One of the key benefits and services of an association is its educational opportunities. These usually come in the form of an annual conference or smaller in-person events; some written materials - full books or shorter guidebooks; an online repository or library of essential materials; live webinars that are recorded for playback on-demand; maybe even an online community.
But because these are often staffed and created by different reporting units within an organization, they may have no connection to each other, from how they’re offered and sold or worst of all, the content from one to the other may be completely different!
One organization with which we’ve worked had a conference every year (managed by the Events Team) centered around the basics of their profession - a great source of new members. They had recently started to publish a handbook to prepare their members for their certification program (managed by the Special Projects Team). Their chapters had regular events, many of which feature “basic” content (managed by Member Services). And they had several online communities (managed by the subject matter experts) where members could ask each other questions. And the PowerPoints from the conferences were posted online wherever the IT Department saw fit to put them. Amusingly, these were usually the same as the one used the year before - so multiple copies of slightly tweaked presentations existed in different places.
If all this were coordinated, they had amazing potential to expand their educational brand, but they had to think of it all differently. They had to separate the content from the medium and separate education from certification.
Rather, their educational efforts branded as one could include:
We knew there was a demand for year-round educational content. Members who couldn’t attend the basics conference each year asked for it. It was among the most requested content for chapter events. Even their interest groups requested it.
They starting thinking about all their educational offerings as part of their educational brand:
And it was this online community that was key. Those collections of repeated PowerPoints were usually tied to an interactive bulletin board no one used. Instead of uploading the same presentations over and over to different places, attendees could be given access to the newest versions of them as part of their registration. Also included was access to their own “newbie” community where they would feel free to ask their own basic questions. There were scheduled Q&As with established experts - very similar to a Reddit "AMA."
Different parts of this educational brand were upsold at every opportunity. Registration at an in-person event might include access to the community, but the printed handbook would be extra (at a discount versus buying it alone). A webinar might be bundled with an ehandbook on the same topic but access to the community would cost extra - as would access to the relevant topical pages. There were lots of options.
Associations have a lot of competition and chief among them are other resources for information and education. This is especially affecting the ability to acquire and retain younger members. Broadening the definition of what education means for an association is one key to fighting back.
Contact Wright Holmes to chat about how to better structure and strengthen your events and educational brand.
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