Staying Connected to Your Members Throughout the Year

by Ben Mcgeever

Nothing connects and moves the hearts and minds of individual members quite like an in-person live experience. Hearing captivating speakers, growing relationships with other members face-to-face, and experiencing a new climate or city leaves a memorable mark. In times of remote working, you can still bring an in-person experience to your members.

Especially in a well-executed event, these opportunities to connect provide you with a seamlessly amplified opportunity to message and demonstrate the value you create for the event attendees. With the virtual world, it is even a more perfect opportunity to convey the importance of maintaining and growing relationships with your members.

But what happens when your event is over?

Maintaining an emotionally powerful and positive connection with your audience throughout the rest of the year when you aren’t all in the same room can be tough. Here are three themes to consider as you seek to remain as relevant in their minds as the moment the big keynote address wrapped up at the big show.

SEE AND TREAT MEMBERS AS UNIQUE INDIVIDUALS

Learn to hear, craft, and document narratives around who your members are that get at multiple facets of their industry journeys which make them unique. Spending this kind of ‘relational’ time getting to know them and what their challenges and successes are will inform your organization about how to create future experiences for them, large or small.

Touch Point

Create an online portal for members with rich digital media experiences relevant to their own experiences or unique challenges.

BECOME A CONSTANT MEMBER-CONNECTOR

Even in the annual event off-season, use this time to become a relationship facilitator for your members. Solidifying your convening role for members outside a large convention center enriches their experience of your organization and creates even more incentive to connect when it comes time to register for the big event. By establishing your convening power virtually, your association or company can be a leading light by providing perpetual touch points for members.

Touch Point

Organize digital virtual panel discussions with live Q&A, create takeaway collateral content pieces, and ways for members to signal they are interested in continuing the conversation. Attendee engagement is crucial.

EMPOWER MEMBERS WITH USEABLE CONTENT

After the big annual event is over, create themed content surrounding the specific challenges or thought exercises delivered by keynote speakers at that event…effectively extending the theme for the show into the year and getting a higher bang for your buck out of those memorable paid speakers. A great way to house all of your content from an event is a branded microsite. This highly customizable option is house for specific blog posts, recorded sessions, and Q&A boards.

Touch Point

Digital interactive reports, polished advocacy action plans, and educational video resources that you can give to members and provide them the option to add their own customized branding.

READY TO TALK VIRTUAL EVENTS?

LAI Live will help you stay connected with layout and design options customized for your most vital content. We are ready to listen, brainstorm, and execute for you and your organization! Reach out to our team today to start talking all things virtual event design and online meeting management.