Does your association have a large member audience, but struggles to retain their membership year after year? According to Sidecar Global, member retention rates are directly related to member engagement. The good news is, with the right education ecosystem and online learning offerings your association can increase member engagement. This will in turn increase your member retention rate and generate more revenue for your association.
Within your organization’s education ecosystem, you can leverage content in a variety of ways. Offering the opportunity to earn digital badges, networking opportunities, and online learning courses are examples that have been shown to boost engagement.
Digital Badges
Digital badges are ever-growing in popularity in the online education space. Digital badges are electronic documents that certify educational achievements. Digital badges can be awarded for completing assessments, taking online courses, contributing research, and even for participating in discussion forums. A well-designed digital badge can be desirable to members, and can provide members with high incentive to pursue the badge so they are able to display it on their social media sites. Members who earn these badges will be very proud to show off their newest accomplishment! Learn more about digital badging in CourseStage LMS and ways other associations have implemented digital badging to increase member engagement.
Networking Opportunities
Networking opportunities should be offered in your education ecosystem so that members can branch out and feel connected to others in the same space. Member groups can aid collaboration and provide an area for these groups to create their own events. This can help members feel more invested and engaged within the association. These events can also help generate e-learning opportunities that were not previously looked at.
E-Learning Offerings
If your organization offers e-learning, it’ll provide value to your members, making them want to stick around because they can add to their skill set. Suppose your organization is structured around a certain industry, such as real estate. In that case, you can leverage content that you have laying around in an e-learning course about new developments in that industry or profession. Some of our partners have leveraged their in-person training courses within Web Courseworks Coursestage LMS so they are able to complete these training remotely. The world is going remote, so your training should be able to go remote as well! Your LMS should have the ability to track what courses your members are engaging with the most. Keep in mind the courses that are being completed and engaged with the most when you want to build new courses.
Gabby Klobucar
Web Courseworks
About the Author
Gabrielle was first introduced to learning management systems in her prior role as an Admissions Counselor. After spending a few years in that field, she transitioned into the Business Development Representative at Web Courseworks. As a Business Development Representative, she serves as the front end of the outside sales team, working very closely with the Account Executive. She is passionate about meeting with association executives to understand their education ecosystems and the latest trends in EdTech.