Professionals today have to balance a lot to grow in their careers: fast-paced deadlines at work, ever-changing industry technology, networking demands, and development opportunities. Therefore, they’re increasingly strategic about where they spend their time and professional development budgets.
To draw busy professionals to your association, your team needs to position membership as a high-value investment that’s essential to growth in your specific field.
Your strongest selling point is your data. This guide explores how to track and communicate four metrics in your association management system (AMS) that prove your association’s impact on members’ professional education, career advancement, and community connection.
1. Track employment rates and career advancement
Employment rates are a primary indicator of whether your association successfully prepares your network for success in their field.
After all, your association offers plenty of programs to support members’ career advancement, and they want to know that those programs pay off. Dedicated career centers, resume reviews, and networking events with top employers should not only increase your members’ engagement, but also concretely prove the professional value of joining your association.
Each year, survey your members about job placements, promotions, and average salary increases to gain a comprehensive view of your members’ career progress. Feature notable data on your association’s website, such as the percentage of members who received a promotion or your members’ average salary, to emphasize that joining your organization accelerates career mobility.
2. Gather member testimonials from your community
While quantitative data shows the big-picture value of your association’s benefits, testimonials appeal to prospects’ emotions and demonstrate membership value on a personal level.
It’s easy to capture authentic narratives about how your association improves your members’ professional lives through your standard data collection processes. Start with these strategies:
- Include a call for testimonials on your website: Add an invitation to your membership renewal or donation page for members to share their experiences with your association. This simple ask encourages those renewing their commitment to your organization to share how you’ve helped them grow.
- Send regular feedback surveys: Gather members’ input on programming, educational systems, and overall experience with your association. This data can provide a useful guide to which areas of your association need improvement and result in authentic positive feedback in the written sections.
- Interview highly engaged members: Use past engagement data to identify highly engaged individuals and ask if they’d be willing to contribute a testimonial. Prospective interviewees could include regular volunteers, members with recent promotions or achievements, or peer mentors. Showing the positive impact of your programming on your community can encourage new members to join.
- Celebrate success stories: Higher Logic recommends celebrating significant milestones and achievements within your association’s online community. When members receive a significant promotion or association award, reach out and ask to feature their success in an upcoming newsletter or community update. The interview format naturally promotes the success of your association’s members and programs without appearing overly promotional.
After gathering your testimonials, make sure to distribute them across a wide variety of platforms and formats to build trust. For example, send an SMS update featuring a short-form testimonial video, or a newsletter follow-up listing members’ key takeaways from a recent event. These testimonials show your audience a diverse array of member benefits and demonstrate how other professionals engage with your opportunities.
3. Track educational program completion
A major selling point of many associations is their educational programming, but prospective members need to know if your courses and certifications are actually valuable to their careers. Do current members find your learning materials useful? Have they seen proven benefits in their day-to-day work?
Use these strategies to show your education program’s value to current and prospective members:
- Track course enrollments: A high course enrollment metric indicates to prospective members that your education programming is accessible, relevant, and popular among their peers.
- Promote your educational community: One of the most valuable educational tools an association can offer is an online community forum. Discussion boards, webinars, and networking opportunities encourage learning inside and outside the virtual classroom. Track members’ community activity and average log-in times to determine when and how they use your platform to connect. Better yet, connect your online community to your learning management system to improve the impact of both.
- Include mandatory courses: Offer online courses required to maintain compliance standards, achieve professional growth, and acquire relevant professional certificates. According to Fionta, digitally accessible association resources promote inclusivity, increase your reach, and increase engagement. If your association offers the tools professionals need to continue and advance in their field on your digital platform, they’re more likely to join your community.
- Monitor course completion rates: Track how many members start and successfully finish online learning modules. This data can indicate which topics resonate most, as well as courses that may need modification to ensure your members’ success. Additionally, this metric assures new members that your educational expectations are reasonable and achievable.
Effective educational data management lets you securely track the success of your members within your existing learning model. In addition to monitoring completion rates, regularly update your course catalog based on member feedback and industry trends. A relevant educational model, supported by tools that make it easy for professionals to engage, such as micro-learning modules and self-study tools, increases the value of your association’s membership program.
4. Pursue accreditation and offer credentialing for members
The golden ticket to authenticity is professional accreditation within your field. If your organization is certified by a state or federal governing body, that distinction can serve as a major selling point for members.
Accreditation doesn’t have to be the only legitimizing factor for your association, though. Professional certifications, standardized by your field’s governing bodies, give your members a way to make their resumes stand out from the crowd. If your association is authorized to administer professional certifications, you become a powerful voice that sets the standard of excellence within your profession.
Prominently display your accreditation information on your homepage, and consider including a narrative of how your association has contributed to your field over time. Additionally, display whatever credentialing exams you are authorized to administer through your association, and their completion rates. A prominent display of how your association has historically shaped your field, and continues to shape excellence through professional credentialing, assures prospective members that your association is worth joining.
Final thoughts: How to improve the value of membership
Employment rates, testimonials, educational success, and certifications all show members the value of your association. However, they also provide a valuable tool for your administrative team to identify areas where your programs are succeeding and where they may need more support.
An effective membership program grows and changes with shifting member needs. A centralized tracking system lets you monitor member engagement and identify gaps in your strategy. When you make regular, proactive improvements to your offerings, your members can remain confident that membership in your association is essential to success in their field.
