Edition

The Marketing and Distribution Section Survey

The Marketing and Distribution Section Survey

By Steve Konnath

Purpose: To measure the MaD Section's effectiveness at delivering value to its members.

The MaD Section conducted a survey during early fall of 2007. Survey questions could be categorized into five areas. There was a group of questions that captured the demographics of who answered the survey and their overall awareness of our section and involvement with our section. We then had groups of questions that offered insight into the value of our newsletter, value of our activities, interest into different subject areas, and finally how well we are meeting expectations.

For the last three categories mentioned above, we ranked the questions based on the survey responses. The first category below ranks the perceived value of our section activities where the activities are listed in decreasing value order (highest value is first). For the category measuring interest in different subject areas, we listed the topics in decreasing interest order (highest interest is listed first). And finally, for the category of meeting expectations, we list the topics in decreasing order as well (highest level of meeting expectations appears first).

In the category of activity value, you can see that none of the activities scored an average score of 3.000 or less. So there appears to be a slight negative reading to these responses. For the topics of interest, the first three topics have stronger than average interest, the next three hover about the average or neutral mark, and the last three seem to jump down a bit with less interest. With regards to meeting expectations, we are close to meeting expectations with a slight tilt toward not meeting expectations.

It is recommended that we repeat this survey every year. We can use this set of results as a benchmark to measure progress and to change direction if necessary.

Overall recommendations from the findings include the following:

  1. We need to increase the value of our activities.
  2. We need to increase awareness of our section and the value that it provides.
  3. Product management, Bank Distribution, Speed to Market and Web/e-mail are topic areas that we should focus on.
  4. We're meeting the expectations of our members, but we have plenty of room for improvement.

We will establish activities, goals and metrics to move us in the right direction for increasing value for our members.