Introduction
Is your association looking for new non-dues revenue ideas? Look no further than investing in your continuing education program by leveraging the right technology. With a learning management system (LMS) your association can prioritize non-dues revenue while boosting learner engagement and streamlining staff processes.
Continue reading to learn how to leverage your LMS and discover helpful non-dues revenue ideas for your association.
How associations can leverage an LMS to drive non-dues revenue ideas
With the right learning management system (LMS) at your association, your staff will be empowered to streamline key processes, invest in learning content, and ensure your learners have the tools they need to purchase and complete courses.
Here are eight non-dues revenue ideas for your LMS:
1. Put a price on your content
Marcus Sheirdan put it perfectly when he said, “Great content is the best sales tool in the world.” There’s the rub: great content. Your content needs to deliver, in order to fully deliver.
Once it does, you can offer a variety of paid options, including some complimentary content to inspire interest in what you’re selling. No matter what, you have to ensure your content is value driven and delivers value.
2. Create content worthy of a paid download
You can’t expect your members and non-members to pay for lackluster content. Value-driven content, on the other hand — content rich in actionable material — is worth its weight in gold. Good examples of paid content that will increase your association’s non-dues revenue include advertising or sponsorships, hosting events and conferences, donations, and subscriptions.
3. Don’t reinvent the content wheel
Take inventory of all the content your association has created and figure out how to repurpose what you have into different — and popular — formats. Why not, for example, excerpt relevant data, like current industry trends or statistics, from some of your longer form content and highlight it in short, quippy social media posts? You can make your posts stand out with graphic design done in-house or with an online tool, then share it across your networks.
Try reposting updated blogs or whitepaper content and posting the updated links on your networks to generate conversation with your learners. You can also consider breaking up existing course content into shorter more digestible courses called microlearning or nano courses. Another great way to repurpose your content? Reuse your webinars, turning the material into blogs or whitepapers.
4. Ensure e-commerce is a cinch
Once you have a catalog of compelling content, your customers need to be able to purchase it without any problems. This means the shopping cart should function just as any other online retailer’s; if not, your association could suffer decreased sales and frustrate your customers.
Ensure that shopping is a user-friendly experience by working with an LMS that supports purchasing features, such as coupons and promotions, on-demand downloads, and several currency choices.
5. Keep pace with your industry
As a professional association, you’re tasked with providing relevant educational opportunities. If you don’t have your finger on the pulse of industry trends and especially unforeseen developments, your association LMS will look lackluster.
Consider dedicating a team member to monitor industry news and developments and having them report back on items that might prove meaningful to your learners. Not only will your association assume an authoritative position, but you will also engender trust with your attendees by being up to the minute on industry developments.
6. Expand your network to non-members
Establishing your association as an authentic voice of authority is something that can — and should — resonate outside of your member base. Promote your content to all audiences by offering free downloads, and the option for non-members to make content purchases and on-demand downloads for certain materials. Do restrict the majority of your content to members, but advertise the amazing content you’ve created by making some of it complimentary to anyone interested in learning more.
Always include some kind of call-to-action with every download or free resource that encourages the learner to share with others on social media. By doing this, you’re putting your association in front of more prospective members, which could potentially increase membership and also boost revenue from additional content sales.
7. Offer sponsorship opportunities
Drive non-dues revenue by increasing sponsorship opportunities at your continuing education program. Try building a sponsorship program, offering different sponsorship formats to your sponsors to position them as thought leaders within your organization. This will help you drive non-dues revenue year-round.
Consider creating a media kit so your sponsors can get to know your continuing education program and your learner audience. Make it easy for sponsors to purchase sponsorships by posting your contact information and details about banner ads, paid social posts, and dedicated emails as options for how sponsors can partner with your organization. These strategies will help your organization drive non-dues revenue through your sponsorships.
8. Invite everyone to your learning events
Hosting virtual learning opportunities, whether a workshop, lecture, reading, or panel discussion can support another non-dues revenue stream. By sharing these opportunities online, your association can offer opt-ins for both members and non-members, according to a tiered pricing schedule.
Differentiate the price for members and non-members as another way to increase membership. If a non-member is interested in your virtual events and sees a significant difference between member and non-member fees, they might be inclined to pursue a membership. Even if they don’t, you’re positioning your association to leverage non-dues revenue by curating a course catalog that, once recorded and stored on your LMS, can provide a strong and repeatable source of revenue.
Of course, all these non-dues revenue ideas are only as good as the platform supporting them, which is why you need to take a long look at your association’s LMS and determine whether it truly has the technical capabilities to support this variety of profit streams.