Curious how else an all-in-one AMS like YourMembership can help your small association achieve more?

Read the guide, Achieve More with All-in-One Association Management Software.

Get the guide

If your association manages member data in multiple spreadsheets and systems, you aren’t alone. Some associations take that approach when they’re just getting started. But as your small association begins to grow and evolve, there’s a better way.

Moving to all-in-one association management software (AMS) like YourMembership offers multiple benefits. Many of those benefits come from housing all of your association’s data in one place.

Here are five benefits of keeping all of your association’s data in one central location:

1. A complete view

When your data is in multiple places, it can be difficult to get a complete view of your members. The data is in too many different places to understand how individuals interact with your organization through your email communications, text messages, events, online community, and more.

By moving to an all-in-one system like YourMembership AMS, you can collect and manage your member data in one location, giving you a full picture of how your members, prospective members, sponsors, and others engage with your association.

2. Accuracy

It can be nearly impossible to keep your association’s data clean when it’s scattered across your organization. Consolidating your data in one system, like YourMembership AMS, makes it much easier to keep your data updated, deduplicated, and generally more accurate.

With more accurate data, you can be more confident that when you send personalized communications, those communications include relevant information for each individual. Plus, more accurate data means more accurate dashboards, reports, and data analytics, which are critically important to making data-driven decisions.

3. Efficiency

Nothing stops efficiency in its tracks faster than needing to jump around multiple system just to find data, run a report, or complete a process. It’s also inefficient to have to administer multiple systems and spreadsheets.

Putting your member data in one system reduces the need to administer multiple systems. It also allows your staff to manage all membership data (and related activities) in one convenient place, making it easier to find data and manage every aspect of your organization – because the data is right there at your staff’s fingertips.

4. Security

What’s not secure? Housing your member data in multiple locations and sending it back and forth via spreadsheets and emails.

Moving your data into an all-in-one AMS like YourMembership AMS keeps all of your member data in one, secure place.

5. Cost savings

When you choose to house your data in one system, it reduces the need to pay for multiple systems – effectively lowering your overall technology costs. With this approach, there’s no need to pay for a system to manage memberships, another for events, another to set up an online community, and on and on.

Another benefit of housing your data in one place is that you have greater insight into trends that can save you money. For example, you can track metrics that give you insights into member engagement levels, helping you identify when you need to take action to get members more involved so that you don’t lose them when it comes time to renew.

Interested in additional ways an all-in-one AMS can save your small staff time and resources?

Download our free infographic for 9 ways the right technology can help your association do big things with a small staff.

Get the list!

It’s not unusual for small associations to manage member data with spreadsheets and multiple systems when they’re just getting started. But as your organization grows, it’s time to move to association management software (AMS) built for associations at your stage of growth.

The benefits of all-in-one membership software

Small associations are moving to YourMembership association management software (AMS) to handle all aspects of membership management – member data, website, member portal, email marketing, text campaigns, events, online member community, and accounting and payment processing. Moving to all-in-one membership management software like YourMembership AMS helps you keep your member data secure and save costs by using a single solution to manage your organization’s database and other day-to-day activities.

Five things to love about YourMembership AMS

As if the fact that it’s all-in-one weren’t enough reason to love YourMembership AMS, here are five more things that clients love about it:

1. Support – when and how you need it

Even if your software is easy to use, sometimes you need some extra help. YourMembership offers support in multiple ways to ensure you have access to the type of support you need when you need it. Support options include: Live daily chats and Q&A sessions A robust community of YourMembership administrators that share learnings and creative solutions to challenges that all associations face A support team that’s ready to step in when you need specific help

2. Tools to drive new revenue streams

There comes a point in every association’s life when there’s a need to increase revenue. One of the big challenges is that you don’t want to turn off prospective and renewing members by simply raising the cost of membership dues. YourMembership AMS can help. Here are examples of ways associations use YourMembership association management software to boost non-dues revenue:

Set up an online store – YourMembership AMS includes e-commerce and online store functionality that makes it easy to accept donations and sell store items. You can sell everything from sponsorships and branded merchandise to event registrations, donations, and other non-dues items. Buyers will appreciate having a familiar shopping experience and a convenient way to pay.

• Sell advertising – You can sell ads for your website and member directory, member newsletter, event programs, and more. For example, using YourMembership membership directory functionality, which includes ad space capabilities, you can easily place companies’ banner ads in multiple locations.
• Offer an online career center – Using YM Careers job board software by Community Brands, which is built for associations and integrates with YourMembership AMS, you can easily build a robust online career center. An online career center is a one-stop place for your members and prospective members to find job opportunities and career development resources. By offering these benefits that members seek, you can attract more members, improve member retention, and increase non-dues revenue by offering employers the option to pay to maximize exposure of their job postings.
• Offer more learning opportunities – You can use Freestone learning management system (LMS) by Community Brands to deliver great educational content more efficiently. It integrates with YourMembership AMS to help you organize content and deliver a modern online continuing education experience.

