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Use these simple tips to deliver a great member experience through your association’s events.
Events and conferences are powerful tools for associations. Association trends research from Community Brands shows that they’re the top source of revenue after membership dues. They’re also a great way to deliver the education and networking opportunities that members seek.
Given their importance, your association’s events and conferences are an ideal opportunity to elevate the member experience. To take the member experience up a notch, your events must delight your attendees from start to finish.
How can you use events to improve the member experience?
Here are seven easy ways to take your member experience to the next level at your association events:
1. Share your event in your online community.
For members to take advantage of your association event, they need to know about it in the first place. And because your association’s online member community is where your members connect with each other and engage with your association, it’s a great place to market your event.
Announce your event date and location in your online community and add important information, such as agenda and session details, as your event planning progresses. Also, start discussions in your online community about event sessions, speakers, networking opportunities, entertainment, and other details to create buzz about the event.
2. Offer a smooth online registration process.
Make it simple for members to register for your event. Allow them to easily see and select registration and payment options, and make it a snap for them to check out online.
3. Automate your event waitlist.
Offer a convenient registration waitlist process to allow your members to automatically add themselves to a waitlist once your event attendance limit is reached. This is a simple way to provide a smooth member experience while making sure you get the greatest number of people to attend your events.
4. Share information.
Get members ready for your event and get them even more excited to attend by sending registrants a short series of pre-event emails that let them know what to expect. For example, in one email, you might include event highlights. In another, include top tips for getting the most out of the event.
5. Make check-in a breeze.
When your event is underway, your staff must focus on the activities you’ve planned for attendees, but you still need to provide fast, convenient check-in. Use event technology to quickly check in attendees, register last-minute attendees, print badges onsite, and automatically sync the information with their member account in your AMS. Offering an easy check-in process helps you maintain a consistently great member experience.
6. Engage via mobile.
A mobile event app is perfect for today’s mobile-oriented world. It’s a powerful way to deliver a captivating, memorable, and engaging event experience for your members.
An event app can help you engage with members by:
- Allowing them to easily access event details, including the schedule, educational sessions, venue maps, etc., on their mobile devices
- Keeping attendees engaged through surveys, polls, and audience response systems that assist with learning, awareness, and overall participation
- Allowing attendees to network through in-app messaging, activity feed, photo gallery, and more
7. Make it easy to track continuing education credits.
Continuing education is one reason your members attend your events. Use event technology to easily configure continuing education credits and certifications for any type of event and automatically award them to attendees. YourMembership AMS, for example, allows you to easily attach a credit to a session. When marked as having attended the session, credit is given.
