One powerful way to get your members invested in your mission and community is by hosting compelling events. They showcase your unique value, connect members, and attract prospective members to join your ranks.
In fact, studies have found that one of the primary reasons people join associations is the access to up-to-date information professional development, and networking opportunities (IIBA)
Thus, to make your events work hard at building member buy-in, here are six key strategies you should employ:
Key Takeaways
- Develop audience-centric content: Create ideal customer profiles (ICPs) to guide content development and conduct surveys to gain insights into topics, formats, and experiences that resonate with your target audience.
- Offer diverse and engaging event formats: Craft an event agenda featuring leading experts, networking opportunities, educational workshops, interactive panel discussions, and informal activities to keep attendees engaged and excited.
- Leverage technology to explore opportunities: Use a consolidated, AI-powered association management software (AMS) to streamline event management, store data, communicate with attendees, and personalize the event experience.
- Ensure that your events are gated: Implement a gating strategy to create a sense of exclusivity and value, encouraging attendees to prioritize your event and follow through with their commitment to attend.
- Facilitate meaningful connections: Create ample opportunities for attendees to interact, share ideas, and form relationships by offering online forums, pairing prospective members with long-time members, and fostering a sense of community.
Strategy 1: Develop Audience-Centric Content
“Events that are tailored to the attendees’ preferences and expectations have a much greater impact than a cookie-cutter event done the same way over and over, year after year.”
Ian Sanders, Brand Contributor
Create ICPs (Ideal customer profiles) representing the needs, goals, and challenges of segments of your membership - to guide your content development.
It's also a good idea to conduct regular surveys and gather feedback to gain insights into the topics, formats, and experiences that resonate with your audience.
Include questions like:
- What topics are most pressing for each persona?
- What experts would they want to hear from?
Once you have the content tailored to the audience's needs, you can boost the odds that they will find it valuable enough to attend.
Strategy 2: Offer Diverse and Engaging Event Formats
When your event programming is packed with relevant content and engaging formats, your members won't want to miss out.
Thus, with your target audiences in mind, craft an event agenda featuring leading experts speaking on hot industry topics, plenty of networking opportunities, and fun activities to generate buzz.
Include educational workshops, networking sessions, and interactive panel discussions to keep your attendees engaged and excited.
Also, be sure to plan some informal activities so prospective members feel energized about becoming a member.
Strategy 3: Leverage Technology to Explore Opportunities
Events are seen as an important part of membership growth strategy – yet managing event data is a problem for 88% of associations (ASAE).
In this case, a single event management software doesn't work well. To explore the opportunity and have the maximum impact, you need to have a consolidated association management software that:
- Helps you communicate with your attendees, even after the event is over.
- Store all your data and present it in a readable form
- Create and manage your event's success
- Use AI to generate targeted email invitations and personalize the event agenda and content recommendations for each attendee.
In such cases, an all-in-one membership management platform can be an effective solution.
These platforms offer a comprehensive suite of tools to streamline an association's operations, including event management, member data storage, and AI-powered community features.
By leveraging such technology, associations can explore new opportunities to engage with their members through events, while also streamlining their operations and maximizing their impact.
A consolidated AI-powered AMS like Glue Up enables associations to build stronger relationships with their members and drive membership growth by providing a centralized location for managing events, member data, and community engagement.
Strategy 4: Ensure That Your Events Are Gated
It’s a common misconception that open events get more attendees. However, Cindy Y Lo, a creative events expert contradicts this idea.
"Events open to the public tend to be around 35%, while closed or exclusive events tend to be much higher, in many cases around 75%, especially if you had to pay. Many closed events will also offer an incentive to attend such as a gift or interactive item which makes this number go up as well."
Cindy Y Lo, Red Velvet
By implementing a gating strategy, you create a sense of exclusivity and value, which encourages attendees to prioritize your event and follow through with their commitment to attend.
To maximize attendance at your gated events, you can offer tiered ticketing, provide early bird discounts, include valuable incentives, implement a waiting list, engage with registered attendees, and offer group discounts.
Strategy 5: Integrate Membership Promotion
Your events provide a prime opportunity to promote membership to non-member attendees. Offer discounted registration fees for members or tout the savings of member vs. non-member pricing.
You can also have a membership booth on-site, distribute marketing materials emphasizing member benefits, and train your staff and volunteer leaders to plug membership into their interactions.
Strategy 6: Facilitate Meaningful Connections
In a new research report commissioned by ExCeL London, over 60 percent of attendees cited networking as their primary reason for attending (MIT Magazine).
Create ample opportunities for attendees to interact, share ideas, and form meaningful connections. Help your members and prospects connect to form relationships and experience your association's community.
"Offer online forums for event registrants to increase attendee interaction before the show begins," suggests Eric Schmidt, CEO and Co-Founder at Glue Up. "Also, consider pairing up each prospective member with a long-time member who can welcome them and make introductions."
When your attendees come away with new contacts and a feeling of belonging, they'll be more inclined to join.
All-in-all, the trend of using events to build member buy-in will only accelerate. "Member collaboration hubs are vital for members to express their thoughts on topic-specific content," asserts ASAE.
As you develop your event strategy, keep an eye on optimizing the attendee experience. "The whole purpose of a membership website is for users to enhance their skills and knowledge," states Strikingly, so design your event to get attendees "thinking and doing."
You'll be well on your way to hosting events that boost member buy-in and grow your association if you create content tailored to your audience's needs, promote effectively, integrate membership, facilitate connections, and follow up promptly. And by leveraging the power of AI technology, you can take your event strategy to the next level.
To learn more about how you can use advanced technology like AI-powered AMS to convert your event leads into members, feel free to request a demo here and get valuable insights into the platform's features and potential benefits.
