The backbone of your association’s revenue is traditionally based on membership dues. The need to develop revenue options beyond that core model is increasing and associations are looking for new ways to build non-dues revenue. That’s revenue outside of your membership dues. Non-dues revenue can play a crucial role in your organization’s growth and financial stability. Your members will also be happier! By generating non-dues revenue, you can offer additional value with improved resources, educational programs, networking opportunities, and special events just for your members. Building non-dues revenue with event technology Your association can build non-dues revenue through many avenues, one of them being the technology you use. Be it your networking app, event apps or LMS, tech is the perfect place to provide sponsorship opportunities and offer ad space. Here we’ll guide you through doing this with the help of event tech like GTR and Conference App. What is GTR Event Technology? GTR is technology used for event registration, check-in and badge printing, lead retrieval and attendance tracking. GTR makes everyone’s life easier when it comes to events. Attendees love it for the ease of registration and quick check-in. Exhibitors highly value the lead retrieval function that simplifies their follow-ups and increases their ROI. As an organization managing GTR, you’ll find it easy to use and benefit from our support team’s help whenever needed. Learn about all the features GTR can offer your organization in this recorded webinar. Non-dues event revenue with GTR Utilizing sponsorships and ad space will be the easiest and most effective way to build non-dues revenue through GTR. You can create a tiered structure for how much a sponsorship or ad would cost and the benefits of a company’s investment. Similarly, you can gain revenue from the lead retrieval feature that exhibitors highly value. We’ll touch on a few ideas to engage your event attendees using GTR below and then talk about our amazing companion app, Conference App. Experiential ad space using GTR Sponsors want to be front and center for everything your attendees see. This will be important for them on your registration page, at check-in and on your badges. Giving sponsors a wide variety of where they can buy space will allow for a higher yield on revenue. This also gives opportunities for those without a high ad budget. Registration and check-in kiosk sponsorship Make your sponsors top of mind during the registration and check-in process. Sell this ad space and present their logos during the registration process. Then again (repetition) when attendees get their confirmation email. Then again (more repetition) when they check-in to your event! Event and conference badge sponsorship Badge real-estate will be your bread and butter for high-budget sponsors. They gain a lot of value from purchasing this space as it’s extremely limited and highly visible. Every attendee at your event will have a badge and they are completely customizable – colors, fonts, imagery, logos, even the badge design and shape – you name it. Event attendee badges are used for check-in and attendance tracking through the QR code. Your main sponsor can have their logo on these badges, where their name will be seen by everyone. Your badges have both front and back real-estate. Front being the most prominent and good for high-dollar sponsors and brand visibility. The back typically being more informational and great for a blurb, wifi sponsorship information and the like. Front of badge sponsorship ideas: branded lanyards, ‘presented by’ sponsor logos, ‘badges sponsored by’ logos, use the shape and colors of the presenting sponsor as the badge design. Back of badge sponsorship ideas: general ad space for use like a blurb and link/QR code to the advertiser’s website, wifi sponsorship information, any other key information like receptions ‘sponsored by’ etc. Wifi sponsorships The wifi sponsorship has been around for ages and maybe gets a bad rap as being an archaic sponsorship option. Consider selling this sponsorship as ‘printed directly on attendee badges’ which is easy to do with GTR. And encourage your sponsor to come up with something catchy that will stick in their heads. Here’s an example: ‘Wifi sponsored by MemberClicks! Password: MemberClicksIs#1!’ Lead retrieval revenue As we’ve mentioned previously, exhibitors love the lead retrieval feature GTR provides. Use this to your association’s benefit by including it in the service bundle your exhibitors get when reserving booth space (or offer it for an additional cost). They’ll be able to have meaningful and expedited follow-ups with attendees with all the individual’s information in one place. Exhibitors highly value access to their leads, so it’s likely something they’ve already budgeted for when planning on being at your event. This revenue can be part of the package you create for exhibitors when you start planning your next event. What is Conference App? You know that app you use at the conference to find your sessions, network with attendees and find exhibitors in the exhibition hall? That’s Conference App. Well, our tool that integrates directly with MemberClicks is Conference App, and attendees love it! Conference App helps you drive attendee engagement, pique sponsor interest and make event planning more efficient. It’s easy to download and use for attendees – and easy for you to set up on the back end, too! Non-dues revenue with Conference App As we’ve seen with GTR, sponsorships and ad space will be the best way to generate non-dues revenue with Conference App. Attendees at your event will be using Conference App for anything and everything. They use it to look up the schedule, find session information, view venue maps, participate in surveys and more. Companies want to be seen as often as possible by your attendees, so your event app is where they want to be. Ad space revenue through sponsorship promotions Conference App is completely customizable with your logo, brand and identity. If your event has a huge sponsor that you’d like to highlight, you can make this happen. Feature their logo on part of the app’s header or main page. For the more standard sponsorship level, you can highlight multiple sponsors on their own page in the app. Push notifications using Conference App Another way to gain revenue from sponsors is by allowing them to be promoted through push notifications. Conference App has push notifications that will ping your attendees. This puts the sponsor top of mind and at the top of an attendee’s phone notifications. Depending on the budget of your sponsors they have a variety of options to promote themselves at your event. Here’s an example: Ding: ‘It’s 5:00 here (not somewhere). Click with your peers at the MemberClicks reception! Drinks on us in room XYZ!’ Your organization’s financial growth at your next event When planning your next event, having an avenue for non-dues revenue with event tech is critical. It will allow you to expand your resources and have better tech, more staff and deliver a higher quality experience for your members. Utilizing sponsorships and features like lead retrieval and push notifications will help your organization grow and have financial stability. Be sure to embrace these revenue-building ideas with your event tech for your upcoming events! Curious about GTR or Conference App? 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