SMPS Indiana Membership Co-Directors Travis Stevenson and Tracy Park noticed a few years ago that a growing amount of new SMPS members were beginning to opt out of their memberships after only one year.

“We did some preliminary research and found that, because the new members didn’t know anyone, they didn’t know how to get involved and they didn’t know all the different avenues that they could utilize with SMPS, so they just felt a bit overwhelmed,” Stevenson said.

Stevenson and Park jumpstarted an onboarding program for new SMPS Indiana members called New Member Xperience (NMX).

NMX provides a comfortable and structured introduction for new members to SMPS Indiana. Instead of joining SMPS as an isolated individual, new members are grouped into a class of fellow newcomers with whom they complete six, hour-long modules which cover particular marketing domains.

Along with educating new members about essential marketing strategies, NMX also gives young aspiring professionals valuable networking opportunities with industry peers and established marketing specialists.

“During these brief modules, as a class, they can meet other new members so that when they attend events, they have a familiar face who they can feel comfortable going up and talking to,” Stevenson said.

Each module includes two presenters – one to discuss the marketing domain in question for 30 minutes, and another to give a high-level overview of that domain for the remaining half hour. Stevenson said NMX module speakers include past SMPS presidents, current SMPS Fellows, and CPSMs.

Members can complete the six-module course in one year, but are given two full years to complete the program. With this additional time, new members who are dealing with busy or unpredictable schedules are given the same opportunity to graduate alongside their NMX classmates as those who complete the course in one year.

• Scholarship winners: Al Ensley and Michael Firsich
• NMX program graduates: Beth Etting and Megan Keller
• 16 new members

• 30 Class Participants (includes two years of new members)
• Runs over the course of a calendar year (six modules, one every other month)
• Participants are allowed two years to complete program.
• There will be another program next year.