For example, with Freestone and YourMembership, you can offer educational content from your in-person events through an online experience, allowing you to stretch your investment in on-site content further. Offering online learning experiences will help your organization bring in revenue that you otherwise would not capture from members who are unable to attend your in-person events.

3. Reduced technology costs

Moving to an all-in-one AMS solution like YourMembership reduces the number of systems you must pay for and maintain. Also, because YourMembership is hosted in the cloud, you don’t have to install software or pay for costly upgrades – it’s all included in the annual price. Another thing: You don’t need to pay for a techie to manage YourMembership. It’s easy to use, and the YourMembership team guides you through setup of your database and launches your system, so there’s no need to understand software coding or how databases work.

4. A better member experience

Here are just a few of the ways YourMembership helps you improve the member experience:

• Auto-renewal – This might sound simple (because it is!), but offering members an auto-renewal option for their membership gives members a convenient way to keep their membership current so that they don’t miss out on member benefits. (It also helps to increase your member renewal rate!) YourMembership supports auto-renewals and offers account updater functionality, which ensures that your recurring revenue remains intact even if your members’ card information changes.
• Online member community – Online community functionality is built into YourMembership AMS to help you easily engage and connect members online. You can encourage member engagement by setting up discussion groups, watch what members are talking about to better understand what they want, post important content, and highlight key benefits such as your association’s events, educational program, and career center.
• End-to-end event management – Events play an important role in most associations. YourMembership AMS helps you elevate the event experience for your members with tools to handle everything smoothly – from event registration, session management, and a mobile app to CE credits and badge printing.

5. Tools that make you look good

YourMembership includes capabilities that make you more efficient and give you greater insight into your membership:

• Process automation – YourMembership AMS gives you an easy-to-use interface and simple workflows to streamline day-to-day operations. You can do things such as schedule automatic email renewal reminders and offer members the option of automatic credit card renewal.
• Reporting and dashboards – You can quickly gain visibility to member growth, retention rates, engagement scores, and more, so you can make data-driven decisions to move your organization forward.
• Advanced data analytics – YourMembership offers data analytics functionality to give your staff instant access to high-quality, interactive, and visual data. It gives you insights into your data to help you uncover trends and find new opportunities for growth.

Looking for more website tips?

Get simple tips and techniques for a website that attracts and engages members in our whitepaper, Easy Ways to Build and Maintain a Modern Website for Your Association.

Download now

Your association’s website reflects your organization. It’s your digital first impression. It can also help you highlight and provide access to valuable member benefits. So, it’s important to view it as one of your greatest assets for member acquisition and engagement.

To help you convert prospects into members and keep your current members happy, your association’s website must grab and keep your prospects’ and members’ attention. And to do that, you need a modern, well-designed website.

Benefits of a modern, well-designed website for associations

Consider these benefits of creating and maintaining a modern and well-designed website for your association:

• Boost your association’s brand awareness – Your website is a top vehicle for creating brand awareness among prospective members. A modern website design strengthens your brand in your industry.
• Optimize the member experience – Website design is about more than just visuals. It’s about content and navigation as well. By balancing form and function, it can drive organizational goals and meet your members’ needs.
• Improve member engagement – Your website has the potential to increase engagement with members so they see you as an ongoing, relevant industry leader.

Tips for a modern association website design

So, what does a modern website design include? Here are some top tips for a modern website that will help you attract and retain members.

• Make navigation clear and simple.

  Navigation is a cornerstone of usability. It doesn’t matter how good your site looks if visitors can’t find their way around it. A modern design incorporates best practices for navigation and user experience that makes the site easy to use. For example, your site navigation should:

  • Use the simplest possible site structure.
  • Make it easy for site visitors to understand what can be clicked, hovered on, or interacted with on the site.
  • Use the same names for things in multiple places. (For example: A call to action and a menu item directing a visitor to the same place should have the same name.)

• Present an attractive visual design.

  Your website should incorporate modern best practices to make it easy for your site visitors to scan your content and interact with your site. For example:

  • Consistently use brand elements – Consistently use brand elements (such as logo, color palette, and imagery) throughout the website.
  • Make it easy to scan – Making your site easy to scan will help prospects and members find what they are looking for or complete a task they came there to do, such as sign up for a membership. This can include using elements such as headlines, bullets, and images to break up text – making it easier for visitors to read content and for you to highlight key messages.
  • Incorporate white space – White space gives your design balance and enables the visitor to easily read without feeling overwhelmed. Despite its name, white space doesn’t always mean the color white. It’s the margin or padding around elements to create balance and legibility. It increases comprehension, draws attention to important calls to action, and creates a clean, user-friendly design.

• Use effective calls to action.

Calls to action direct prospects and members to take the course of action you want them to take and helps them find what they are looking for. Effective calls to action draw people through your site to interact, or literally take an action, such as completing a membership application.

When thinking about calls to action, keep these in mind:

• • Who is your audience?
  • What do they want and need?
  • How do they want to engage with you?

