As the demand on our time grows and member expectations shift, associations must adapt their offerings to remain relevant. Membership growth and retention, maintaining relevance with new generations, and staying competitive means rethinking sponsorships, event planning, and membership benefits.
Read on to discover five practical areas of focus to help your association successfully navigate these challenges, including ways to engage your community and ensure your association provides value in the way your members want.
1. Boost sponsorship opportunities by highlighting benefits
Sponsors and partners provide a monetary lifeline for many associations. But what’s worked in the past to secure sponsors will need to be reviewed to evaluate how well it’s working.
Richard Morris, Director at Active Media Events Ltd, believes that the way associations sell sponsorships needs re-thinking.
In his session, Easy Sponsorship Wins with Coffee and Sausages at Cvent CONNECT Europe, he noted: "Sponsors want to know what the offer does for them, not necessarily what it consists of." In other words, associations should communicate the benefits to sponsors rather than features.
💡What you can do:
- Conduct a sponsorship audit: Start by auditing your current sponsorship packages and remove the aspects that focus on features rather than benefits.
- Evaluate the ROI for your current sponsors: Gather feedback on past partnerships, identify areas where value was or wasn’t delivered, and drill into the reasons so you can take the lessons learned into future sponsorship offers.
- Engage directly with existing sponsors: Understand their goals and challenges. Use this feedback to craft tailored sponsorship proposals that prioritise specific measurable outcomes such as lead generation, brand visibility, or audience engagement.
- Establish ongoing dialogue: Host regular feedback sessions or workshops where sponsors can share their evolving needs.
- Maximise case studies and testimonials: Include testimonials and case studies in your sales, partnership, and potential member pitches to provide immediate proof of value.
- Build year-round engagement: Shift from one-off event sponsorships to ongoing partnership models with opportunities like webinars, virtual networking, or exclusive member content.
- Focus on outcome-based sponsorships: Collaborate with sponsors to set measurable goals and offer data-driven post-event reports.
- Leverage personalisation and AI: Use AI tools to match sponsors with attendees based on shared interests or needs, enhancing networking and engagement.
- Use tracking tools: Analyse data on sponsorship ROI, such as engagement metrics and post-event reports.
- Experiment with different sponsorship formats: Consider gamification elements or branded sustainable or accessibility initiatives. Investigate co-creation opportunities.
2. Evaluate your event technology
The event tech you use is crucial for your members' experience and your association's essential operations, including verifying membership data and safeguarding personal information. Try to identify any sources of friction in your collection of data and workflow.
Sometimes, manual data entry can introduce errors. These can weaken your ability to apply strategy properly due to a lack of comprehensive data. It's essential to assess whether your event technology is operating effectively for your needs. Is it time to make some changes?
💡What you can do:
- Evaluate current tech performance: Conduct a survey of attendees and staff to gather immediate feedback on your current event tech. Use this feedback to identify pain points and prioritise short-term fixes or enhancements.
- Regularly schedule a meeting with your tech vendors: Discuss updates, integrations, or under-used features that could provide immediate value. Trusted tech providers can keep your association updated on the latest trends and innovations.
- Test tools: Ensure you know how to uselive polling or interactive Q&A platforms to boost engagement during upcoming events.
- Optimise hybrid platforms: Ensure your event technology supports seamless integration for virtual and in-person attendees, with features like on-demand recording.
- Choose tools that integrate well: Integrate tools with your CRM, marketing automation, and financial systems to create a unified ecosystem.
In an association-focused session at Cvent CONNECT Europe, Sammy Connell, Head of Events at NASUWT, pointed out that the human touch and technology need to work together. "Let the tech free up your time, but decide how you’re going to use that time."
💡Check out the full session for more insights:
3. Evaluate how to adopt AI
The integration of AI across many platforms has enhanced available capabilities, offering new methods of operating that you may want to consider implementing.
However, ensuring that tech works for your association, enhances what you do, and doesn’t override the human element is essential.
💡What you can do:
- Start small with AI: To streamline workflows, use AI-driven chatbots for attendee FAQs or automated registration processes. Explore AI-driven matchmaking platforms for personalised networking.
- Adopt predictive analytics: Use AI to analyse attendee data from past events to predict future preferences and behaviour, helping you craft tailored experiences.
4. Develop post-conference membership recruitment and retention strategies
According to a recent ABPCO survey, 82% of associations track how many non-members attending their conference become members afterward.
This data shows associations are interested in understanding how their conferences impact membership. What happens next is down to you. How much do you want to follow up to bolster your membership retention and recruitment drives?
💡What you can do:
- Connect immediately after the event: Send personalised thank-you emails to non-member attendees, including key takeaways from the event and an invitation to explore membership benefits.
- Offer content: Share session recordings, infographics, or insights from keynote speakers to continue engaging attendees.
- Incentivise membership sign-ups: Create a limited-time offer for event attendees to join the association at a discounted rate. For example, a number of associations have found that consolidating event registration with membership sign-up has improved numbers.
