Hosting memorable events is essential for creating an excellent, enriching experience for your association’s members. Events, from a large conference to a fun auction fundraiser, give your members the opportunity to network, build a community, celebrate one another’s achievements, and develop their professional skills.

Planning a successful in-person, virtual, or hybrid event doesn’t just happen overnight. Your association will need the right event management tools, engaging activities, knowledgeable staff, and memorable promotional materials to attract attendees. To plan your association’s next event, follow these steps:

  1. Define event goals and create an event plan.
  2. Secure sponsors, speakers, and exhibitors.
  3. Recruit and train volunteers.
  4. Market the event.
  5. Evaluate event success and follow up with members.
  6. Facilitate continued engagement.

Along with following these steps, your association should leverage an AMS platform with tools like registration management and form builders to simplify and streamline the planning process. Throughout this guide, we’ll touch on essential technology to invest in as part of your association’s toolkit. 

1. Define event goals and create an event plan.

First, your association should determine your event’s purpose and goals. When planning your event schedule, ensure you choose events that align with both your association’s and your members’ goals. 

These often overlap, such as your association wanting to engage members and members wanting to participate in engaging experiences. However, there may be some differences that impact individual events and your event schedule as a whole. For example, your association may want to:

  • Promote sponsors
  • Earn funding
  • Attract new members

In contrast, your members likely attend events to:

  • Make connections
  • Improve their skills and professional knowledge
  • Have a fun experience

These goals don’t necessarily conflict. Rather, consider how events can achieve multiple objectives without getting overly complicated. For instance, you might host a conference that’s open to non-members to boost recruitment rates and provide a networking opportunity. 

Once you’ve chosen your event’s purpose and outlined a few specific goals, plan out key logistical and budgetary details. Here are some of the specifics to map out in advance:

  • A date, time, and location
  • The total event budget and how it will be allocated
  • Staff and/or members who will plan the event and what their specific responsibilities are
  • The event’s format: in-person, virtual, or hybrid
  • The speakers, presentations, or activities you’d like to have
  • A marketing plan, including the communication channels you’ll use, your target audience, etc.

This is also the time to invest in any necessary technology. For virtual events, this might include an engagement platform with conferencing tools, while an in-person event might only need registration and ticketing software. Look for event hosting tools that can support in-person, hybrid, and online events to create a flexible event calendar.

2. Secure sponsors, speakers, and exhibitors.

Conferences, workshops, and lectures are all core events for trade and professional associations. As such, your members will be looking forward to these types of events, and your association should have a network of speakers, exhibitors, and sponsors you can connect with to make them happen.

Here are some strategies your planning committee can use to find impactful speakers:

  • Ask members. Use your community engagement tools to survey members about who they would like to see give a presentation at your next event or conference. This will provide you with a list of ideas, and some members may even help you connect with speakers they know personally by offering to set up introductions. 
  • Use online resources. Professional social media sites like LinkedIn are home to many professionals in your industry. Follow presenters whose posts your members like and reach out to them about appearing at one of your events. Additionally, websites like SpeakerHub are another helpful resource where you can publish a call for speakers on the site to source new presenters.
  • Reference recent publications. Stay up to date with publications in your field and consider if any contributors would make strong presenters. These individuals may be difficult to reach out to, so search your network to see if you have any connections. Discuss board member connections, partner with other associations, or even reach out to the organizers of conferences your members have attended to set up an introduction. If you lack a pre-existing relationship, you can always send a cold-call professional email as well. 

Keep in mind that hybrid and virtual events allow you to showcase speakers outside of your local area, expanding your options. This way, speakers can call in from anywhere, give their presentations, and answer audience questions without needing to factor travel time into their busy schedules. Just be sure to follow the best practices in OneCause’s guide to hybrid events, like determining how many guests will attend in person to ensure your venue is large enough.

3. Recruit and train volunteers.

Many small and medium-sized associations rely on volunteers to run their events. These volunteers are often members but can also be friends and family of your staff. 

