Is your association’s website taking advantage of non-dues revenue opportunities like training, access to past publications, and conference recordings?
Association dues are a dependable and steady form of income, but according to AdBoom Advertising, they make up only 39% of an association’s total revenue on average. That other 61% is where non-dues revenue comes in.
Non-dues revenue is any income generated through sources other than membership fees (dues). Non-dues revenue matters because it supports your organisation if traditional membership dues stagnate!
Some examples of popular types of non-dues revenue streams include:
But let’s take a step back and think about who we’re targeting with non-dues revenue opportunities. Because looking at what you’re offering, who you’re selling it to and why (besides just wanting to generate more revenue), can play an important role in how you approach things.
We see some associations fall into the trap of “because you’re a member, it’s all free”. It doesn’t have to be. Of course, there need to be significant member benefits. Some of that will be the professional standing that comes with being a member or having paid to go through an accreditation process. However, it doesn’t need to all be free.
You know your members and their needs better than anyone. It's up to you to decide what should come with membership and what should be additional add-ons.
Don't feel like you know your members well enough? Learn how to trust and utilize your member data with the whitepaper from iMIS, It’s Not You, It’s Your Data Silos.
Creating non-dues revenue opportunities available to non-members has two benefits:
Let’s pick something that nearly all associations already do: an annual conference. This can be an ideal way to boost non-dues and dues revenue for associations.
Offering reduced pricing for members and other in-event perks can make selling membership during registration an easy way to increase membership and dues income. One client sees the majority of their new member joins and renewals occur during their conference registration period, thanks to the clear differentiation between member and non-member badges at the event and access to exclusive social functions. To boost registrations and member acquisitions, your conference website needs to highlight the value of the event and of membership.
Here’s a quick read on how to get people to click the "Register” button: Creating a Strong Call-to-Action for Association Event Marketing
More than one organisation we work with run an abstract submission process before their conference. In some cases, they charge entrants for submitting an abstract. The combination of the iMIS Engagement Management System and OpenWater application and review software makes this easy to achieve. Once you’ve completed the abstract review process, you can offer your presenters a discount proportionate to the number of days on which they are speaking, rather than having to offer a blanket speaker discount – maximising your revenue.
Recording your event sessions will give you a rich pool of online resources. Just because someone has attended the event or just because they are a member doesn’t mean that they need to have free access to all the session recordings.
Here are 3 possibilities to drive your association’s revenue using session recordings:
We can take that further though. I’m sure that most of you reading this article watch at least one video on YouTube at some point during the week. How many of those make you view an advert before you view the video? Is there an opportunity to sell advertising before your session videos? If you use iMIS, you could sell that advertising space through iMIS Advertising by SpaceMaster. Bonus points if you sell advertising at your event, in your print publications, and on your website. Having advertising in these places then opens up yet another non-dues revenue stream – up-selling to ad-free access!
Indeed, the process of selling or renewing a membership is an ideal opportunity to up-sell to your member. We work with one professional association who, depending on your level of membership, offers a certain number of subscriptions to their journals. You get to pick those journals during the membership renewal and can select as many journals as you like. But you’re charged for any additional journals that aren’t included in your membership. Because you’re picking from the larger list, the temptation to tick a couple more boxes means significant additional income. This configuration is significantly smoother if your database is fused with your website, like with the iMIS Engagement Management System.
Training and accreditation can represent another key area of non-dues revenue. Many organisations are limited by the number of courses they can organise and run, so instead they partner with specialist training organisations, allowing their members to book via their website and taking a percentage of the booking fee. Having a tight integration between your website and an LMS, like the one that exists between iMIS and TopClass, means that you can easily offer tiered pricing for your training and accreditation.
Don’t forget your history. We’re so used to everything being available online that it’s easy to forget the world before the internet. The world where an association's primary connection with its members was through a monthly or quarterly printed journal or other research publications. Those are valuable resources. For a relatively modest outlay, they can be made available online and accessed via your website. You can charge per issue or charge for full access to all publications for a certain period of time.
Why does having paid to attend a webinar mean you have free access to the recording forever? It doesn’t have to! What about access for 7 days then you need to purchase it?
Plus, webinars are another opportunity to sell advertising. You can show sponsor logos on the conclusion slide or let a sponsor do a quick advert during an appropriate place in the webinar. These are rich sources of boosting your non-dues revenue through advertising on your webinars (and then the recordings on your website!)
If you’re looking for new non-dues revenue, start where your members go most…online content! It’s where your members, potential members, and sponsors contribute and interact. And if you’re using iMIS to run your website, you’re setting yourself up for success.
We hope that this article has got you thinking about all the opportunities you have to maximise your non-dues revenue. We’ll leave you with these 3 links that we hope will help you come up with a strategy:
Learn how to trust and utilize your member data with our whitepaper, It's Not You, It's Your Data Silos.
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