• Generating Non-dues Revenue for Your Association: Sponsorship & Beyond

    In a challenging economy, it’s more important than ever for associations to think about how they can diversify their revenue streams. It’s less than ideal to be in a position where all the financial needs of the organization are reliant on what members spend. Having sources of non-dues revenue (NDR) helps you:

    ·      Balance uncertain income cycles: If one of your programs becomes less popular, your industry experiences a spending freeze or members delay renewal, you’re prepared with other avenues through
    which to sustain the organization.

    ·      Maintain the level of service your members expect: If you’re selling job postings, for example, maybe it helps you offset the cost of a new tool that improves your member experience or gives
    your organization the financial leeway to innovate and develop new member benefits.

    ·      Keep member costs lower: If sponsors are subsidizing webinars, events or operating costs, that enables you to keep registration prices and membership dues lower, making events and memberships
    more accessible.

    But how do you cultivate opportunities that will delight both members and sponsors and build programs that are sustainable for staff? And, besides sponsorship, what opportunities do you have to generate non-dues revenue? The answer might look different for different organizations, but there are some key strategies you can start from.

    Sponsorship Has Changed

    On an episode of the Member Engagement Show, Bruce Rosenthal, a strategic advisor and consultant to associations, explored what sponsors are looking for now, given trends accelerated by the pandemic. It’s now less about offering the biggest event booth and more about understanding what your sponsors are hoping to achieve.

    According to the “State of Sponsorship Engagement” from the Partnership Professionals Network and
    Dynamic Benchmarking, only 21 per cent of sponsors said that “most associations” understand their goals (though 65 per cent said some do). And this might be because only 30 per cent said the associations they’re working with ask for their feedback as a sponsor.

    So if you have sponsors you work with regularly, or some you’d like to work with, a great tactic is to have candid conversations with them about what they’re looking for.

    From the perspective of someone who’s purchased sponsor opportunities, it’s become increasingly difficult to measure the return on investment for in-person meeting sponsorship. The pandemic only exacerbated that, with some events now allowing attendees to engage virtually via a hybrid model—meaning you won’t even see all the attendees when you staff a booth on site. Consumers are also increasingly disinterested in blatant sales outreach.

    So the types of sponsorship I would prioritize—and what I’ve heard other sponsors talk about when I’ve sold sponsorship—are those sponsorships that create specific opportunities to connect and those that
    position my organization as a trusted resource in the field we serve (like this blog post!). In person, that might mean that I’d like the opportunity to present a conference session in addition to my booth space. Virtually, that might mean I look for content and thought leadership opportunities, or opportunities to engage in an organization’s online community where I know I’m in front of an active, engaged audience. Year-round opportunities are also key—my marketing cycle extends beyond one event.

    If you make the time to ask your potential sponsors what they’re interested in, it’s likely they can give you some ideas to try.

    Leverage Existing Technology to Drive Sponsor and Member Value

    As you’ve probably already considered, when you create or review your sponsorship program, it’s important to ensure you’re providing value to both sponsors and your members. Depending on your opinion of marketing and sales, that might feel counterintuitive, but it shouldn’t when looking at sponsorship through the lens above – where many sponsors now want the opportunity to genuinely connect with and serve as a resource for your members.

    Thinking about this alongside considerations of your existing technological infrastructure can help you generate ideas that are both impactful and sustainable:

    ·      Event Sponsorship: Are you hosting events? How can sponsors get involved? You might offer standard options for booth space, swag, signage and acknowledgement, but also ask yourself where sponsors can help you elevate your events. Sponsor companies often have experts on staff who can contribute to conference sessions or learning labs. If you’re hosting a virtual event, maybe you could have a sponsor representative sit on a panel or host an online event community. Maybe sponsors would be interested in writing post-event thought leadership for your blog, which gives you additional content for
    members and gives them the opportunity to stand out with an audience beyond just those who attend the event.

    ·      Newsletter Advertising and Sponsored Content: I’m 99.9 per cent positive you’re sending emails—and chances are, as an association, you have a member newsletter. Your member newsletter is often a
    high-performing email, so it’s a great space to offer sponsored advertising, particularly if you encourage sponsors to skip general ads and instead share ads for valuable resources they’ve created. Think about taking it a step further by offering sponsors the opportunity to contribute content (text, audio, video, infographics, etc). It’s a chance for them to demonstrate their knowledge and reduces the effort of sourcing member content for you.

    ·      Community Advertising and Relationship Building: If you have online community software, this is another place you can offer basic ad placements. But again, think about the ways sponsors can add value to your community. With established guidelines (maybe prohibiting direct sales pitches), would you be comfortable allowing sponsor representatives into the community to answer questions and contribute to the conversations? Could share topic expertise they have by hosting an “ask me anything” thread? Maybe you could offer them a listing in the member directory just so people can find them.

    If you’re just getting started, it can be daunting to think about defining and launching all these new things at once (though Higher Logic has a Sample Advertising Prospectus to help you start). But there’s nothing wrong with trying one or two sponsorship offerings to see how they go until you have the capacity to expand. Take a look at other advertising in your field (or the cost of advertising your organization purchases) to get a sense of what pricing you want to start with and adjust as needed. And this is a great time, again, to invite potential sponsors to weigh in.

    Thinking Beyond Sponsorship and Advertising

    Whether or not you choose to pursue sponsorship and advertising, there are other ways to generate non-dues revenue that might fit into your association’s ecosystem:

    ·      Job Boards and Career Centers: If you already have a job board that’s not monetized in some way (whether there’s a fee to post jobs, or a fee to highlight jobs) now is the time to do it. It’s an employee’s market and many companies are actively looking to fill roles. Hiring managers often pay a higher rate to post on association job boards because they offer highly targeted, qualified candidates. Seeing which companies are posting on your job board might also help you identify potential sponsors or educational opportunities. At my former association, our job board was the most lucrative non-dues generator I managed. And because I worked with a job board facilitator, it was also the least effort (they handled everything for a percentage of the revenue).

    ·      Merchandise: Your members are passionate about their work, and chances are they’re pretty attached to your association too. Think about if there’s an appetite for merchandise related to the work they do and whether you have the capacity to create and sell it. It’s an opportunity to make members feel seen, understood, and engaged with your association community—and a way to generate some money and awareness for your organization while you’re at it.

    ·      Data and Insights: This could be a little more nebulous and case-specific, but think about the insights you gather about your field and how you might share those insights with sponsors, members and others (and when it’s appropriate to charge for that service). Several of my former organizations collected survey data—for example, workload and salary survey— or collected insights from industry leader summits and then sold the resulting reports/summaries or offered those reports to members at a higher membership level. You’ll want to balance this type of offering with your own commitment to data privacy and with your obligation to openly share insights that could support your field, but consider where paywalls could be reasonable.

    Non-Dues Revenue Strategy Shouldn’t Be Nonnegotiable

    When expanding your non-dues revenue channels, remember to compare what’s possible with what’s sustainable and healthy for the organization. You don’t have to create a large-scale non-dues engine overnight, nor do you have to keep doing things you’ve done before if they’re no longer serving you. Come up with some ideas you want to try, or identify current offerings you’d like to improve, and then prioritize. And don’t forget to listen to your members, your sponsors, and your internal team and regularly review your data/ROI to make sure what you’re doing is worth it.

    To learn more about how you can generate non-dues revenue for your association, tune into the May 9 Webinar: Non-Dues Revenue: How Your Association Can Prepare for Economic Uncertainty.

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