For association members, events are pivotal for professional development, offering valuable learning and networking opportunities. By enhancing professional development features at these events, you strengthen the value proposition for members and create a more engaging experience that benefits both attendees and your organization. The value in learning opportunities can be influential in membership retention. Here are five effective strategies to elevate professional development at your association’s events.
1. Survey Members to Identify Their Professional Development Needs
Before you start planning, understanding the specific professional development needs of your members is essential. You can gather insights directly by conducting surveys focused on their educational goals, skill gaps, and preferred learning formats. Here are some survey questions to consider:
- Which topics or industry areas of focus are they looking to deepen their expertise in?
- Are they pursuing specific certifications or credentials? Is this something your association could implement members would be interested in?
- Would they benefit from leadership training or soft skills workshops?
This feedback provides a foundation for crafting an event program that directly aligns with member needs.
2. Align Event Content with Member Goals and Career Aspirations
Once you understand your members’ needs, assess your planned sessions and workshops to ensure they provide relevant, practical content. Fill any content gaps by:
- Adding new sessions that address popular topics revealed in your industry trends and membership feedback.
- Inviting respected industry experts and thought leaders to speak.
- Partnering with educational organizations to offer continuing education credits.
This ensures your event program is robust, diverse, and precisely tailored to your members’ professional development goals.
3. Leverage Your Online Community to Promote Event Content
If your association has an online community, use it to build excitement around the professional development opportunities at your event. Here’s how:
- Share announcements about key event sessions and workshops. Engaged members will help reshare and promote to their personal networks.
- Look for discussions in the community related to topics you’ll cover, then join those conversations to highlight upcoming sessions.
- Post polls, Q&A, or sneak peeks of sessions to give members a taste of what’s to come.
Promoting the event within your online community encourages active engagement, helping drive interest and attendance.
4. Extend Professional Development Beyond the Event
Maximize the value of your event’s professional development content by extending access beyond the event itself. Consider these strategies:
- Make event content available online afterward, allowing members to revisit sessions or explore content they missed. An LMS platform, like Freestone by Community Brands, can organize and deliver these materials seamlessly. You can simply upload trainings to YouTube and keep it unlisted as well if you already have a channel and want to keep it simple, yet accessible.
- Create discussion groups in your online community that align with event topics. Following each session, encourage members to join these groups to keep the conversation going with posts such as:
- “What was your biggest takeaway from the session?”
- “What challenges are you currently facing around this topic?”
- “What do you predict for the future in this area?”
Continuing the conversation reinforces learning and fosters ongoing engagement around professional development topics.
By implementing these five strategies, you can create event experiences that deliver more value, enhance learning, and provide lasting professional development for your members. Elevate your association’s event offerings and watch member satisfaction and engagement grow.