtual gold mine for affinity marketers. Beginning on page 2268, there were listed 156 different associations of dog lovers. Most of them had thousands of members. Presumably, each one of those association members has a dog.

All associations and non-profit membership-driven groups have need of money to operate their organizations and do their good work. If you make a deal with the Executive Director and/or Board of Directors of each association, you can offer them a special “association discount” for their members, with the proviso that if and when one of their members buys your product, using a special association member identifier or affiliate code (especially online, with the computer), you will “donate” x amount of money to the coffers of the association. (Make sure it’s a “charitable” donation, eligible for a tax receipt).

The association wins in many ways. First, this becomes a valued “member benefit”. The member gets a discount. Second, the association earns much needed funds to do its work; and thirdly, the executives of the association look like heroes since they have negotiated this valuable discount for their members. You win because you enlisted the association to assist you in marketing your product to their membership using their in-house newsletter or other means of internal communication. Your competitors are not as able to do this. You now have a ‘lock’ on selling your product to that particular group of affinity group members.