Calls to action can be presented in different ways. Buttons, banners, boxes, icons, and so on. Your website should be built with a strategy around what your visitors need to do, creating the ideal experience for them.

When you think about membership marketing for your association, you might think of recruiting new members. But membership marketing is about much more than that. It’s also about providing a valuable and engaging member experience that keeps members renewing year after year.

Of course, when you have a small staff, membership marketing can seem like a tall order. You don’t always have the time and resources to create complex plans and campaigns.

So, how can your association’s small staff get bigger results when it comes to membership marketing?

In this article, we’ll look at five simple steps for getting more out of your membership marketing efforts:

1. Consider the full member journey.
2. Understand your target audiences.
3. Develop compelling value propositions and membership tiers.
4. Create a multi-channel membership marketing plan.
5. Measure the progress of your membership marketing.

Five simple steps to get more out of your membership marketing

1. Consider the full member journey.

Membership marketing involves presenting a consistent brand image and providing a valuable experience for members from the moment they are prospective members through their entire experience with your organization. It can help to think about the full member experience in two ways: the member journey with your association and your members’ career journeys.

Here are some ideas about these aspects of the member experience to help guide your membership marketing activities:

• The member experience starts from day one. From the moment your members join your organization, they’re deciding if they’ll stay or if they’ll go. Even before that, they’re getting an impression of your association. So, everything you do to promote your organization and provide a great member experience is a form of membership marketing – including keeping your website fresh, making it easy to join, providing a smooth and welcoming onboarding experience, delivering great member value throughout the year, and making membership renewal easy.

• Members have different needs in various stages of their careers. Association trends research from Community Brands shows that members have different priorities based on their career stages. So, it’s important to pay attention to what your members want in the early, middle, and late stages of their careers, and deliver more of what each of those member groups want. Doing so will help you to attract and retain more members.

• Listening to your members goes a long way. Gather member feedback – not just once, but throughout the member journey. Using regular feedback, you can continue to provide a valuable experience for members and even identify at-risk members so that you can get them more engaged before they lapse.

2. Understand your target audiences.

Before you can market effectively to members and prospective members, you must understand them. Knowing them better helps you to address their needs and develop more targeted membership packages and communications.

Here are some simple and effective ways to collect and use data to better understand your target audiences:

• Send member surveys. Send surveys to your members to gather their thoughts about your association’s programs and benefits. For example, you might send a member survey to find out how well your member benefits and programs are meeting members’ needs.

• Conduct focus groups. To gather more detailed feedback, invite a diverse group of members (representing various career stages, years as a member, etc.) to meet with you so that you can uncover more about their needs and what you can do to deliver greater value for them.
   
• Keep an eye on what your members are writing. Read what your members are writing in your online member community and on social media platforms. You might also participate in these online conversations to encourage more discussion and feedback.
   
• Look at your association’s data. The data you collect in your association management software can give you insights into your target audiences to better understand demographic information, membership trends, member behaviors, and more. These insights make it easier to plan targeted marketing campaigns, uncover opportunities to improve your membership marketing efforts, and find ways to deliver a better experience for all of your audiences. 

3. Develop compelling value propositions and membership packages.

It’s important to help members understand what’s in it for them if they join or renew. Here are some tips to help you show members the value of membership with your association:

• Evaluate your membership packages. Based on the member feedback you gather, review your membership levels and adjust them as needed to make sure they’re providing great member value.

• Write value statements. Create a value proposition for your association. Your value proposition (sometimes called a positioning statement) should briefly explain the unique benefits your association has to offer members. It should tell current and prospective members why they should join, what’s in it for them as a member, and why they should continue to renew their membership.

It’s also important to spell out the unique value each of your membership levels offers. So, create value statements that you can use in your membership marketing messages; they should concisely explain the unique benefits of each membership package or level. Some questions to address in your value statements include:

• • Who does each membership package help?
  • What are the benefits of each membership package?
  • Why is each membership level better than similar ones on the market?

• Develop messaging. Your value statements should be the core of your membership marketing messages. They will help to convince your target audiences that it’s time to join or renew. Create messages based on your target audiences for each membership level. Be sure to keep messages consistent with your organization’s branding.

4. Create a multi-channel membership marketing plan.

A strong membership marketing plan recruits new members and engages current members. It also uses multiple channels to reach people in a variety of ways.

Here are some effective tactics to include in your membership marketing plan:

• Keep your website fresh. To make a great impression on members and prospective members, your website must appear relevant, not outdated. An old and poorly formatted site can cause prospective and current members to leave the site before you have a chance to show them your organization’s value. To keep your website fresh:
  • Make it mobile-friendly. Make sure it looks good and works well as visitors access it via their mobile devices.
  • Present an attractive design. Include consistent use of your organization’s branding and present a modern design that makes it easy for visitors to read and for you to highlight key messages.
  • Offer clear navigation. Using your website should be intuitive so that visitors don’t have to search and search for what they want.
  • Optimize it for search engines. Incorporate best practices for search engine optimization (SEO) so that members and prospective members can easily find your association’s website. For example, incorporate keywords in your web pages and keep your content updated.

