By Ruth E. Thaler-Carter
There's a discussion in the September/October 2011Signature magazine about whether association content should be primarily behind a member wall or largely available to the public.
I've always preferred that the majority of association content be for members only. It's what members pay for—to get information that isn't available to "outsiders." It makes sense to lure potential members with snippets of material to show them what they might be missing, but full versions of articles and publications belong to members.
The beauty of the current electronic environment is that it should be possible, even easy, to do both nowadays: provide members with full-scale, detailed information and non-members with different, ideally much shorter, versions that offer a taste of the benefits of membership.
If full versions of association publishing content are available to non-members, it should be at a cost. At least one of my association clients makes its bimonthly newsletter available to non-members at a (low) price. That has resulted in some new memberships as readers see the value and range of association offerings.
Ruth E. Thaler-Carter is a freelance writer/editor and a member of Association Media & Publishing.
