AMA Membership Transformation: What Cincinnati Marketers Need to Know

Author: Suzanne Buzek

As marketers, we’ve all had our fair share of large projects. The AMA Support Center (that’s what we call the national AMA organization) is about to reveal one really big project: A simplified membership structure to coincide with the release of new technology platforms (CRM, CMS) and a redesigned AMA.org.

This is one high-stakes project, and requires all of our participation and understanding. Below is what we at AMA Cincinnati know. We will update this blog post if any new information becomes available, so stay tuned!

What’s Happening

AMA.org will have a new, redesigned website. Blog posts, member resources, and chapter resources will all be refreshed and updated. Managing your membership will also be simpler. Here’s how:

Only Two Options

Remember when you had to select Professional, Academic, Doctoral, or Young Professional when you became a member? People won’t have to deal with that anymore. There will only be two options: Members and Student Members.

Flat Fee

Whether becoming a new member or renewing membership, Members will only have to pay one flat rate per year that also includes dues to the home chapter: $300. The AMA Support Center is also eliminating application and rejoining fees.

Expiration Dates

Additionally, new membership expiration dates will be based on joining date. For example, someone who becomes a member on April 6, 2019, will have an expiration date of April 5, 2020. As a current member, your expiration day will not change and remains the last day of the month. If you are enrolled in auto-renew, that will process on the day of your membership expiration.

Student Membership

For now, Student Member dues will remain unchanged. The typical one-year Student Member rate will be a one-time charge of $50 + chapter dues ($10 for Cincinnati). Student Members will continue to receive a discount code upon graduation that gives them one free year as a Member.

Group Memberships

Upon implementation, Group Memberships (sometimes referred to as Corporate/Team Memberships) will be replaced by a new Group Discount program that new members can participate in (minimum of three people). We will share pricing, information, and processes for this program after February 11.

 

So What Now?

The AMA Support Center plans to launch everything (website, database, membership structure) simultaneously on Monday, February 11. To allow for proper transition between the AMA’s old and new platforms, there will be a multi-day blackout period on AMA.org.

AMA.org Blackout Period: February 1-11

The blackout means that no one can become a member, renew their membership, make purchases like conference registrations, or update their customer/member profile or contact information.

Related pages on AMA.org will display a message informing visitors about the blackout and providing them with an option to receive a special follow-up email once the functionality becomes available.

Important: These activities do not affect AMA Cincinnati’s website (AMACincinnati.org). We will be functioning as usual!

If you need to renew your membership in January or February… Renew by January 30 or wait until after February 11.

The AMA Support Center is encouraging members to renew early, and is even providing an incentive: Renew by January 30 using the discount code EARLYRENEW and save $30.

If you are supposed to renew your membership at a different time of year… Sit this one out. You don’t have to do anything!

If you have not been an AMA member before and want to become one … We encourage you to do so in the new system once everything is live after February 11.

By the way …

I’ll admit it, we really don’t talk about it enough, but that $300 membership not only gets you great perks here at the local level in Cincinnati (amazing network, free or discounted access to events, opportunity to volunteer, etc.) but you receive the following from the AMA:

  • Discounts on becoming a Professional Certified Marketer®
    • Think the equivalent of “APR” in PR, but for marketing.
  • 100+ ready-to-use, downloadable tools and templates
    • Anyone I’ve talked to who has used these found them LIFE CHANGING, myself included.
  • Access to exclusive content and a subscription to award-winning Marketing News magazine
    • Really good content that members used to have to pay extra for. Where do you think we get our ideas for speakers and topics, anyway?
  • Best pricing for national AMA conferences and events
    • Stay in top (marketing) shape with anything from national conferences to boot camps and training series.
  • Digital access to all AMA Academic Journals — Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of International Marketing, and Journal of Public Policy & Marketing
    • More good content members used to have to pay $125 extra for. Impress your boss with these.
  • Free shipping, great pricing and design help on promotional products purchased through The AMA Shop powered by Consolidus
    • You know you want a pair of AMA socks.

If you have any questions or issues at all, please reach out to any of us on the board. This is new territory for us, too, and we are doing our best to stay on top of it.

Thank you for your membership, and thank you for being on this ride with us.