The Emergency Medicine Residents' Association (EMRA) asked us to help them develop a positive brand experience for their new members, in an effort to improve new member engagement. Getting new members involved is a challenge for EMRA due to several important factors. It's an organization for Emergency Medicine Residents. Residents are busy, tired, overworked young doctors, and don't have a whole lot of mental bandwidth to spare. Further complicating matters, most new members of EMRA don't pay for their membership directly, instead having their membership provided by their residency programs. This is a recipe for poor engagement and low perceived value.

In the past EMRA would send their new membership materials in a USPS Priority Mail Envelope which, because it's overstuffed with membership materials and free publications, would arrive battered and broken. So not only did most new members not know they were members until they received their materials, but their first experience was a battered and torn Priority Mail envelope.

We decided to create a positive initial impression with new members by creating a bright, friendly, high-quality mailing sleeve to fit the off-the-shelf ULine mailing box that EMRA selected. We also replaced a series of photocopied "kitchen sink" handouts with a matching benefits brochure that delineates the benefits of membership in a concise manner, and opted to send new members to specially crafted pages of EMRA's website and social media outlets to supplement the information in the brochure.

It's our intention that by creating an impression of positive value and by driving recipients to EMRA's online presences we will create an opportunity for engagement with new members and a better understanding of the value of EMRA membership.