A membership app keeps your association within arm’s reach of your members. Year-round, members use your app to connect with each other and with your association. As a bonus, your app helps generate new streams of revenue for your association.
How to Generate New Streams of Revenue with a Membership App
While delivering valuable information, education, and conversations to members, your app also has the potential to bring new revenue to your association.
💸 Increase membership revenue
Your membership app is a channel for regularly delivering membership value. Members are more likely to take advantage of and appreciate membership benefits when they show up in the palm of their hand. Retention increase thanks to convenient benefits and renewal reminders you send via your app’s push notifications.
An app helps members:
- Connect and converse with other members via messages and your online community
- Participate in online courses with microlearning modules designed for mobile interaction
- Attend webinars and other live educational and networking events
- Watch on-demand online learning programs
🎓 Generate online learning revenue
Members aren’t the only ones seeking online education. Although non-members who download your app cannot access members-only features, they can use the app to participate in live online courses or watch on-demand programs—at a higher cost, of course.
Offer learning subscriptions to members and non-members who want unlimited access to your online educational content.
💼 Expand the reach of your job board
Attract the attention of industry professionals, recent graduates, and young people to your association and industry with your job board. Promote the mobile friendliness of your job board on social and industry media platforms. Employers are eager to post their open positions on a job board with heavy traffic. Charge more to employers who want a place on top of the list for their “featured” open positions.
Highlight career resources, online events for jobseekers, and featured open positions on your app.
💲 Enhance sponsorship opportunities
A membership app provides year-round visibility and engagement opportunities for sponsors. This marketing boost enhances the value of your sponsorship packages.
Spend time with each potential revenue partner to identify how the app can help them achieve marketing goals, along with other digital and event sponsorship opportunities. Since an app offers year-round exposure, compared to only a few days at a conference, app sponsorship should be a doable upsell for companies used to event-only sponsorships.
Your app helps sponsors:
- Build brand awareness
- Share their expertise
- Demonstrate their commitment to your industry
- Generate leads
Feature their sponsored content in the app’s news feed or resource center. Offer guidance to sponsors on appropriate and relevant content:
- Educational videos (including webinar recordings)
- Articles and blog posts
- Hot takes (editorials) on emerging issues
- Research/survey reports and white papers
- Tips, checklists, and how-to guides
- Podcast episodes
Charge extra if a sponsor wants to use a download form for their “lead magnet.” A lead magnet is content provided to a sales lead in exchange for their contact information.
Offer a higher level of sponsorship (with a higher dollar commitment) for:
- Sponsored forums for discussions on specific topics or with specific segments
- Sponsored polls or surveys sent via push notification or featured in the news feed that provide valuable data to both your association and sponsor
📢 Increase advertising possibilities
App advertising, like other digital advertising, provides analytics valued by corporate partners, such as the number of impressions and click-through rates. Segmenting advertising by target audience enhances its value.
Advertising opportunities include:
- App splash page
- Rotating advertising banners that direct members to unique landing pages
- Promotional videos
- Location-based promotional offers from nearby partners when members travel
📲 Highlight companies in the app directory
Offer profile upgrades for company members in your app’s marketplace or directory. Feature corporate partner spotlights in the member directory.
💳 Use the app as a purchasing channel
Your members are used to doing everything on the go. Make it easy for them to use the app to:
- Buy items in your online store
- Register for online and in-person events, webinars, and online learning programs
- Purchase programs from your LMS or learning catalog
- Update their member or company profile
- Renew their membership
🎖️ Offer exclusive content to members paying higher dues
If you have a premium membership tier, provide access to exclusive content on your app, such as benchmarking tools, industry research reports, or legal assistance.
💻 Leverage the app as a marketing channel
Many members don’t open your emails, as you know from a glance at your open rates. Get their attention instead via your membership app. Target marketing campaigns in the news feed by member segments, such as a promotion for a new online course or on-demand educational program for members who have expressed interest in that topic. Announce an upcoming young professional mentoring group or early-career micro credential only to the members in that demographic.
When planning sponsorships, advertising, and other promotions, keep this guiding principle in mind: maintain the right balance between your revenue goals and the app user’s experience. You don’t want to let intrusive advertising ruin the app experience. An enjoyable and productive mobile experience reflects well on both your sponsors and your association.
If you’d like more tips for maximizing the return on investment for your membership app, check out Clowder’s ultimate mobile engagement guide.
