May EO Update
WBA Rolling Out New Association Health Plan
The WBA is proud to announce a new WBA Association Health Plan in conjunction with The Insurance Center of Wisconsin. Together with WPS Health Insurance, Arise Health Plan, and Aspirus Arise, WBA members can offer employees high-quality coverage and networks, affordable plans, and a wide range of benefit choices.
The details of the new group plan offerings will be released to the full membership next Tuesday (5/29), but you can get a sneak preview here. (Please do not share with your membership yet, as we are putting on the final touches!) We look forward to working further with The Insurance Center to provide yet another quality member benefit!
Filtered DSPS Recruitment Lists Now Available!
Want a list of solid member leads for your local association? We've got you covered!
In the past year, the WBA has worked with a data management company to turn the credentialed builders list from the Wisconsin Department of Safety & Professional Services into something more efficient!
In its raw form, the list contains a wide variety of licenses outside of just dwelling contractors, and it is not easily sorted into counties or territories. There is also no easy way to remove existing members.
We've been able to turn this list into something more useful by assigning zip codes to local HBA territories, and then cross-referencing the existing WBA member list in an attempt to weed out as many existing members as possible. For the time being, we've focused just on builders with DC/DCQ licenses, though we may expand this in the future.
You can now go to the EO Resources section and download the list of credentialed, non-member builders in your territory! Click here to check it out!
The WBA is using this information as part of its digital marketing strategy to contact non-members each month with useful information about the building industry and what the WBA and locals do on their behalf. However, we want to share these non-member lists with each local so they can use in their own marketing efforts!
Reminder: Did Our Referrals Become Members?
The revamped WBA website has a new focus on providing quality prospective member referrals to our locals. We've redone our "Join" section and we've also examined our processes of member referral and follow-up.
In the past, prospects who showed up to our site and were interested in joining were referred to their local without much additional information and with no real follow-up or confirmation of what happened to them. This is far from ideal, as we all know that every additional step someone has to take in a purchasing process makes them that much less likely to complete the purchase.
While NAHB is working on an application process that will cage prospects more definitively from the start and allow locals to follow-up with their specifics, the WBA needs a consistent process that cuts through the clutter and actively tracks what prospects become members. This is also an integral part of us understanding how our non-member outreach efforts with Sortis (our digital marketing partner) are working.
We have developed a template response that the EO or membership manager at your local will be cc'd to. This template response will also contain a link to your website and a link to your online application. If you do not have an online application, a PDF of your application will be attached to the email.
HELP US, PLEASE! THREE THINGS:
- If you have a PDF application, let us know any time you change or update your application
- Would you like to be cc'd or do you have a staff member you would prefer? Let us know.
- Please cc or bcc Samantha (slong@wisbuild.org) in the initial response you make to the prospect so she can confirm the connection has been made, or she'll nag you :)
Optionally, if you would like to let us know when the prospect joins, we'd welcome the news! However, we will be checking the new member list in the WMS for 3 months after the prospect first reaches out. Keeping a log, we will be able to reach out again for future follow-up/conversion.
We are excited to take up an active role in recruitment and look forwarding to growing membership with you!
Welcoming New Executive Officers!
The WBA wishes to extend a warm welcome to our new Executive Officers, Patricia Bladow at Lakeland Builders Association, Nathan Falk at Wolf River Builders Association, and--in July--Kathy Raab at Metropolitan Builders Association.
Final Weeks for WB Foundation Scholarships - Deadline June 15th!
The WB Foundation is accepting applications for its scholarship programs through June 15th!
Last year, the Foundation awarded five scholarships for students going into the trades. We can't wait to award more!
The WB Foundation has its own scholarship program and a matching grant scholarship program to be paired with local association scholarships.