Launching an online community for MIDI users required a strategy for both marketing and the tech to enable their membership processes.

Across the globe, musicians, audio technicians, sound designers and engineers have long relied on MIDI for enabling their creative endeavors. This industry standard is built into instruments, audio devices and computers to allow them to communicate with each other. When the MIDI Manufacturers Association wanted to create an online global community of users, they approached MLY. 

The MIDI Manufacturers Association had an established website, strictly geared for the companies who make products utilizing the MIDI standards, protocol and technology. The site didn’t speak to the millions worldwide who use MIDI to make and perform music, design and record sound or create audio art. They needed a site focused on those end users’ needs.

Beginning with a survey of those end users to better understand what they wanted, we were able to collaborate effectively to create a site that supports a wide variety of user-friendly content and engagement opportunities. Paired with a CRM/marketing automation system that could segment, communicate and manage member engagement effectively for both manufacturers and end-users with minimal oversight, MIDI.org has become a hub for this creative community.

How do you migrate an association from being a small group of companies to a nonprofit membership community for consumers? MIDI.org needed a plan. And they needed one that didn’t rely on a huge staff to keep it running.

By building a digital plan that addressed the needs across the array of potential end-user members and pairing it with a straightforward but flexible technical infrastructure, MIDI.org attracted 10,000 users in its first year – and continues to grow at that pace year-over-year.