Encouraging Attendee Retention: 5 Essential Tips to Know

Knowing how to plan an event is only your organisation’s first step toward an effective member engagement strategy. To keep your members participating in everything you have to offer, you’ll need to build on the success of your most recent event with additional communications and programming.

Let’s take a look at how you can keep your most recent event attendees engaged as members of your organisation. We’ll show you how you can:

1. Gather attendee information in your CRM for future outreach.
2. Send attendees home with branded merchandise.
3. Stay in touch with your attendees for future engagement.
4. Offer your attendees continuing education opportunities.
5. Give smaller groups of members event planning capabilities.

To communicate effectively with your attendees after your event has ended, it’s helpful to have information stored on them that you can use to tailor your outreach. Your association management system (AMS) and customer relationship management (CRM) system are valuable sources of this information.

1. Gather attendee information in your CRM for future outreach.

To reach out to your attendees after your event, it helps to have their information on hand. This ranges from the basic contact information they entered on their registration forms to more in-depth information about their careers and professional goals. Gather the information your members enter in your AMS and CRM to tailor future communications.

Most likely, your members will register for your event through your AMS. This is why it’s important that your AMS integrates with your CRM or, even better, is a native app built onto your CRM platform. Integrated software systems:

• Save your attendees time at registration. Attendees using your AMS to register will only have to fill in the information that does not already appear in their member profiles or in your CRM, saving them time. Additionally, your association will be able to gather any additional information your registrants provide.

• Make future communications easier. With detailed records containing your attendees’ preferred contact methods, histories of event attendance, and other valuable information automatically stored in your CRM, you’ll be able to create and distribute effective follow-up communications to everyone who attended your event.

• Facilitate the creation of comprehensive member profiles. Information from your CRM, as well as details your members choose to enter themselves, will appear on their member profiles in your AMS. These profiles help both your association’s team and your members’ colleagues learn more about them and reach out accordingly.

When your AMS and CRM work together to gather, store, and organise important information on your members, your association will be able to create follow-up communications that appeal to their specific interests. To learn more about the connection between these two essential software systems, check out Fonteva’s guide to association management software.

With an AMS that has the event management capabilities you need to gather and store valuable information, you’ll be well on your way to re-engaging your attendees. In the meantime, keep your event on their minds by sending them home with quality merchandise branded to your association.

2. Send attendees home with branded merchandise.

There’s no doubt that events are exciting, as they’re a place for members of your association to share their ideas with like-minded professionals and make valuable connections in the process. Commemorate a successful event—and keep your association at the forefront of your attendees’ minds—by offering branded merchandise through your eCommerce platform.

Whether you regularly use the eCommerce features of your AMS or you’re new to selling merchandise, keep the following in mind as you prepare to create and distribute merchandise to your most recent group of event attendees:

• Sell merchandise throughout the event process. Due to the ease of using your familiar AMS as your eCommerce platform, you can sell merchandise before, during, and after the event. Registration is a good time to offer merchandise to attendees, as they can purchase it alongside their tickets.
• Offer products your members will love. Your attendees will be happier with merchandise that isn’t relegated to a shelf as soon as they take it home. Looking for the perfect product to sell at your next event? Partner with an online firm to design and order custom t-shirts for your attendees.
• Keep selling after the event is over. When members of your association wear or use merchandise that’s branded to your association, they’re helping you spread the word and even attract potential new members. An easy-to-use eCommerce platform set up through your AMS can be kept open at all times.

Branding is a { link = https://www.expocart.com/blog/advice/top-event-planning-tips/ | key element of the event planning process }}, and your attendees will be more likely to stay in touch the more memorable your association is. Merchandise is a fun and effective way to retain your members’ attention and foster their sense of pride in belonging to your organisation. When they’re happy to be members, they’ll be eager to stay in touch.