• Put email to work. Email is a great way to connect with prospective members and keep current members engaged. But it must be used strategically to be effective. Be sure to:
  • Think mobile. As with your website, make sure your email communications look good and work well on mobile devices.
  • Target your membership marketing messages. Segment your email list by dividing your members and prospective members into smaller groups based on demographics, behaviors, engagement, etc. Then, send information that’s relevant to each audience – making it more likely that they’ll open your emails and take action.
  • Automate. Automating some routine emails will free your staff’s time to work on more strategic email marketing campaigns. For example, automate email communications to members based on member actions, such as paying membership dues. Then, when members join your organization and pay their annual dues, they can receive an automated email confirmation that includes a receipt of payment.

• Use text messaging. Text messaging campaigns are highly effective. They target mobile devices through Short Message Service (SMS) and can reach and engage your members faster than other methods.

• Get social. Use social media to attract new members and get existing members more involved with your organization. Some ideas:
  • Demonstrate value. Let followers know about the member experiences you provide – events, online learning, networking opportunities, publications, and other resources. In addition to sharing your own content, share interesting and informative content from other sources in your industry.
  • Promote your association’s events. Your association’s events offer big value for members and prospective members. Promote them on your social media accounts and post live updates and recaps afterward to encourage anyone who didn’t attend to come to the next event.
  • Interact. Use social media as a tool to interact with your members and prospective members. Liking, commenting, and replying to comments on relevant posts are great ways to stay engaged with prospects and members.

• Create your own social network through an online community. Beyond typical social media channels, offering an online member community is a great way to elevate social networking among your association’s members and prospective members. At the same time, it can make your association a part of your members’ social networking habits.

5. Measure the progress of your membership marketing.

You’re going to be spending time and effort with your membership marketing efforts. But how do you know if they’re successful? Here are some tips:

• Set clear goals for your membership marketing. These might be around specific acquisition and retention goals. It can help to use the SMART approach to make defining goals more manageable.

• Establish success metrics, or key performance indicators (KPIs). To measure how your campaigns are tracking toward your membership marketing goals, decide what key performance indicators (KPIs), or metrics, will help you monitor and measure your progress. For example, depending on your specific goals, these might include the number of new members, member engagement levels, or your membership renewal rate over a certain period.

• Set up dashboards, reports, and data analytics. To track the metrics that you’ve established, you must have a way to view data. An ideal way to do this is to use your association management software to set up dashboards for a quick overview of key metrics and reports to give you more detailed data.

To take your analysis further, use data visualizations to see more specific insights into your membership marketing and uncover actions you can take to improve results.

BONUS STEP: Ask your members to help with membership marketing.

Consider turning to your most engaged and loyal members to help extend your marketing reach. For example, your members can help you by spreading the word about the value of your association to their networks. They can also create written or video member testimonials that you can use in member recruitment and retention campaigns. You might also ask your most loyal members to volunteer to recruit members, welcome new members, keep conversations going in your online member community, and develop content that you can use in marketing campaigns.

Want more tips for maintaining your association's website?

Read our whitepaper: Easy Ways to Build and Maintain a Modern Website For Your Association

Download now

Your association’s website is one of your greatest marketing tools. It often gives the first impression a person has of your organization. It’s also a gateway for members to engage with your organization. Plus, it presents opportunities for you to drive revenue.

But to do all of these things, your website must appear relevant to your visitors. It can’t look tired and outdated. An out-of-date and poorly structured site can cause prospective members and sponsors – not to mention existing members – to leave it before you even have a chance to show them your organization’s value.

That’s why it’s time to refresh your association’s website.

Why your association needs a fresh, modern website

A fresh, modern design is a must for getting the most out of your association’s website for member recruitment and engagement. Of course, when you have a small staff, it can be easy to put your website at the bottom of the to-do list.

But your website is a fundamental tool for attracting and engaging members, so it really should rise to the top of your list. Just consider these key points:

• Your website is a great vehicle for creating brand awareness among prospective members. A modern website design strengthens your brand in your industry. With proper search engine optimization (SEO), it can also attract more traffic, giving you more opportunities to convert prospective members to members. It also provides a first impression of your organization, setting the stage for your relationship with new members.
• Within seconds, visitors will decide to explore or leave your website. A modern, attractive design helps to capture site visitors’ attention and keep them on your website longer – giving you more time to convert non-members to members and engage current members.
• Your website is a great place to highlight and provide access to the key benefits and resources your association offers. A website designed to make it easy to find what visitors are looking for will help you to convert prospects to members and keep current members happier.
• You can sell everything from memberships and sponsorships to educational content and merchandise through your website. You can also offer banner ad placements for your website. A well-designed website will optimize your ability to sell these types of offerings and drive more revenue for your association.

