When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down most of the world in March 2020, many associations looked to stabilize lost event or membership revenue and provide for their members in a different way.

The American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) is a global, individual membership association serving cardiovascular imaging practitioners. Like many associations, ASE was forced to transition its annual meeting to a virtual format when the pandemic hit, but what they did next was something more creative and out of the box, which not only added more nondues revenue than they could have imagined but also strengthened relationships.

The Challenge

ASE’s members were deemed essential medical workers. Since the time they had to understand and be debriefed on ever-changing hospital and COVID-19 guidelines was almost nonexistent, ASE needed to help provide guidance and support to its community.

The Solution

ASE’s board of directors developed a fast-track method of approving statements on COVID-19. Since the process for publishing a full guideline document that gathers information from multiple experts could take up to two years with all approvals, ASE knew that timeline wasn’t feasible during this pandemic. Because of this, ASE decided to put out statements, not guidelines, to communicate efficiently to their members.

The first was published in March 2020, and five additional statements were published in the following weeks specific to specialties such as sonographers, pediatrics, and critical care.

These COVID-19 statements were expert consensus documents to prepare clinicians to rapidly meet the evolving clinical demands—a best practice summary based on established medical practices that read something like, “If you are doing XYZ, this is how you do it safely.”

Ultimately, ASE capitalized on an out-of-the-box idea that was low-risk and provided a high-profit margin, while keeping its community and members informed, safe, and appreciated.

With this type of new communication, the society established new avenues to stream it out. In addition to pushing out free downloads on social media, ASE produced live webinars around each statement to allow questions to be asked within a video format. These free webinars were also recorded and made available online via a YouTube channel. The best part was that industry partners were eager to participate and show support for the medical community.

ASE moved rapidly to capitalize on their interest and created a healthy income line by allowing sponsorship of the webinars. In exchange for funding the production of the webinars, the sponsor received visibility in the form of logo placement on email marketing, webinar banners, and opening webinar slides.

By doing this, the people who wrote the statement got to talk about it, but sponsors weren’t developing content. This allowed ASE to match the desire of industry partners and gave its community a feeling of security by not compromising the clinical merit of the statements. The added nondues revenue was the icing on the cake.

The Results

As ASE’s membership felt supported, so did others within the general community, including some from other societies. Members pushed out recordings and details about upcoming webinars, and people who belonged to other groups also shared the information.

Overall, the effort was a success. ASE’s first webinar, Preparedness for the Echo Labs, had the largest viewership—24,000—which continues to grow as people watch it on demand. In addition, ASE’s effort to maintain that positive relationship with its community evolved as COVID-19 information did. The society produced webinars about how members are getting back to normal procedures and offered additional online educational opportunities, including some with more case examples of cardiovascular health and COVID-19 for Spring and Fall 2021.

Ultimately, ASE capitalized on an out-of-the-box idea that was low-risk and provided a high-profit margin, while keeping its community and members informed, safe, and appreciated. “It was inspirational to get it out there and to see the community’s response. To give our partners a piece of that inspiration,” said Meredith Morovati, vice president of business development and external relations at ASE. “All of these efforts acted as a light within the darkness.”