- Develop a post-event community: Create forums, LinkedIn groups, or exclusive platforms where attendees can continue discussions and network.
- Integrate membership into events: Highlight member-exclusive benefits during events and weave recruitment messages into programming.
- Track retention metrics: Use surveys and analytics to assess how well events drive membership and retention, adjusting strategies as needed.
- Create case studies: Use membership sentiment and channel it into marketing tactics, for example, include member testimonials to highlight the benefits of joining.
- Be clear on your success metrics: Provide a realistic percentage target for member recruitment. For some people attending your annual association event, joining may not be part of their membership journey. Understanding how events complement the membership journey, and which events are critical to new membership and renewals is critical in 2025.
5. Review and revamp your membership offering
Attracting and retaining members is ongoing and critical work for any association, especially where hybrid and remote working is prevalent.
In the past, associations could reasonably expect members to drop by events on their way home from work. However, this is no longer the case. Now, associations need to put in more effort to encourage people to leave their homes and attend events.
It's important to consider the perceived value of association membership today. Why are people joining and paying year-on-year for membership in 2025? Demand for niche professional training and networking has never been higher, but associations are increasingly facing competing alternatives, particularly from free resources. There are several ways associations can counter these:
- Provide professional certifications that are essential to obtain and maintain in the industry.
- Deliver networking and mentoring opportunities that surpass what competitors offer.
- Offer a membership model and rate that makes sense given alternatives in the market.
Additionally, it’s crucial for associations to understand how people consume information and the type of networking they desire to assess the value provided. Some associations may need to adapt their approaches to meet these new needs.
Attracting members from the places you used to is unlikely to provide a different membership profile, and you may limit the type of members who join. If you want to find new kinds of members, you’ll need to fish in some new waters.
As Alistair Turner, author of the IBTM World Trends Report, says, “Why are we solely focused on college graduates? Why not explore untapped creative communities?” While talking about the recruitment challenge in events, his comments resonate with association recruitment.
First, consider what you want your association to look like now and in the future. Then, create your tactics.
💡What you can do:
- Conduct a survey or focus group: Identify the immediate needs and preferences of your members and potential members. Use this data to adjust your membership tiers or benefits, emphasising value-added elements like discounts or exclusive resources.
- Bundle membership with events: Offer free or discounted event access as part of membership packages to boost perceived value.
- Highlight benefits: Clearly communicate the direct benefits of membership, such as access to research, discounts, or professional development opportunities.
- Offer tiered membership options: Introduce different membership levels (e.g., basic, premium, corporate) to cater to diverse needs and budgets.
- Continuously innovate: Regularly refresh benefits to align with evolving member expectations, incorporating things like AI-powered resources or sustainability certifications.
- Track the ROI of membership: implement systems to measure how membership directly impacts career growth, networking opportunities, or other key areas.
- Develop flexible payment options: Include monthly subscriptions or pay-as-you-go methods of payment.
- Revamp your value proposition for different audience segments: Young professionals, seasoned industry leaders, and partners often require differing benefits.
- Invest in digital tools to enhance the member experience: Mobile apps can make a big difference.
6. Be the knowledge hub for emerging regulations
Every year, changes to existing regulations and new regulations come into play, and these have an impact on association members.
For example, in 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation came into effect, and in June 2025, the European Accessibility Act will become law in all EU member states.
One key way associations can help their members is by providing reliable advice on navigating new requirements.
💡What you can do:
- Create a compliance checklist: Ensure you’re up to date on new regulations for accessibility, sustainability, and other legislation that may impact your members. Then, help your members navigate the regulation.
- Partner with experts: Collaborate with consultants to identify how you can help your members.
- Develop frameworks: For example, with sustainability, create a roadmap for achieving carbon-neutral or zero-waste events, complete with measurable goals and timelines. You can do the same for other regulations, such as accessibility.
- Quickly develop and distribute a high-level overview of key regulations: Highlight actionable steps for compliance.
- Provide intelligence: Create a simple FAQ document and host an initial webinar to address members’ most pressing questions.
- Establish a dedicated committee or task force: Monitor and interpret regulatory changes, ensuring members receive timely and accurate updates.
- Develop a robust library of resources: Include case studies, templates, and best practices to help members adapt to new regulations.
- Advocate for your members: Participate in policy discussions and provide feedback to regulatory bodies.
Embrace change to secure your association’s success
Associations that embrace innovation and adapt to evolving member needs are best positioned for lasting success. By refining sponsorships, enhancing technology, and addressing new challenges, you can create a lasting reputation for being the source of meaningful, long-term value for members and partners.
The key lies in staying proactive, flexible, and member-focused. With thoughtful strategies and a commitment to continuous improvement, your association will be able to thrive in 2025.
For more insights on how to set your events strategy up for success this year, check out our 2025 Event Trends guide.