Top ways to refresh your association’s website

To gain the benefits of a fresh, modern website, your site must appear (and remain) relevant to visitors. Here are some top ways to refresh your association’s website – making it more attractive, more useful, and easier to use for visitors:

• Make it mobile-friendly – If you aren’t thinking about your members’ mobile experience, you could lose their attention almost as quickly as you get it. To offer a friendly and compelling experience, your website must look good and work well as visitors access it via their mobile devices.

• Present an attractive, easy-to-use design – Your website design has a huge impact on how visitors feel about your association. Your website should consistently use brand elements (such as logo, color palette, and imagery) throughout the site. It should also offer an attractive design that feels modern while making it easy for visitors to read and for you to highlight key messages.

Also, using your website should be intuitive so that visitors don’t have to search and search for what they want. A modern design incorporates best practices for navigation and user experience that makes the site easy to use.

• Keep content updated – Tired, outdated content won’t attract site visitors and can have a negative impact on SEO. Keep your website content fresh by regularly adding news, event details, information about member programs, member testimonials, and more.

• Optimize your website for search engines – It’s important to make it easy for people in your association’s industry to find your website via search engines. While a mobile-friendly website design is a good step toward search engine optimization, you can take your SEO up a notch by using best practices, such as incorporating relevant keywords and key phrases on each page of your website. Include the keywords in titles, headings, meta descriptions, and image tags for each web page.

• Offer a streamlined online store experience – Allow people to browse and pay for anything from memberships and event registrations to merchandise and donations through an online store. This approach puts your organization’s products and services in front of more people and gives buyers a convenient way to purchase them.

An easy way to refresh your association’s website

Your association’s small staff doesn’t have to tackle a big, time-consuming website redesign to have a fresh website that supports your goals for member acquisition and engagement. Using YourMembership AMS, you can easily implement the techniques in this article, and more.

YourMembership offers affordable, easy-to-use, all-in-one membership software for small to mid-size organizations. It includes membership management functionality, an online community platform, an easy-to-use website editor, and much more to help you attract, engage, and retain members.

YourMembership by Community Brands is proud to announce a new strategic partnership with Data Sangria by AMS Geek, which marks a significant industry milestone by combining the forces of two innovative organizations committed to enhancing data portability and integration solutions for purpose-driven organizations.

YourMembership AMS, part of the Community Brands family of connected solutions, is an affordable all-in-one membership management software designed to help small to mid-sized organizations deliver great member experiences and ease their workload. Data Sangria, the premier iPaaS solution developed by AMS Geek, aims to redefine data portability and lower the entry barrier for organizations to have a more integrated ecosystem of association technologies.

The partnership between YourMembership and Data Sangria also reinforces the importance of superior integration solutions that cater to the evolving needs of the thousands of associations that YourMembership supports around the world. By partnering with Data Sangria’s cutting-edge iPaaS platform, YourMembership is poised to offer its customers an enriched data ecosystem that can more seamlessly connect across their technology stack, thereby facilitating a more efficient and effective management of association activities.

“This partnership is a pivotal moment because it accelerates our vision, and we are excited to see how our combined efforts will benefit the broader community through this partnership,” said Benjamin Muscolino, Founder & CEO of AMS Geek, the creator of Data Sangria. “We’ve worked closely with Community Brands for many years and served hundreds of customers together. They’re an impressive organization with truly good people there, so it means a lot to have them trust in us and formally recommend us to power more YourMembership customer integrations.”

What does YourMembership AMS offer small to mid-size associations?

• All-in-one AMS serving small- to mid-size associations for over 25 years
• Trusted by 25 million members and 1 in 4 association professionals
• Cloud-based solution accessible anytime on any device
• Includes modern, built-in online community
• Increased staff efficiency with automated daily tasks

A little bit more on Data Sangria:

• Integrates with over 25 CRM, email, fundraising, events, and LMS platforms
• Consolidates data from multiple applications and solutions into one system
• Cloud-based, secure solution
• Eliminates the cost of custom endpoint to endpoint integrations
• User-friendly, simple interface with open architecture
• Better metrics validating your data is flowing

“Community Brands has one of the most impressive partner ecosystems across our family of brands, so we’re selective about formalizing partnerships. After seeing the positive impact Data Sangria and the AMS Geek team have had on our customers over the years, it made sense to formally endorse them as an integration partner,” said Quinn Hoffman, General Manager of YourMembership. “This partnership is a testament to our joint commitment to providing customers with the best possible solutions and partner options to exceed their goals. With Data Sangria’s innovative iPaaS platform, we are setting a new standard for what our customers can achieve with their data.”

Hosting events is a great way to deliver the learning and networking benefits your members seek. Events also reinforce your association’s value proposition, helping you retain members and grow your membership base.

Pulling off this important member benefit requires thoughtful preparation for each event. But thorough event planning demands more time than many associations with small staffs can sometimes reasonably manage.

Sound familiar? Not to worry. Using modern event technology built into your association management software (AMS), your association can easily conquer event prep.