3. Stay in touch with your attendees for future engagement.

Especially if your attendees are newer members of your association, they may have attended your highly-publicised event but not have many ideas about your other programs and offerings. Your event provides the perfect reason for reaching out to share more opportunities with them. Use your AMS to keep your attendees updated on their chances for future engagement with your association.

After a successful event, your attendees will be feeling positive about your association because they enjoyed the experience. Keep the momentum going by staying connected using:

• Automated emails. Automated communications sent through your AMS save your association’s team time, but don’t need to sacrifice personalisation. You can customise them before you send them and send different emails to different groups of attendees according to their interests.
• Your website. For many of your members, your website is the first place they go when they want to stay updated on news about your association. Ensure that yours is easy to navigate, regularly refreshed with new content, and contains password-protected links to any members-only logins on the site.
• Your association’s mobile app. Stay in touch with your members wherever they may go using the mobile app version of your AMS. If your AMS is a native app for your Salesforce CRM, information entered through the app will automatically update in your database.
• It’s best to follow up with your attendees straight after your event , when their experience is freshest in their minds. Once you’ve reached out, you can begin using their expressed interests and preferences to offer them additional opportunities through your association, including continuing education opportunities.

4. Offer your attendees continuing education opportunities.

Like any of your association’s members, your event attendees are accomplished professionals eager to progress in their careers. You may want to host a live learning event, where your members can work together to acquire new knowledge and develop new skills. Invite attendees to keep learning after the event has ended by offering them courses through an association learning management system (LMS) that integrates with your AMS.

Whether you’re just getting started with an association LMS or upgrading your current system, you’ll want to choose one that keeps members engaged in the learning process. Look for an association LMS that offers:


• The opportunity to upload materials. Learning doesn’t have to stop just because your live event is over! Choose an association LMS that allows you to upload materials from the event for those who didn’t get to attend or would like to review them.
• Social learning features within online courses. Discussion boards and live chat options provide members with the ability to discuss course material among themselves, providing additional perspectives on the material and fostering a more engaging learning environment.
• Personalised course recommendations. Keep your members learning by choosing an association LMS that automatically recommends new courses based on their purchase and completion histories.
You’ll transform more attendees into lifelong learners and active members of your association when you follow up on successful events with more learning opportunities. You can visit Web Courseworks’ guide to association LMS featuresto learn more about how these systems can benefit your association.

Live learning events and other gatherings of your association’s members are great ways to bring them together to share ideas and develop as professionals. However, not every member will be able to attend every event. Give smaller groups of members the opportunity to plan their own event so that more can benefit.



5. Give smaller groups of members event planning capabilities.

Association-wide events that everyone can attend may not be possible if your association is large or spread out geographically. Attendees at your most recent event may not be able to travel to your next one if it’s too far away. This is why it’s important to choose an AMS that provides member committees, communities, and regional chapters with event planning capabilities.

When enthusiastic attendees can participate in more events, they’ll be more motivated to explore your association’s other offerings. Choose an AMS that facilitates member-run events for smaller subsets of your association by:


• Facilitating regional event planning. Leaders of regional chapters and groups can use your AMS to invite and register members for their events and manage those events once they’re up and running.
• Find and add members to groups. If your members share geographical regions, professional interests, or other relevant characteristics, leaders of groups within your association can reach out to invite them through your AMS.
• Automate communications with group members. Leaders of member committees, communities, and regional chapters can use the same automated email and online communication features with their members as your association uses to reach all members.
Effective association management software keeps members engaged by making them aware of more opportunities available to them through your association. You can learn more about key features of the best association management software here.

Using your association’s software systems to engage members after events can help you avoid mistakes and ensure that your future events, programs, and other offerings address your members’ needs and interests. This way, they’ll be sure to participate again!

A successful event is a great way to engage members in your association’s programming, but you’ll need to follow up with them to keep them involved. Your AMS and other software solutions are valuable tools that can make this process efficient for your team and exciting for your members, encouraging them to remain active in your association.