Ideagen Intersection
40
Making sure everything we do is about the mission....if it's not helping drive the mission, questioning, "why are we doing it? Should we be doing it? If not, how do we stop it?" The other piece of that, which sort of relates to that focus on the mission, but it's also message discipline. As any good communicator knows, you've got to be pretty disciplined in your messages if you're going to be successful in getting them out, being clear so that people understand what it is that you're doing. I think it's those three skills particularly that I bring that are helping me in this role and hopefully making me successful in this role.
George:
Kevin, that's an incredible perspective. I think it's very interesting to hear how you've worked in so many different parts of AARP. That leads me to my next question which is, how does AARP effectively reach and positively affect more than 37 million members?
Kevin:
We reach our members through a variety of methods. First of all, we have world class publications here, the AARP Magazine and AARP Bulletin. They are truly award winning publications that have enormous reach. AARP has upwards of 38 million members and our publications go to all 38 million. According to the MRI numbers, which is the industry standard for measuring readership, we have a little over 36 million readers of our publications, which is, at least I always find when I really step back and think about that, somewhat mind-boggling. Those are two very effective tools we have to reach them.
We don't limit with that. We obviously use a lot of social media, web, and what have you to not only reach our members, but the broader population. We have a membership, as I said, of a little over 38 million, but we serve the entire 50-plus population. That's who we view as the people we serve, is those 50-plus people and franky, their families too. We're not limited by just our membership.
Our publications, our online work, and then we also do a tremendous amount in community. AARP likes to view itself not so much as a national organization, but as a nationwide organization. By that we mean, we're in every community across the country and we have lots of active volunteers and staff in communities across the country. We have offices in all of the states and a lot of the major cities across the country, so we do a lot of face-to-face with folks as well.
We reach them basically through the breadth of communication channels. We also use direct-mail and other venues like that. We have a pretty strong brand and we have a pretty strong trust with our members. When we send them information materials, not only do they read it, but they act on it.