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The Membership Agency
A River Group Company
2021 The Future For Membership Organisations and Charities
If you would like to be part of our UK wide research programme or simply want to see the results, please complete the form below.

We are speaking to leaders from across the sector and will be publishing our findings as part of our commitment to working for the benefit of the sector, please do get in touch if you work for a membership organisation or a charity in the UK.
London Resources with Regional Agility
We deliver all levels of content to organisations that have a membership base, whether it’s a charity or a professional, consumer or corporate business. We provide the expertise and tools to build new revenue streams, strengthen relationships with current members and develop strategies to attract more. Our goal is to help improve your reputation, increase retention, acquisition and revenue by creating engaging omnichannel content that effectively communicates your brand’s message, vision and tone of voice.
Our success is in understanding membership organisations and their internal and external challenges.
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Fish is part of The River Group. This makes us well-resourced in the engine room and focused, agile, flexible, fast and cost-efficient on deck.


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Challenges for Membership Organisations in the 21st century
Aside from membership of the human race, there aren’t many of us who don’t belong to some kind of club. Among the 66.5 million people in the UK, it is estimated that around 75% belong to a membership organisation or association. Belonging and identity form a core pillar of our social needs. 

Constructive Consultative Solutions
Strategic Advice and Consultancy

Receive direction and insight on shifting attitudes to loyalty, along with advice on new possibilities for your organisation. You may have declining member numbers or need to monetise your assets, develop a digital strategy or seek new strategic thinking in your organisation. We’ve been there and can help shape your brief, as well as deliver on it.

Publishing

We offer a wide range of publishing services, which include magazine design, redesign, editorial content, print and production, comms materials, supplements, books and reports, and advertising sales and sponsorships.

Designing, Branding and Marketing

These three core elements work hand in hand but are equally important separately. From campaigns to exhibition stands, we make sure your communications are visually brand consistent and impactful, while perfectly representing your brand values.

Media Sales

We help you commercialise your magazines, media, and digital content. All membership organisations need page revenue and sponsorship to offset their costs. Our sales teams deliver impressive revenues, often from a standing start. And, yes, it is possible to publish a self-funding title in this day and age – with the right member profile and advertising sales approach.

Digital

We can redesign or rebuild your website, build you an app, design segmented email campaigns for specific member cohorts, and ensure potential new members find you online by ensuring your content is SEO friendly. In addition, we can create a social media strategy to increase your online presence, which would include the creation of video and photographic assets for platforms such as Instagram, Linkedln and Facebook.

Research

We’ll help you understand what your audience is thinking, measure what is working in your organisation, track ROI and determine your next steps for growth. We’ll help you connect and engage with your current audience and develop a strategy to attract new customers and keep them.

New Revenue Streams

All marketing should lead to driving revenue. Do you have limited revenue streams or a need to grow them? We’ll help you identify potential new revenue streams and improve revenue in those you are already engaged in, effectively and sensitively.

Membership Campaigns

We are experts in managing audiences, whether you need better acquisition, engagement or retention, or improved data collection and data management. Managing your members expectations is at the core of what we do.

We recognise that every organisation has similar challenges but very different needs
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Most organisations have a long-term view of where they want to be but don’t necessarily know the best way to get there. They are accountable to stakeholders, both internally and externally, and cannot be seen to waste funds. They have good staff, resources and structures, and are experts in their field. Often, though, they need change to survive and grow as a business. Which means they need a plan of action that makes sense to all stakeholders for the organisation to progress.

At Fish we don’t recommend anything until we understand you, your members, your structure, your governance and your culture. Our next step is to understand what it is you need and when you need it, the issues you are facing along the way, and – importantly – how we can measure success.

Put simply, we look at your needs as an organisation first, then at your audience, and lastly at the solutions that will help you achieve your organisational objectives. We are channel-agnostic across strategy, design and editorial through to creation, production and execution, results and analysis. Use us as your full-service agency or plug and play with our planning and delivery teams on specific projects.

Our parent company, The River Group, has London’s best planners, digital teams, designers, wordsmiths, content strategists and sales teams. The River Group is the UK’s best and brightest content agency, working with large membership organisations, sometimes globally, as diverse as Weight Watchers, The Co-op, Diabetes UK, the Ramblers and Everywoman.

At Fish, we utilise the expertise, buying power and talent of a large London content agency, and we deliver regionally with flexibility. It’s not London versus local: you get the expertise of both agencies without the associated costs. 
Blog
Uncategorised

River Group, Fish, Maven & River Sounds to work from home due to COVID-19 warnings – effective immediately

 17th March 2020

Given the UK Prime Minister’s daily statement on 16 March 2020 recommending working from home if possible for London workers, the River Group Board ha...

Thought Leadership

The forces that are changing the shape of membership

 11th October 2019

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. So said a teen icon back in the 1980s, when your PC had ...

Thought Leadership

Future-proofing your membership organisation

 3rd October 2019

To future-proof something is to enable it to continue to be of value in the distant future; in essence, to ensure that it does not become obsolete. Th...

Clients
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Your Lead Team

Mike Barnes
Non-Executive Director
Mike has worked for trade bodies and membership organisations for over 18 years in marketing, business development and commercial director roles, including the Direct Marketing Association and British Eventing, as well as running his own consultancy in the membership sector. He has worked as a publisher and marketing director for Emap consumer magazines and in the very distant past, when things were sepia, he worked for British Gas.  A Fellow of both the Chartered Institute of Marketing and Institute of Digital and Direct Marketing, Mike is also a past Trustee of the Institute of Fundraising and a marketing awards judge for the CMA, DMA, BPMA, Haymarket and the PRCA. His claim to fame is a Macnab (Google it. We had to). Favourite fish? Thymallus.

mbarnes@fishcontent.agency
nmurphy@therivergroup.co.uk
Nicola Murphy
CEO
Founder of The River Group twenty-five years ago, and with interests in several other businesses and agencies, Nicki is a marketer by trade and is passionate about it. Before founding River in 1994, she had an extensive career in marketing that involved working in publishing, and before that, in marketing for six years at Procter & Gamble. Nicki is a regular conference speaker and a proud mum of two children and four stepchildren, three dogs and seven cats. She lives in a barn in the country which is completely mouse free due to the seven cats! She is a big supporter of the PPA, and an active member of FIPP and the Marketing Society. Nicki is also a four-year director & trustee of The Katie Piper Foundation, and a previous media board member for Leonard Cheshire Disability. Favourite Fish? Any that’s edible.

nmurphy@fishcontent.agency

Get in Touch

Fish Content Agency Ltd. 48 Broadway. Peterborough. PE1 1YW D: 0203 488 0654 E: info@fishcontent.agency Company Nos: 11700572

One Last Thought

If you are thinking about a change in your content strategy or don’t believe you are getting the results you deserve from your membership comms then let’s have an informal chat. We’d love to show you how we would approach things. Even if you aren’t in the market right now, please feel free to drop by – we always like to meet new people. That is unless we have Gone Fishing.

Let's start a conversation

We would love to chat about your challenges or just make contact or simply chew the fish. Yes. We know that one was a step too far.