Alex George serves as account director and chief social media strategist for Fixation Marketing, providing strategy, design and interactive services to associations nationally. Connect with him on Twitter at @Alex_Fixation.

You’re an association. You want to communicate the many benefits of membership and tradeshow attendance. Let’s not forget the awesome opportunities for exhibitors to showcase their latest products and services. Now, rewind for a moment to the decade when the Clintons were in the White House, Nirvana ruled the airwaves and the Internet was something you dialed up – that’s right, let’s momentarily reminisce about the 90s.

Remember how we promoted associations back then? We dropped a postcard and a glossy brochure in the mail to highlight membership and to prompt tradeshow registration. We followed up by mailing a last chance postcard to prospects that had yet to register for a quickly approaching tradeshow. We even used the archaic machine known as the telephone to contact past attendees and exhibitors personally, asking them to attend our tradeshow or join our association.

Now — back to 2010. It’s certainly true that we have a new toolbox of exciting promotional technologies that can be used to communicate with members and prospects – the Internet (not new!), social media (not new anymore!), mobile devices (kinda new!) and mobile applications (new ones everyday!). These tools are great and will continue to enhance and change the ways in which we reach people, but let’s not throw the telephone out the window or stop the print presses just yet. There’s strong value in rummaging through that old box of tactical tricks to help you promote membership and your trade event. In fact, I’d argue that by using some of these old school tactics, you’d advantageously position your association over competitors who are choking in social media lingo instead of actually asking their customers what they want from their associations (yes, I am the social media specialist at the company I work for…go figure!).

What I’m suggesting is to skip the new media approach every once in a while and instead send a custom-printed, personalized note to members.  Or, pick up the phone and call a handful of past attendee loyalists who may be on the fence about attending an event this year because they haven’t heard an actual human voice in a while.

We’re all understaffed and overstretched these days, for sure. But we can’t afford to let go of all of the personal touch initiatives of the past that helped define our shows, grow our attendance and increase our membership. Now more than ever, your constituents need to know you are there for them and that your association is working hard to help them adjust to new shifts in the economy and in their industry. Let’s reach back so that we can drive forward to a brighter future.

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