Five ways technology can make your small association’s event planning easier

Here are five ways the right AMS solution can make your association’s event planning easier:

1. Understand what your members want.

Analyzing input via pre-conference surveys is a powerful tool for planning outstanding association events. By gathering member opinions, suggestions, and expectations, you’ll have the data needed to set goals for your events and create value throughout all aspects of your events, including:

• Location
• Timing
• Registration
• Lodging
• Speakers
• Session topics
• Special events

2. Recruit volunteers.

Volunteers can be a big help with event planning (and execution!) when your association has a small staff. Volunteers can extend your event planning team and bring the member perspective to your event planning.

To get members to volunteer with your events, you need to ask. And when you ask, it’s important to be specific about what you’re asking members to do. This starts with a clear description of each volunteer position, which should include a title, an objective, and a list of responsibilities.

Once you have descriptions in place, it’s time to start recruiting volunteers. Consider your strategy around:

• Audience – Think about which members likely have the time, skills, and traits required for the position.
• Benefits – Describe what volunteering will do for the volunteer, such as teaching them a skill, having fun, and meeting people.
• Features – These details (when, where, doing what, and with whom) should already be defined in your volunteer position descriptions.
• Message – Your writing and graphical elements for recruitment communications should be clear, simple, compelling, and attractive.
• Communications channels – Think about how and when to use your website, blog articles, social media, targeted email campaigns, text messaging, information sessions, video, and personal invitations to get the right asks to the right people.

3. Plan your event content.

When it comes to developing a plan for event content, you don’t always have to start from scratch. Of course, you don’t want to re-hash the same old content most of your members have already seen, but there are ways to make new content creation easier.

Here are some ideas:

• Ask industry experts to present on recent industry articles or studies they’ve written, or ask them to lead a discussion about a hot industry topic.
• Repackage existing content. For example, combine related topics from blog articles or short webinars into a comprehensive professional development session or workshop.
• Use content ideas from your member survey and look at what your members are talking about in your online member community to inspire ideas for session topics.

4. Create a member and attendee engagement plan.

Making your association’s events engaging might seem challenging when you have a small staff, but even small associations can engage event attendees in big ways.

For example:

• Schedule fun meal-time activities or sessions that provide a break from more intense learning sessions.
• Offer networking events that get attendees talking.
• Offer sessions that include interviews with industry experts or panel discussions about hot topics in your industry, and set aside time for Q&A with the audience.
• Use a mobile event app to engage attendees through surveys, polls, and audience response systems that assist with learning, awareness, and overall participation.

5. Build a sponsorship plan.

Think about a variety of event sponsorship packages you can offer that will appeal to a broad range of companies in your association’s industry or profession.

Some examples might include:

• A booth package with signage at the event tradeshow
• An advertising package with ad placement in conference materials
• A package that includes a special session presentation
• A meals or entertainment sponsorship package
• A combination package that includes multiple sponsor benefits or even a build-your-own sponsor package
• Year-round opportunities that offer event sponsorships plus sponsorships for content, virtual events, and member discounts on products and services. They could also include advertising opportunities via your publications, online job board, online member community, online member directory, social media, and educational events.

Events and conferences are powerful tools for associations. Association trends research from Community Brands shows that they’re the top source of revenue after membership dues. They’re also a great way to deliver the education and networking opportunities that members seek.

Given their importance, your association’s events and conferences are an ideal opportunity to elevate the member experience. To take the member experience up a notch, your events must delight your attendees from start to finish.

How can you use events to improve the member experience?

Here are seven easy ways to take your member experience to the next level at your association events:

1. Share your event in your online community.

For members to take advantage of your association event, they need to know about it in the first place. And because your association’s online member community is where your members connect with each other and engage with your association, it’s a great place to market your event.

Announce your event date and location in your online community and add important information, such as agenda and session details, as your event planning progresses. Also, start discussions in your online community about event sessions, speakers, networking opportunities, entertainment, and other details to create buzz about the event.

2. Offer a smooth online registration process.

Make it simple for members to register for your event. Allow them to easily see and select registration and payment options, and make it a snap for them to check out online.

3. Automate your event waitlist.

Offer a convenient registration waitlist process to allow your members to automatically add themselves to a waitlist once your event attendance limit is reached. This is a simple way to provide a smooth member experience while making sure you get the greatest number of people to attend your events.

4. Share information.

Get members ready for your event and get them even more excited to attend by sending registrants a short series of pre-event emails that let them know what to expect. For example, in one email, you might include event highlights. In another, include top tips for getting the most out of the event.

5. Make check-in a breeze.

When your event is underway, your staff must focus on the activities you’ve planned for attendees, but you still need to provide fast, convenient check-in. Use event technology to quickly check in attendees, register last-minute attendees, print badges onsite, and automatically sync the information with their member account in your AMS. Offering an easy check-in process helps you maintain a consistently great member experience.

6. Engage via mobile.

A mobile event app is perfect for today’s mobile-oriented world. It’s a powerful way to deliver a captivating, memorable, and engaging event experience for your members.

