Planning Association Events: 5 Essential Tips
Member engagement is key to any association—that’s why association events are so important! Association events provide productive and positive opportunities for interaction between association members and help drive member engagement.
Read on for tips on how to plan an association event that provides value for association members and cultivates strong, lasting relationships with attendees.
1. Set realistic goals and budget.
No matter whether it’s in-person or virtual, a gala or a simple presentation, your association event relies on realistic goal-setting. Here are some factors to consider when setting goals while event planning:
- What features of your event need coordination? Speakers, venues, technology?
- Is the event in-person, virtual or hybrid?
- What are the measurable objectives of your event? Attendance rate, participation? How will you track these metrics?
- What is your event budget? Be realistic! How do budget limitations affect your event and its planning?
If you’re overwhelmed by the logistics of planning an association event, consider outsourcing some elements of the planning process.
2. Consider offering virtual events.
Technology-driven trends are changing how associations organize events. If you’re a tech-savvy association—or even if you’re not—virtual and hybrid events can offer solutions to all kinds of event-planning problems.
Here are just a few benefits to virtual or hybrid events:
- Members can join from anywhere. With more people working from home, your association may find its members decentralized. With a virtual event, there’s no need to consider travel time or costs!
- Lower venue costs. There’s no need to book a venue for virtual events, and hybrid events require less booking time!
- More flexibility. With online events, there’s no need to guess about attendee numbers. If your association event could benefit from a different networking structure, breakout groups are easily facilitated by virtual environments.
- A casual environment. If information is what’s important to your association event, a virtual setting might be the solution. Lowered formality may offer a lower barrier of attendance to your members.
- More available time. With no travel time to worry about, there’s more time to commit to what matters—your association. It may also be easier to host virtual events more frequently, which could offer increased networking opportunities.
- Accessibility. Virtual events can be an ideal way to provide accessibility tools, like closed captioning and playback options, to attendees. They can also make it easier for sick and immunocompromised members to get involved.
3. Take advantage of event software.
Planning an association event takes more information management than even the average spreadsheet can handle. Whether your event is in person, virtual or hybrid, event management software is a great way to easily keep track of all your event details.
When choosing your event management software, look out for software that streamlines the check-in process, tracks attendance and intuitively stores other attendee information.
For even more ease of data management, make sure to also keep an eye out for event management software that offers integrations with your current association management software.
4. Engage in cross-platform marketing.
Promotions and communications are a good way to boost participation and attendance at your association event—just by spreading the word. Make sure your message is clear: Social media posts, email campaigns and event landing pages should all feature registration links for the event.
While planning, create a marketing plan for your event. If you’re not sure where to start, take a moment to evaluate your target audience. What marketing method or platform is most likely to reach them? Focus your energy there.
That said, the most effective marketing plan is a diversified marketing plan. By spreading content across multiple platforms, you provide more opportunities for event information to reach its target audience—and that’s important, too!
An ideal marketing plan is smart, but not narrow. Make sure your message is clear, accessible and makes it obvious how people can participate in the event.
5. Review—and follow up with attendees.
Congratulations on your successful association event! Now it’s time to take stock of how it all went.
Bring up your goals from your event planning session. Did you meet them? Use the association management tools at your disposal to review the numbers on attendance, participant engagement and any other metric important to your association.
Now is also a great time to set goals for the next association event. What could have gone better? What are your goals for your association going forward? Do you have membership recruitment goals? How might changes to association membership affect event planning going forward?
You don’t have to figure out all this alone. Take the opportunity to reach out with surveys and ask your members these same questions: What went great? What could have gone better?
After this reflection, you should have a good idea—and hopefully a plan—for boosting attendance or participation at your next association event.
Conclusion
Remember, a successful association event depends on positive member experience. Your event goals, structure and planning should work to create a productive and enjoyable experience for attendees as the ultimate outcome.
When it comes to planning an association event, data is your best friend. Don’t hesitate to make use of the tools at your disposal to create a targeted, customized event that encourages attendee engagement—and hopefully helps you meet your next recruitment goal!
Andrew McWhaw
Inbound Marketing Team Leader, MemberClicks
Andrew leads the Inbound Marketing team for Personify’s MemberClicks and Wild Apricot products, helping non-profits, associations, and clubs discover the software they need to empower their missions. A veteran of the SaaS space, Andrew focuses on the use of data and analytics to create demand generation campaigns and content assets that speak to the most pressing needs of Personify’s audience. When he’s not overseeing the marketing activities of MemberClicks and Wild Apricot, you can find him volunteering with his local residents association.
