Driving non-dues revenue is an important activity for your association’s financial health. Non-dues revenue can help you maintain your budget while continuing to provide your members with value – especially when your organization goes through a period of flat or declining memberships.
Findings from the 2021 Association Trends Study by Community Brands confirm the importance of non-dues revenue to associations’ success. They show that associations plan to turn to new forms of non-dues revenue more than other means to address any revenue losses from the past year.
Your association’s job board can be a great source of non-dues revenue. The trick is to regularly get the word out to employers and job seekers so they understand the value of becoming a part of your job board.
Here are some basics for getting employers and job seekers on board with your job board to drive an ongoing stream of non-dues revenue for your association:
Drive revenue through job postings.
Your job board offers something other job boards don’t: a pool of highly targeted job seekers in your industry or profession. Employers will pay to promote their job openings on your job board, but they need to understand the value you offer.
Here are three key components for successfully showcasing your job board to the employers who need it:
1. Outreach – Reach out to employers who have relevant job opportunities that are not yet on your job board
2. Messaging – Explain clearly why employers should use your job board to access hard-to-find, high-quality talent from your member base. It can be helpful to create materials for employers, such as media kits, rate cards, and videos, to provide added information
3. Sales – Work with employers to help them choose the right combination of job postings, ads, and other products (such as job spotlights and job board sponsorships) to further promote their job opportunities.
Drive job seekers to your job board.
Of course, to make your job board appealing to employers, you need lots of job seekers. The more qualified job seekers you have on your job board, the more likely employers are to not only want to advertise their positions with you in the first place, but also find the right candidates for their jobs – making them want to return again and again.
Here are three ways to get more job seekers to your job board:
1. Build brand awareness – Convey the value of your job board and strengthen your association’s and job board’s brand through multiple channels. For example:
- Create an infographic that highlights key statistics from your job board, such as the number of job postings, and share it in your member newsletter, in your online member community, and on your website.
- Highlight your job board in member onboarding material and through signage and flyers at your in-person events.
- Include banner ads for your job board on your event websites, your association’s website, and in member emails.
2. Increase traffic – While your brand awareness activities will drive some traffic to your job board, you can drive even more traffic through marketing campaigns. For example, use emails, social media, and other channels to highlight specific job openings and drive traffic directly to your job board.
3. Drive engagement – Use online engagement tools to provide a modern online job seeker experience and real-time appointment scheduling to get job seekers even more engaged and provide a great overall job seeker experience.
Get the help you need to drive non-dues revenue from your job board.
Of course, you might not have extra staff available to manage job board sales and marketing. But there’s a solution to this: Work with a third-party team that has experience in your industry.
For example, YM Careers by Community Brands not only provides job board software and career center technology solutions, but also sales and marketing teams that can drive revenue from your job board. YM Careers job posting sales services can help you showcase your job board to employers who need it, which ultimately drives more revenue for your association. YM Careers job board marketing services use a combination of marketing methods as part of a comprehensive marketing strategy specific to each association.
Here are two real-world examples of associations that work with YM Careers to drive more revenue from their job boards:
- Working with YM Careers, Society for Human Resource Management has seen more than seven-figure revenue growth through job board sales and marketing.
- Since American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers implemented their YM Careers job board solution, the organization has seen more quality and targeted positions being advertised, an increase in revenue, and more engaged members.
Learn more.
Having a job board is a great start for driving non-dues revenue for your association. You can take it even further by using proven sales and marketing techniques to turn your job board into an ongoing revenue powerhouse for your association.
