How associations make money: Leveraging your career center to boost revenue
As the world finally awakens from the COVID-19 doldrums, associations are looking to cash in on new revenue opportunities that come with relaxed travel restrictions and reopened cities around the world. Understanding how associations make money with non-dues revenue is crucial, as the bulk of associations’ income – about 60% – indeed comes from such sources. But what’s the easiest way to do that?
Maintaining a market-leading career center is the key. Career centers are a critical tool, not only for attracting and retaining members and growing your brand exposure, but also for generating revenue. By leveraging the latest advertising technology and attracting sponsorship opportunities, your association can transform its one-dimensional job board into a full-service career center, boosting your revenue in the process.
Here’s a quick look at how career centers can help your association generate revenue, plus some other key benefits they offer. First, let’s examine what non-dues revenue is, along with some of its sources for associations.
What is non-dues revenue?
Non-dues revenue is any funding an association receives outside of membership dues.
It comes from either internal or external sources.
Internal sources typically include charging members fees for additional products, services, resources, content, and opportunities, such as branded merchandise or fees for training courses.
External non-dues revenue, on the other hand, comes from advertisers, suppliers, and vendors interested in working with your professional community.
The great thing about career centers is that they allow you to leverage both forms of non-dues revenue, giving your association the opportunity to scale and diversify its revenue sources effectively.
How can a career center help your association generate revenue?
Career centers help associations grow their non-dues revenue in several ways. As such, they should be considered an important tool for revenue generation, offering a simple and straightforward way to boost your bottom line quickly and efficiently.
So, how exactly can association career centers help to generate non-dues revenue? Through positioning your association as a leader for professional development in your industry, you can attract advertising and sponsorships from relevant employers, turning your career center into a revenue-generating engine for years to come.
Display advertising technology and sponsored job postings are two of the main ways to do this, but how else can your career center boost your revenue? Think of it as a marketing tool that can serve your audience greater benefits in exchange for a fee. For example, you can use it to market and host gated, premium content and special services, such as credentialing courses and specialized training classes. These are likely to be in high demand by your audience – and represent opportunities for generating non-dues revenue.
Finally, your career center can be used to build awareness for conferences, webinars, and other events that are additional sources of revenue for your association.
What are some other benefits of career centers?
In addition to providing numerous revenue-generation opportunities for associations and societies like yours, career centers offer many other advantages. Here’s a look at some of them.
Grow your audience and membership
A career center lets your association leverage a distinct combination of SEO, job postings, and engaging content tailored to your target audience to grow your reach and boost your association’s brand awareness significantly.
By expanding your audience this way, you can effortlessly grow your membership, providing even more revenue for your association in the form of increased dues from members.
Increase value for your members
Career centers also offer increased value for your members in a number of ways.
First, they provide a way for jobseekers in your industry to find relevant positions with their job board functionality. Additionally, they provide a centralized hub for useful and engaging content, learning and development tools, industry news and information, skill assessments, and other important resources for your audience to use.
With these resources, your association can offer greatly increased value for your membership, boosting member engagement and retention in a cost-efficient way.
Gain insights
In addition, an association career center also lets you gain valuable insights into your audience.
By gathering and analyzing data on content engagement, as well as your members’ interests, goals, and skill levels, your association can better craft its messaging and services for your members in the future.
Grow your revenue with a career center today
Understanding how associations make money using tools like career centers can transform your bottom line. By leveraging their revenue-generating abilities, your association can boost its revenue for years to come.
Madgex offers the top career center technology on the market today. Since the year 2000, we’ve helped many of the world’s largest and most influential associations and societies not only grow their revenue, but also attract and retain members, increase value for their audiences, and gain key insights to better serve their members.
Contact us today to learn more about our cutting-edge technology and decades of experience partnering with associations like yours.