If industry and/or community members don’t feel engaged, it’s likely they’ll feel they aren’t getting any value out of your organisation, and therefore won’t feel inclined to renew their memberships when the time comes.
So how can you create asynchronous opportunities for your industry and/or community members despite them being spread out across locations and organisations?
An Always-On mentoring program is a way you can add value to industry membership and create opportunities for your members asynchronously. Read on to learn how.
The Problem
It’s difficult to get everyone in your association together for events and networking. That’s because people are in different organisations and locations, are using different working calendars, and have different priorities. However, it’s important to remember that all of them have joined your organisation to get value from it.
Therefore, in order to keep your members happy and ultimately retain them, they have to feel that they’re getting great benefits out of their membership fees.
So, how can you create opportunities that members can have access to asynchronously?
The Solution
Here are a few ideas when looking to create asynchronous opportunities.
Slack & Other Tools
Tools like Slack and other community communication apps can help your members connect from wherever they may be. They can reach out to one another in real-time to ask for advice, collaborate, and more.
Self-Paced Courses
Self-paced courses can help your members brush up on skills or learn new ones. This is a great value-add, as members will be able to choose which course(s) they’d like to take and begin to implement their newly-learned skills in no time.
Event Recordings
Recording or live streaming your in-person events for those that live elsewhere is super helpful for your out-of-town members. This way, they’ll feel like they haven’t missed out on the most current events and are able to enjoy the goings-on in some capacity.
Mentoring Program
Mentoring programs have never been more affordable and accessible, and the benefits of one are far reaching. In fact, a mentoring program can provide your members with a reliable and consistent outlet for sharing and leveraging their extraordinary array of domain expertise and talent. More specifically, it can help with networking, knowledge sharing, career development, and more.
Always-On Mentoring
An ‘always-on’ mentoring program allows you to employ open applications or sign-ups so you can continue recruiting without a set close date. Keeping your sign-up form open allows participants to join at any time that suits them. This means new people are always encouraged to enter, and it’s easier to embed mentoring into your organisation’s overall culture.
You can manage your agile, always-on mentoring program with our three pillars: Match, Momentum and Measure, while participants are supported through mentoring Milestones. As they advance, Mentees turn into Mentors, confidently transferring knowledge and experience throughout your cohort.
The Bottom Line
If your industry organisation is one that has members spread across locations, asynchronous opportunities for your members can be a way to add value to their memberships, and mentoring is one of the most cost-effective ways you can do just that.
To learn more about how mentoring can help you engage your members year-round, download our free webinar kit: Engaging Industry Association Members Through Mentoring. Join our Head of Sales for EMEA, Jess Benham, as she covers how industry associations can use mentoring to address member engagement and retention issues as well as the cost that comes with both.
PLUS: The kit also includes some resources picked by Jess to help you start building your best mentoring program yet.
Watch the preview:
Build your best mentoring program yet with Mentorloop!
