If your members can’t see that they are getting value from their subscription fee, they will quickly lose interest. That’s why continuing education is arguably the most important part of any association’s offering. A strong training and education program gives members the opportunity to learn valuable skills and knowledge in a consistent and standardised way, and allows your association to be seen as a voice to listen to in the industry.
But how can you help guide members to education in the first place? Sparking that initial engagement, and getting your content in front of your members is the all-important first step to creating brand champions who shout about your association and its benefits from the rooftops. With that in mind, here are 9 ideas that create highly educated members who love to reach for that megaphone.
1. Diversify the learning environment to attract different members
Offering a single type of training can isolate a large cohort of your members. You can build dazzling curated learning pathways for each member, but if they prefer in-person events or the social buzz of a live webinar – they will never check in. Think about what kinds of member training you could offer, from on-demand content, to in-person training, certifications, live events, or articles. With more diverse kinds of content, you can achieve better engagement rates from members who have different learning preferences, expanding your chances of appealing to their needs.
If creating everyone’s favourite content type sounds like a lot of work, remember that technology can be your friend here. If you build modular content from the get-go, then you will be able to easily use it elsewhere after building once. For example, one elearning course can become webinars, infographics, blogs, bite-sized video content, and more.
2. Monetise your content intelligently with different ecommerce strategies
Some of your training could be included in your membership fee, but learning content and certifications are also great ways to generate non-dues revenue for your association. There are a number of ways to make that happen through fee-based education.
Including à la carte training means members can try a single course and see if they want to continue. At the same time, make sure you can set up training bundles, which are a great way to encourage members to consume more education, especially if you can package together multiple courses which provide greater value as a whole. . You can include discounts for purchasing a bundle over its individual parts, and this will help drive consumption, as members have been proven to consume content at a greater rate when they’ve paid for it. You might prefer to offer an “all you can eat” option for your members, one price that unlocks all the training and education they want.
3. Offer members training credits and vouchers
If you’d prefer not to offer an “all you can eat” model, another great idea to encourage members to consume more content is the use of training credits. If you’re not sure how it works, here’s a simple example for the model. .
Let’s say a school or university has a membership to a teacher training association, as well as a certain amount of budget to support its education professionals with continuing education in its field. The budget is use it or lose it, as money is always going to be tight. The institution can use its leftover budget to buy training credits or vouchers from your association, which give them access to any necessary courses ahead of time, without the need to decide exactly how these credits are going to be used. Departments can then provide these credits to the relevant teachers and employees, often giving them greater autonomy over what they learn. For the district or institution, more people get trained, and for your association, training revenues are increased. It’s a win/win.
4. Spotlight your certification program
A certification program is a powerful value-add, especially for associations. When members see that you offer a certification, they recognise that this is a way to improve their career, add new skills to their toolbelt, and show their commitment to their profession. Not to mention it’s also great CV capital! It’s no surprise that 62% of members say certifications are an important benefit of their associations.
Depending on the industry, certifications are held to various rigorous standards. To compliantly offer certifications and continuing education units (CEU) you need the right tools in place — those that allow you to plan, manage, update and analyse your program and its performance.
5. Work with other teams across your association
Training and education should never exist in a silo. Everyone in the organisation can take responsibility for making sure members know what opportunities are available in terms of education, Look for technology that helps you align continuing education with Marketing, Sales and Success, so that you can automate Marketing emails that let members know about new training content, and ensure Sales teams know how to direct members in the right direction to reduce friction once a member signs up to your association.
Let the whole business know that a trained member is a happier and more loyal one, and they can all do their part in making that happen.
6. Deliver training aligned with your association’s mission statement
When your training content is aligned with your wider association’s vision and goals, this gives your members confidence that their time and money has been well-spent. When branding is poorly executed (with a pasted on association logo and not much else for example), this makes members feel that your brand is missing the professional touch. That’s one step away from failing to renew their membership.
A headless LMS allows you to meet 100% of your design vision on the page, rather than forcing workarounds and compromises from design to reality. Don’t forget, with branded continuing education, you can attract non-members into your sales cycle as well, converting them into educated leads who already know what value a membership with your association can provide.
7. Provide personalised learning experiences for each membership base
While many individuals sign up to take membership status of an association, the big fish are when a company or an institution comes on board with a wealth of new members under their banner. In this case, each one will want their environment to feel unique, with its own branding, content and identity.
By leveraging multi-tenant functionality, you can effortlessly manage training instances for all of your membership bases , partners or segments, and deliver relevant learning for every group on the list. Behind the scenes, you have centralised control and reporting, and your members receive a fully-branded experience that meets their needs.
8. Make it easy for members to click “buy now”
Once your members know that continuing education or certification would be a powerful value-add – there’s nothing worse than failing to get the sale because of poor website functionality. . It needs to be easy for members to find the right training, make their payments, and then for them to consume the training itself.
ecommerce functionality is critical here. At Thought Industries, we offer a suite of commerce tools so that your members can process transactions, generate receipts and view orders and notifications. You can also create course catalogues that are searchable, filterable and flexible, helping you drive new revenue by ensuring members always find exactly what they need, when they need it.
9. Consider gamification to keep members engaged
Design thinking can help you to create game systems within your continuing education that motivate members to achieve a goal, whether that’s finishing a course without churning, taking a final assessment to achieve certification, or putting what they’ve learned into practice. With the right tech, you can put ideas like leaderboards, points systems, badging and credentials into action, or even create your own tailored learning games. Not only does gamification make learning more fun – it helps to tap into members’ intrinsic motivation, supporting them in retaining information and reaching their goals.
Your tech checklist for success
Getting members’ eyes on your content and achieving engagement for continuing education or certification doesn’t come without a robust tech stack. If you’re in the market for an LMS that can support your association’s training and delivery goals, make sure it has the ability to:
- Offer blended and diverse learning experiences, from live training, webinars and VILT, to role-based, curated learning pathways.
- Diversify training packages, including bundles, a la carte, subscriptions, and training credits.
- Build and manage a certification program and offer CEUs, with behind-the-scenes visibility and control.
- Make training simple, creating a searchable course catalogue and including one-click ecommerce functionality.
- Personalise the learning experience, with multi-tenant environments and broad design capabilities.
Want to learn more about how Thought Industries can keep your members loyal to your association? Learn more about driving revenue and engagement for your association or organisation here.
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