Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond to our 2013-14 Chapter Membership Survey! We had great participation and the feedback has been used to shape our 2014-15 programs and other efforts.

We welcome feedback and ideas anytime! Send an email to our chapter email address or contact one of the Executive Committee members directly.

As promised, here is a summary of the survey results.

Industry Experience

• 46% of respondents have been in agri-marketing or agri-business for more than 10 years
• 33% of respondents have been in agri-marketing or agri-business for 1-5 years
• What we learned: We need to provide more opportunities for less experienced members to get to know and learn from those who have been around a little longer.

Member Companies

• 20% of our chapter works for companies that manufacture crop products or equipment
• 17% of our chapter works for marketing/ad agencies
• 17% of our chapter marked “other” (guess we need to do a better job of providing options)
• The remaining members work for media companies, industry associations, seed companies, marketing product/service companies, universities/extension and market research companies.
• What we learned: We love the diversity of our chapter!

NAMA Involvement

• 50% of respondents have been NAMA members for 1-5 years
• 33% of respondents have been NAMA members for more than 10 years
• What we learned: Recent membership efforts are paying off. While we want to grow, we want to make sure we don’t lose the participation and interest of our more senior members.

Why Participate in MidSouth NAMA

• 92% of the chapter participate to network with people involved in agri-marketing in our region
• 67% of the chapter participates for career development
• 42% participates because they feel it is important
• 30% participates to support the local student chapters
• 25% participates to learn about specific skills
• What we learned: We need to have more social events, which are better suited to networking than meetings with a presenter.

Meeting Attendance

• 35% of respondents attended 5 or more chapter events (out of 7 total events)
• 35% attended 1-2 chapter events
• 30% attended 3-4 chapter events
• What we learned: We are thrilled that one-third of the chapter attended so many events. We are going to work on the 35% who attended 1-2 events this year!

Top 3 Drivers for Chapter Meeting Attendance 

1. Workload
   
2. Meeting location (part of town)
   
3. Meeting topic
   

• What we learned: We know everyone is busy so we weren’t surprised that workload was the number one driver. We will continue to move the meetings around geographically.

Meeting Topics/Ideas

• Local food/ag industry
• How to be a better marketer
• Technology in the ag community
• More topics related to farms; things to help us meet the farmers needs
• Trends in ag and marketing
• Social media
• Industry updates
• Media trends
• Branding
• High-concept marketing ideas
• What MidSouth agri-marketers are doing
• Tradeshows
• Media relations with ag crisis situations

Preferred Meeting Time (in order)

1. Mid-day 11am-2pm
   
2. Early evening 5-7pm
   
3. Afternoon 2-5pm
   
4. Morning 7-10am
   
5. Later evening 7-9pm
   

• What we learned: Mid-day lunchtime meetings were heavily preferred so we will continue to use that as our standard meeting time; however, we are going to incorporate at least one early evening event this year.

Communications

• 92% said chapter communications were “about right”
• What we learned: We’re glad you don’t feel like we are stalking or ignoring you. We’ll keep it the same.

Website

• 65% only visit the website when they receive a notification or email that links to it
• 22% only visit monthly for meeting info
• What we learned: We will continue to use the chapter website as the primary location for all chapter news and event info.

Other Feedback: What else can we do?

• Earlier notification of meeting dates
• More early evening events
• More social events
• More interaction with student chapters
• What we learned: Our meetings are typically on the third Thursday of the month but that does change. We are finalizing the meeting dates for 2014 right now and we will share that info as soon as it is available. We are reaching out to the student chapters to find out what they want from our relationship. We have considered mentoring opportunities, campus visits and streaming our meetings online so they can participate.