Building your Industry Association member base can be especially difficult. Many are seeing extra challenges due to the coronavirus and its economic disruption, but this is a situation that creates opportunities alongside the challenges. With the right management and promotion, you could grow your Industry Association - and much of it comes down to the incentives you offer.
There are a lot of perks you could offer to your members. The more features you offer, the better you'll look to potential recruits. Here are just a few ideas.
Four Great Incentives That Can Keep Your Industry Association Growing
1. Training and certification opportunities
When people are seeking better employment, few incentives are better than training. If your association offers industry-appropriate training classes or actual certification programs, you could attract a lot of eyes - especially if you're offering better prices on the classes than non-members can find from other sources. Leverage your position to offer quality training at low cost! Online eLearning systems are perfect for this, since they don't require much direct oversight.
2. Consulting or mentoring opportunities
Is your industry difficult to break into, with high barriers to entry in terms of training or networking? Be the industry association that breaks down those barriers! Implement programs that allow younger or aspiring workers to receive direct guidance from established pros. As long as in-person meetings are a bad idea, this can be done via online videoconferencing - which has the benefit of being cheaper than in-person meetings as well.
3. Networking systems or member databases
One of the biggest reasons to join an industry association is the chance to network and meet influential players. You should turn this to your advantage! Create databases of members, or set up communication networks where everyone can share ideas and be introduced to important people within the industry. These networking opportunities will be absolutely invaluable to recruits, and could help them for the rest of their careers - and they'll be grateful for it.
4. Easier access to industry-specific software
In many industries, required pieces of software are highly specific, often customized, and usually expensive to license. If this is the case in your field, leverage economies of scale to offer discounted licensing rates to your members. Since software companies generally offer bulk licenses at a discount, your industry association could easily be a path to getting affordable software that might otherwise be too expensive to license.
Our Technology and Services Help Build Industry Associations And Ecosystems
LogicBay's solutions and services connect people across industry ecosystems, such as in member associations. With tools for communicating, networking, collaborating, and training, everything you need to make your industry association highly attractive to members new and old is available via a single system. To learn more about how our solutions could benefit your industry association, just contact us!
Check out our Case Study below showcasing our work with the American Institute for CPAs the world's largest Association representing the accounting profession.
