ICMA'S MISSION:
"ICMA is the international trade association for the classified advertising industry. We exist to serve our members through facilitating the exchange of information and best practice in order to improve the performance of the classified advertising industry"
WHAT'S IN IT FOR PUBLISHERS?
- Relevant and timely industry information – two major conferences in May and November which deliver 2-3 days each per event of expert presentations, panels, workshops and meetings – check out the report from the Brussels General Meeting for details. ICMA also organises 1-2 smaller meetings during the year depending on industry developments, and these address topics such as sales, online revenue generation and SEO in much greater depth in an interactive workshop environment. The planned 2009 workshop will focus on online marketing and will take place in September 2009 in Amsterdam (to be confirmed). Members are automatically subscribed to the quarterly newsletter, and can access the online industry news database and the ED blog
- Networking and idea-exchange – the single most valuable benefit of membership in most members’ opinion. ICMA members are incredibly open and forthcoming about their businesses, what ideas they’ve tried, what’s worked and what hasn’t, and are happy to share their considerable collective expertise. Our events are deliberately designed to maximize networking opportunities with plenty of free time and social activities to break down barriers. In between events, Head Office acts as a hub to connect members facing similar issues and challenges so publishers can help each other throughout the year, 2009 will see the launch of a new website with networking tools to facilitate the "virtual" network. In the meantime, ICMA operates at least 5 active LinkedIn groups.
- Sharing of best practice and thought leadership – ICMA membership extends across classified and structured media in its broadest sense, covering all business models and channels, and enables members to actively benefit from the innovations and insights in related sectors. Special forums such as the wildly successful "Sharing Best Practice" session in recent General Meetings are designed to foster the discussion and analysis of best practice, and leaders in their fields are active in sharing their knowledge
- Search Engine Optimisation - ICMA is piloting a "Webring" project which will be fully rolled out in early 2009 where members can join a network of links from each other's sites to add value for users and improve their sites' relevancy with the major search engines. Thousands of sites will be listed by the end of Q! 2009, make sure you're amongst them! Contact Marc Rafferty for further details
- Partnerships and savings – ICMA has established partnerships with all the major newspaper and publishing associations so that we can offer discounted rates to relevant events to ICMA members. We also have arrangements with third-party research companies to supply discounted reports and research services - see the Partner pages. These relationships will be further developed and extended to deliver more and better value in 2009
- Total focus - ICMA is the only international association which is completely focused on classified media. Whilst many other media bodies occasionally include it in their broader conference programmes or research, ICMA is the only place where everything is focused on one objective, making classified media work better every day. This means that none of your valuable time is wasted as everything is relevant and helpful to your business
The difference - But ICMA is unlike many other trade organisations in the remarkable degree of trust and openness that is shown between members even when they are competing in the same market. We recognise that we are facing many of the same challenges, whatever market we work in, and that we will all benefit from sharing our ideas, experiences and even failures. This means that competitors can happily work alongside each other in the ICMA network, sharing opinions and discussing market trends without compromising any commercial confidentiality, and then return to work and compete just as fiercely as ever.
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