An event app can help you engage with members by:

• Allowing them to easily access event details, including the schedule, educational sessions, venue maps, etc., on their mobile devices
• Keeping attendees engaged through surveys, polls, and audience response systems that assist with learning, awareness, and overall participation
• Allowing attendees to network through in-app messaging, activity feed, photo gallery, and more

7. Make it easy to track continuing education credits.

Continuing education is one reason your members attend your events. Use event technology to easily configure continuing education credits and certifications for any type of event and automatically award them to attendees. YourMembership AMS, for example, allows you to easily attach a credit to a session. When marked as having attended the session, credit is given.

Events are a big deal for many associations. They help you drive revenue, stay connected with your members, and give your members a place to learn and network.

You probably put a good deal of time and effort into your association events. But how do you know if they’re a success?

Six tips for measuring event success for your association

Here are six simple (yet effective!) tips for measuring the success of your association’s events and evaluating event performance:

1. Set clear goals for your event.

Goal setting can be tricky, but it’s important if you want to be able to measure the success of your event. After all, how do you know if your event is a success if you aren’t sure what it was supposed to accomplish in the first place?

It can help to start by getting ideas down on paper. Begin jotting down what you’re trying to accomplish with the event and what key challenges you’re aiming to solve. For example, maybe you want to reach members who have never attended your association’s events. Maybe you’re trying to drive more revenue. Or perhaps you want to provide more learning opportunities for members.

Next, use these ideas as a starting point to establish clear and achievable goals. Many organizations use the SMART approach to help make defining goals more manageable.

SMART is an acronym that you can use to guide your goal-setting. It requires that each of your goals are:

• Specific – The more specific you can be about what you want to accomplish, the greater the chance you can achieve the desired outcome.
• Measurable – It’s important to know how and if you’re making progress toward your goals, when you’ve achieved them, and how you can make changes along the way when needed.
• Achievable – Make sure the goals are attainable with the resources and time available.
• Relevant – Goals should be relevant to your project and align with other relevant goals across the organization.
• Time-bound – Having a goal without a deadline leaves the goal with no urgency to reach it. Be sure that your goal includes a completion date that shows when it will be achieved.

2. Ask for member and sponsor input.

Your members and sponsors are likely the main audiences for your event. So, consider getting input straight from them as to what would make your event valuable to them. You can ask about anything from location, content, and session formats to their goals for attending your association’s event.

Some easy ways to ask for member and sponsor input:

• Send a brief online survey.
• Use your online member community to start a discussion group about your event.
• If your association has a member advisory committee, then ask them for feedback at the next committee meeting.
• Have informal conversations with members and sponsors as you interact with them throughout the year.

If needed, adjust your goals based on the feedback you get.

3. Establish event success metrics, or key performance indicators (KPIs).

Your event goals should be measurable (Remember, that’s the “M” in SMART goals!). To measure how your event is tracking toward your event goals, decide what key performance indicators (KPIs), or metrics, will help you monitor and measure your progress.

Depending on the specific goals for your event, here are some metrics that you might want to track:

• Number of registrants/attendees
• Number of sponsors
• Sponsor dollars
• Total funds raised from event
• Number of members who have registered for the first time
• Number of members who have attended more than one event
• Number of members who received continuing education credits at your event
• Number of inquiries or help requests your association receives about the event

4. Set up dashboards and reports.

To track the event metrics that you’ve established, you must have a way to view data. An ideal way to do this is to use your association management software (AMS) to set up dashboards for a quick overview of key metrics as well as reports to give you more detailed data.

For example, YourMembership AMS is built for small to mid-size associations like yours and includes dashboard and reporting capabilities that make it easy to track key performance indicators (KPIs).

5. Send a post-event survey.

Numbers can be extremely helpful, but so can qualitative data. Send a post-event survey to get feedback about how your event measured up to attendee expectations.

Depending on your event goals, some questions to ask in your post-event survey might include questions about:

• The online registration experience
• The quality and quantity of learning or networking opportunities
• How engaged attendees felt at the event
• How well the event met attendees’ goals and expectations (and why)

6. Evaluate.

Review data from your dashboards, reports, and survey results to gauge how well you met your event goals. Also, use this time as an opportunity to evaluate what you can do to incorporate learnings from this event into your next event plan.

Here are a few ways to put your data into action:

• Schedule a meeting with your team to go over the data and consider how you can incorporate feedback into your next event.
• If you need more details, follow up with attendees, speakers, and sponsors. Just be mindful, based on their survey answers, as to whether you think they’ll be open to additional contact from your organization.
• For attendees, speakers, or sponsors who indicate changes your organization could make to improve the event experience, consider presenting them with your ideas for improvements and ask what they think.

Events have always been a staple for associations. They’re a great way to stay connected with your members. They’re also where members go to learn and network.

For years, many associations have seen the value of offering virtual and hybrid events in addition to in-person events. They’re a valuable option for members who cannot attend on-site due to schedules, budgets, and other considerations. They’re also a great way for associations to connect with members between in-person events.

