Did you know that your association can use digital and traditional channels that leverage your online career center to improve membership marketing, boost member engagement, and increase non-dues revenue? Your career center holds great potential for membership marketing. In fact, association research shows that members continually rate job opportunities and career development as top benefits. Your online job board or career center provide more than just great member value (as if that weren’t enough!). It’s also a powerful tool for generating non-dues revenue for your organization.
So, isn’t it time to take your membership and association marketing to the next level with a comprehensive approach that highlights and grows your career center?
How to use multiple channels and your career center to improve membership marketing
Because members value job opportunities and career development so highly, interacting with them through multiple touchpoints that promote your online career center can help you to retain members, attract new members, and drive revenue. Here are three digital and traditional channels and how you can use them to improve member engagement through your career center:
1) Events and meetings
Your members look to your organization for learning and networking opportunities. So, you likely already spend significant time creating events and meetings with informative content, quality speakers, and valuable networking opportunities to meet those needs. Why not use those events and meetings as an opportunity to showcase and grow your career center? Try these approaches:
- Include a page highlighting the career center and its benefits on your meeting or event microsite.
- Set up a booth at your event to promote your career center.
- Display signage at your in-person annual meeting or other events, promoting your career center.
- Host a career fair that’s “sponsored” by your career center.
- Provide free résumé reviews by experts (in-person or online).
- Connect mentors and mentees – by specialty, region, or subject matter.
- Offer contests for free classes, workshops, or one-on-one coaching sessions with a subject matter expert.
- Spotlight a particular industry or employer (for a fee) with an in-depth presentation.
- Prepare calendars or save-the-date cards highlighting future events and contact or registration information.
2) Email communications
Email is a powerful way to get more people more involved with your career center. Be sure to reach out to both job seekers and employers. Here are some ideas:
- Distribute a monthly marketing email. Email your registered employers and job seekers each month with tips and best practices.
- Introduce a job alert email to your members. Employers are often willing to pay extra for this distribution of their job to additional potential candidates.
- Email coupons and special offers to employers. This is a great way to encourage more job postings, particularly during slower posting periods.
- Email reminders for upcoming career events or speakers. Ensure members know what you have to offer so you can boost attendance.
- Develop a referral email that members can forward to non-members to earn a reward for new member conversions.
3) Other online channels
Go beyond email to reach people through other digital channels. For example:
- Place a jobs feed or widget on the home page of your site. This will pull in more traffic to the career center than a link alone. It will also give employers access to passive job seekers.
- Use a Facebook integration. This can promote recently posted jobs through a Careers tab on your Facebook page.
- Share a relevant feed of jobs with affiliate organizations that do not have their own career centers. This can provide them with content and drive users back to your career center.
- Leverage the power of user-generated content by encouraging members to share their photos, videos, and experiences on your social media accounts.
- Create hashtags so your members can easily share trackable information about your career center, events, and services.
- Ask employers to help promote your association by including links to events and your website on theirs as a form of sponsorship.
Learn more.
These are just a few of many ways to use marketing channels and your career center to attract and retain more members, provide greater member value, and generate more revenue.