To recruit these volunteers, announce your need for volunteers in meetings and newsletters, briefly describe the jobs volunteers might be assigned, and send out links to a virtual sign-up form. A few roles you might assign volunteers include: 

  • Directing parking
  • Setting up and cleaning up the event
  • Managing speakers
  • Assisting with check-in and registration
  • Overseeing refreshments, catering, and drinks
  • Helping attendees 
  • Ushering attendees to their seats
  • Distributing maps, programs, and other printed materials

While these tasks mostly apply to events with an in-person element, you may need a few volunteers for your virtual event, too.

As Fonteva’s guide to virtual events explains, incorporate face-to-face engagement as much as possible and encourage active participation by accepting and answering attendee questions. Have a volunteer or two available to moderate the chat section of a video presentation. These volunteers will ensure all interactions are professional, answer simple questions, compile complex ones to elevate to the speakers, and encourage discussion. 

You might also designate a few tech-savvy volunteers to help manage your event microsite, ensure video meetings run smoothly, and troubleshoot any technical issues that may occur. 

4. Market the event.

Start planning your event early enough that your marketing campaign has time to fill seats with excited attendees. Depending on the size of your event, start promoting it anywhere from one to three months in advance.

After creating your event master plan, you should already have a general idea of the tactics, channels, and timelines you’ll follow during your marketing campaign. Some popular ways to market events include:

  • Announcing the event through your community platform. If your association has an online community platform, it should be the central hub of information for happenings at your association. Use this space to announce events, provide updates, and send reminders. 
  • Sending email blasts. Include reminders to register in your regular email updates and newsletters. Create short, enticing subject lines, and make it easy for members to take action by including a link to your registration page.
  • Leveraging social media. For events open to the public, leverage social media to capture new members’ interests and create another touch point with your current members. Vary your social media posts by including photos, live and animated videos, and interactive content. Additionally, you maintain your marketing momentum by creating a custom event hashtag for attendees to use when they post about your event.
  • Creating flyers. Flyers and posters are great for associations with robust local chapters. Post them in local businesses and universities or even mail them to potential attendees. If your event is virtual (or members are geographically dispersed), email or post digital flyers instead.

Like many associations, you likely aim to grow your member audience. Marketing your event outside of your existing pool of members through social media is one of the best ways to expand beyond your current membership base.

5. Evaluate event success and follow up with members.

Once your event concludes, you still have work to do. Most importantly, thank your attendees for taking the time to participate in your event with a speedy appreciation email. To get attendee feedback, include a link to a post-event survey along with the thank-you message. If you held a virtual event, use your AMS software or member management platform to create a custom form for virtual and in-person attendees.

Once you have received the survey results, analyze attendees’ responses to understand what they liked about the event and what can be improved. Then, the next time you host an event, you’ll be ready to implement attendee-suggested changes and create a memorable experience that boosts retention. After all, following up with attendees can help you form long-lasting relationships, particularly when you show that you value their participation and feedback about their experience.

6. Facilitate continued engagement.

Many associations host just a handful of events every year. This strategy fits these associations’ schedules and resources but may limit members’ ability to connect with one another and follow up on their experiences. 

Associations looking to maximize their events’ impact should invest in tools that allow members to continue to engage even after an event wraps up. Online community engagement platforms are ideal for this purpose. 

These tools create members-only spaces where your members can post questions, comment on each other’s posts, and interact with your content. They can also look up other members to send direct messages and form group chats. 

For instance, two members might meet at your event but live far away from one another. To keep the conversation going, they would then connect on your community engagement platform. Or, an attendee might have thoughts they want to share about a lecture at a conference after doing their own research later. They could post their interpretations to start a conversation with other professionals in your community.

Events are a great way to engage your existing members (and attract new ones) by building your organization’s reputation within your field. While planning an event is a large undertaking, you can mitigate the stress by starting well in advance and recruiting a skilled, dedicated team of volunteers. With the right technology on your side, your organization can easily manage registration, host virtual activities, and facilitate conversations after your event wraps up.