But virtual and hybrid association events can seem challenging – especially for associations with small staffs. When you have limited resources, how can you ensure that attendees get value from the event, no matter if they attend in person or online?

Let’s look at tips, techniques, and tools for success in these three areas of virtual and hybrid events:

• Planning virtual and hybrid events
• Developing content for virtual and hybrid events
• Engaging audiences for virtual and hybrid events

Planning virtual and hybrid events

Here are some ways to make virtual and hybrid event planning easier for your association:

• Develop a clear goal.
  You might want to reach members who have never attended your annual event. Or you might want to drive revenue from new sources. Maybe you want to diversify the learning opportunities you offer your members. While you might have multiple goals for your virtual or hybrid event, narrow your list to one primary goal. This approach will make it much easier to develop your plan, as it will help to guide your decisions about the event.
• Get feedback.
  Your members are the primary audience for your events, so be sure to ask for their input. Getting their feedback will make planning a great virtual or hybrid event much easier.

For example, find out how many people are likely to attend your event in-person versus online so you can plan accordingly. Uncover what elements of each experience (in-person and virtual) would give members the engaging experience they seek.

Sending a survey is an effective way to learn what members want in an event. Build a survey that asks members about event length, content, exhibit hall experience, and other aspects of your event.

• Choose the right event technology.
  Virtual and hybrid events require the right technology to help you deliver a great event efficiently and cost-effectively. So, when planning your virtual and hybrid event technology needs, look for these essential components:
  • Event registration through your association management software (AMS) – Using an AMS that offers built-in event registration streamlines your event registration process by automatically populating your members’ individual information.
  • Streaming and capture services – Look for event technology that offers live streaming and capture services to help you provide a variety of content delivery for your online attendees.
  • Mobile event app – Choose technology that offers a mobile event app. A mobile event app is the perfect companion for today’s mobile-oriented audience and a powerful asset for delivering a captivating, memorable, and engaging event experience. An app puts everything attendees need right in the palm of their hands.
  • Virtual exhibits – Select technology that allows you to give your online attendees a place to learn more about products and services in a virtual exhibit hall in which exhibitors can host online booths and be available for live chats with attendees during pre-set virtual exhibit hall hours.

• Choose what type of event to host.
  There’s more than one type of virtual/hybrid event that your association can offer. In the broadest terms, virtual events offer an online-only experience while hybrid events offer both an online and in-person attendance option. However, there are different ways that you can structure these events.

Here are some examples:

• • An event with two different attendee experiences (online and in-person) going on at the same time
  • An in-person event with sessions and other activities/ that are live-streamed to virtual attendees
  • An in-person event, with on-demand content offered afterward for those who want to see the content virtually
  • An in-person event and a virtual event – with similar content and branding, but on different days
  • An online-only event

Developing content for virtual and hybrid events

Keep in mind that your content and event type go hand-in-hand, so you’ll likely want to consider them at the same time. For example, if most of your content will be in lecture or panel formats, then an in-person event with live-streamed sessions or post-conference on-demand sessions might work well. If you have a wide variety of content, you might want to offer a different experience for each audience at the same time.

No matter which type of virtual or hybrid event you decide to host, it’s important to focus on content that will appeal to all of your event attendees. Consider content topics that are:

• Most popular, based on past in-person, virtual, or hybrid event attendance and ratings
• Hot, timely topics in your industry
• Popular in your association’s online member community
• Presented by well-known and/or highly-rated speakers
• Track-based, or grouped together by theme

Also, be sure to think about session length and format for your audiences. For example, shorter, more focused sessions can help to keep online attendees’ attention better. Also, varying the format of the sessions — presentations, panels, fireside chats, breakout discussions, informal groups, sponsored sessions, networking events/rooms, and so on — keeps things more interesting for everyone.

Engaging audiences for virtual and hybrid events

Engaging online-only or hybrid (in-person and online) audiences can be tricky. Here are some tips for engaging each audience:

For virtual attendees

• Offer virtual-only interviews with industry experts, or panel discussions with thought leaders.
• Have an online green room where virtual attendees can have exclusive access to presenters for Q&A.
• Enable virtual attendees to make appointments with exhibitors.
• Allow virtual attendees to ask live questions during sessions.
• Ask registered virtual attendees for questions ahead of time to incorporate live during sessions or even for a post-session Q&A interview that you stream for virtual attendees.

For in-person attendees

• Schedule special meal-time activities or sessions.
• Offer live networking events.
• Allow sponsors to plan receptions or happy hours.
• Provide live entertainment (which you can also live stream for virtual attendees).

For online AND in-person attendees

Another way to engage both audiences for your hybrid events is to encourage networking between the two audiences. Here are some ideas:

• Allow virtual attendees to participate or ask questions during presentations.
• Run polls in which both in-person and virtual attendees can participate.
• Enable networking and connections through an event mobile app and your online community.
• Host a networking room where in-person attendees can stop by and visit with virtual attendees via video chat.
• Provide individual tablets to in-person attendees to allow for one-on-one exchanges with virtual audience members.