6 ways AMS technology can make your small association’s event planning easier

In the Momentive Software Member Engagement and Loyalty Study, attending the annual conference was top on the list of ways members have been engaged with their organization. Events also reinforce your association’s value proposition, helping you retain members and grow your membership base. Pulling off this important member benefit requires thoughtful preparation for each event.

But thorough event planning demands more time than many associations with small staffs can sometimes reasonably manage. Sound familiar? Not to worry. Using modern event technology built into your association management software (AMS), your association can easily conquer event prep.

Here are six ways an AMS system with modern event technology built in can make your association’s event planning easier:

1. Find out what your members want.
Analyzing input via pre-conference surveys is a powerful tool for plan an outstanding event. By gathering member opinions, suggestions, and expectations as the first step in the conference planning process, you have the specific data needed to create value throughout all aspects of your events, including:

• Registration
• Location
• Lodging
• Speakers
• Session topics
• Special events

TECH TIP: YourMembership association management software has survey functionality built in, making it easy to build and send targeted surveys and get feedback.

2. Streamline event setup.
Using event technology built into you AMS can help you easily create and manage everything from quick meetings to large-scale events and complex multi-day conferences. When it’s built into your AMS, there’s no need to jump back and forth between an event management system and your AMS to look up details. It’s all right there in one system.

TECH TIP: YourMembership membership management software event management capabilities are completely integrated with the overall association management software. YourMembership even offers members only pricing and access to specific events to help you.

3. Increase registration.
While you’ll likely use traditional channels – such as email campaigns and social media – to promote your event, use your event tech in your association management software to take it a step further:

• Offer registration paths. Create personalized registration paths for each attendee. Displaying only relevant tickets and events sessions makes it much easier for attendees to see the value the event offers them.
• Share your event via your online community. Announce your event date and location in your online community and add important information, such as agenda and session details, as your event planning progresses.
• Use your mobile app to get a little pushy. Promote registration for an upcoming event through a push notification to members via your community mobile app. When an event is promoted, a corresponding post within your members’ “main feed” in your online community can give them basic information about the event (name, date, location, etc.). Your members can then access an event registration button, which registers each of them directly from the app for their convenience.

TECH TIP: YourMembership AMS not only allows you to create personalized registration paths for attendees, it also includes a mobile responsive online community. These capabilities are built in to help you increase engagement and outreach as well as social collaboration.

4. Simplify last-minute registration for your staff and volunteers.
When your event is getting under way, you need your staff focused on the activities you’ve worked so hard to plan. Use your built-in event technology to quickly register last-minute attendees, check in attendees, and print badges, sync the information with their member account in your AMS.

TECH TIP: YourMembership membership management software also allows you to easily print badges for your conference. This allows you to spend more time delivering a valuable and fun experience for your members.

5. Track continuing education credits.
Continuing education credits are important to your attendees but keeping up with them can be cumbersome and time-consuming for your team. Use your event tech to configure continuing education credits and certifications for any type of event and automatically award them to attendees via online check-in for events and sessions.

TECH TIP: YourMembership allows you to easily attach a credit to a session and then when marked as attended the session, credit is given.

6. Get feedback.
Just as you began with a survey, plan to end with a survey. Post-conference surveys not only reinforce a positive experience after attendees are back home, but also help you gain crucial insights to shape future events.

Ask attendees what they liked or didn’t like about speakers, content, special events, networking opportunities, the facilities, the city, and more. Ask them to rate the value they received from each part of the conference.

TIP: Your biggest promoters for next year’s event will be the attendees who had a great conference experience this year. Make sure you connect with them!

Take the next step
YourMembership is built for small associations like yours. It offers a single platform for all aspects of membership management, including event management. It includes features such as automated workflows to streamline your association’s processes. It also provides an online community and mobile app for a modern member experience as well as configurable dashboards and reports for insights on the health of your organization.

Find out more about how YourMembership AMS can help you take your member and event experience to the next level: Download the Ultimate Guide to Event Management.