In January 2021, we ran another segment of Ask the Association Veteran Anything with our VP of Client Experience, Amanda Davis. You can watch the full on-demand webcast here, and check out a short recap below:
What suggestions do you have for attracting a new target audience to a virtual meeting?
- Partner with other organizations that may have professionals who might be interested in your content.
- Purchase marketing lists.
- Advertise – think Google AdWords, Facebook Marketing.
How can we continue to conduct 1:1 training virtually?
- You have to be careful how you plan these and with the subject matter expert (SME) that you choose to teach.
- The SMEs need to make sure they keep their audience engaged.
- Include exercises within the program to give the learner a break from the teaching.
- One–on–one training can make it easier to hold the trainee accountable.
- In a two-or-more (but still small) group, you can utilize things like breakout groups for more one-on-one discussions or polling to the audience. And depending on the content, you can allow the learners to turn on their webcams and communicate through the audio in the platform at designated times.
How do you get participation from folks during virtual round table discussions?
- When advertising courses be sure to include that interaction and participation should be expected.
- Empower SMEs or moderators to reach out to those not participating initially through private chat and then escalated if effecting other learners.
- If possible, give people the option of being part of a round table or performing an exercise individually.
- Peer-to-peer interaction – empower your audience to reach out to peers that aren’t engaging.
As a chapter-based organization I am interested in building the capacity of each of our chapters to engage and retain membership.
- Retool geographical chapters to areas of interest, if the geographical segmentation is failing.
- Find your champions; if they don’t exist you may need to build and nurture them.
- Set clear expectations for your chapters to know what they are supposed to be doing. Even consider establishing KPI’s or goals so that you are all in alignment. This will help limit the intersection of responsibilities between the chapters and the national/parent organization.
- Don’t duplicate efforts –
- Borrow subject matter experts or content from each other, not to teach the same topics, but to engage the SMEs to teach different topics and to a larger audience.
- Allow the chapters a way to share resources amongst themselves to ease the efforts of the volunteers.
How can we effectively manage committees?
Your organization needs to set the standard – length of service, what is the mission, vision and strategic plan for each committee. What should each committee be responsible for? Develop goals for the committees which will help you keep them on track with their developed strategy/plan. This will help with accountability and to weed people out who are not actively participating. Don’t be afraid to remove non-committed members of a committee. These should be very active “working groups” not just something else you have to manage. Ask yourself that very question… “Is this something I dread managing.” If your answer is “YES” it may be time to step back and figure out a better use of your volunteers.
What is the best way to organize educational content on an LMS?
- Utilize your homepage! Highlight core products here for a quick click to get to them.
- Segment content by delivery method and then categorize by topic.
- Setup a standard template and follow that template so the learner doesn’t get lost when navigating between courses.
- Bring in visual branding for certain topical areas or delivery methods to visually align the experience. This can help the learners navigate the site.
This recap is only the tip of the iceberg – click here to hear everything Amanda had to say!
