Throughout 2015 .orgSource is celebrating 10 years of service to the association community. With the reflection that comes with 10 years in business, we decided it might be time to update our current tagline: “Leaders in association web strategy and technology consulting.” Helping associations achieve a more valued website experience for their members will always be important to us, but we also wanted to convey how we serve as trusted advisors, working with association leaders to develop their associations’ digital strategies and road maps for success.

While not every organization needs a tagline as part of its brand identity, it is important to have a clear sense of how you want your brand positioned in the marketplace. For .orgSource, we felt an updated tagline would be a meaningful addition to how we communicate who we are and how we serve our clients.

The first thing we did was to come up with some alternatives to our current tagline. Our internal brainstorming lead to some early favorites. One was “strategy … process …technology.” It seemed to convey what we were doing, helping associations with their strategies, understanding digital processes and deciding upon specific technologies.  We also liked “advancing associations … leading technology.” That sounded forward-thinking, conveying our goals of helping associations move forward with the right technologies.  It seemed like our brainstorming was successful, and all we had to do was choose among our favorites.

But then it struck us. If we were advising a client, we clearly would recommend getting customer input. So as consultants, we wanted to apply our own process to our project.  

We put together a panel of customers and created a very brief web-based survey. (One respondent commented, “Easiest survey I have ever participated in. All of them should be that painless.”) The survey simply asked respondents to rate three potential taglines from one to five stars. But we also went one step further and asked them to use their own words to describe our services and how we work with clients.

Results

We discovered we were on the right track. Our current tagline received the fewest number of four- and five-star ratings. This helped confirm that we had outgrown the current version and were ready for a change. While both of the two new options were received positively, “advancing associations … leading technology” was the front runner with the most five-star ratings and few negatives.

Even though the star rating gave us a “winner,” the responses to open-ended questions about our services and how we work with clients suggested there was more to think about. In talking about our services, respondents not only mentioned the things we do such as systems selection, but also that we are goal-oriented and provide solutions. That made us think about focusing on the end result of our work.

The responses to how we provide services and work with our clients also were very affirming. It’s nice to be seen as thoughtful, engaging and innovative. Dependable is not so bad either! And we were struck by comments such as “you have such valuable insights that help one get to a better decision.” That left us wondering if we should focus more on results and how we get to our conclusions.

Some of the new taglines we started to throw around included “powerful insights … extraordinary results,” ”insightful analysis … superior results,” and in an ill-advised nod to the electricity generating industry, “harnessing the power of technology.”  While we did not repeat our online survey process, we did circle back to obtain additional feedback from our customer base.

The Final Choice

As you may have noticed, one constant in our deliberations was a fondness for ellipses. The superior sensibilities of our graphic designers’ means you will see a simple period rather than the ellipses that appeared in early versions. So with that in mind, we introduce the new .orgSource tagline:

Expert analysis. Real solutions.

We hope it conveys our unique expertise in providing insights that lead to implementable solutions, furthering our clients’ organizational goals and improving their ability to provide member/customer value. Along the way we reminded ourselves about the value of customer feedback to help point us in the right direction and stimulate the strategic thinking that led to our final choice.

About the Author: Doug Klegon is .orgSource’s managing director for customer experience and marketing.

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