Your members look to you for career growth as well as learning opportunities. Here are some ways to optimize your career center’s learning program to drive revenue for your organization.
According to a Community Brands report, 85% of members want their professional associations to provide continuing education opportunities. So, give them what they want while driving more non-dues revenue for your organization through your career center’s learning program.
If integrated with Community Brands’ Crowd Wisdom learning management system (LMS), YM Careers-powered job board visitors will be provided with relevant recommendations for courses and continuing education tied directly back to your association’s learning offering based on a job seeker’s search and resume content.
Take your in-person member learning events online.
Extend your reach by offering content from your in-person learning events through an online experience. This approach offers several opportunities to drive non-dues revenue, including:
- Bring in revenue that you otherwise wouldn’t capture from members who are unable to attend your in-person events.
- Stretch your investment in on-site content further by repurposing it online – through livestreaming your on-site event or offering it on-demand after the event.
- Incorporate sponsors and exhibitors into the online experience – via online advertisements like session sponsorships, sponsor logos, and a virtual exhibit hall – to generate additional revenue.
Demonstrate the value of your online learning content.
Developing great content alone is not enough to drive revenue from your career center and LMS integration. You must also show members the value of your online educational content:
Articulate the value.
Showcase the value your learners will receive by clearly explaining content offerings in short, written descriptions or brief videos that can be viewed without purchasing anything. Most learning management systems offer an area for descriptions of courses that anyone can view. Take advantage of that and list all valuable aspects of your online learning program, such as:
- The number of possible credits earned
- Certificates or badges
- Special guest presentations
- Related add-on courses
Offer more than just a course catalog.
Ideally, your online learning program should serve as a full-blown knowledge community that supports and integrates live and on-demand content in many forms. Be sure to incorporate social learning and peer-to-peer exchanges within your online e-learning platform to increase traffic and build a true knowledge community
Integrate online learning initiatives with other organizational programs.
Foster learner loyalty by offering learning course discounts or assigning a pre-paid balance for online learning opportunities as a reward for various interactions with your organization, such as a membership renewal or participation in an onsite conference. This approach gets your online course offerings in front of more members and encourages them to become learners.
Offer alternative learning products and packages.
Offer your online content in various ways and price it differently for each option. For example:
- Provide an option in which online learners pay a single price for access to an unlimited number of courses over a specified period.
- Offer various on-demand options for learners who are unable to attend live events and courses. For example, offer a per-course price, a track price, and a full-conference on-demand price.
- Offer conference recordings as an add-on fee to live event registration for learners who want to re-visit content online in the future.
Optimize your learning content for revenue generation.
Your ability to drive revenue from your career center and LMS integration depends largely on your ability to create great content. As you create a content strategy for your online educational program, be sure to keep in mind how to optimize it for revenue generation:
Provide meaningful, diversified, and relevant content.
Think of your LMS as a store in which the product being sold is online learning. Offer an interesting variety of content that ranges from free to the public (with minimal effort on your end) to high-value, higher priced, premium, and members-only options.
Focus on hot topics.
Our ever-changing world offers many opportunities for “hot topic” programming that can meet your learners’ just-in-time needs.
Break out content.
To ensure you’re holding learners’ attention and to keep them coming back for more, break up longer courses into smaller, easier-to-consume chunks.
Bundle up.
Think about your learner’s needs and requirements, and do some of the work for them. For example, for those who have a certain amount of ethics hours they must get to maintain their licenses, create a bundle with your best ethics courses, so they can knock out that requirement. Or, offer a “create your own bundle” option where they can pick and choose content to customize their own experience.
Get personal.
Use data from your career center, association management system (AMS), LMS, marketing system, online community, and more to segment your learners. With learners segmented, you can target communications to them based on their interests, preferred medium, career stage, and more.
For members, what role does each of these drivers play in their decision to take professional education and training?
Offer learning products through your association’s e-commerce store.
Create a convenient shopping experience that allows members to purchase your educational products through your online store. This approach gives your education program greater exposure to drive more sales. It also allows you to promote your learning program as a valuable member benefit to drive member acquisition.
Career opportunities and continuing education go hand-in-hand. If you offer continuing education course opportunities that correspond with relevant job opportunities, your members will see your association job board as a one-stop-shop for all things professional development.
