Professional association leaders have a lot to juggle. Between coordinating member events, attending conferences, and promoting the association across other marketing channels, it can feel like you’ve got almost no time or energy to spend on curriculum development.
Yet, ironically, investing in educational programs is the key to attracting and engaging new members — and ultimately increasing non-dues revenue. The Center for Association Leadership found that help with career advancement and exposure to job opportunities are among the most important benefits to members.
The 2024 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report shows that increases in learner engagement positively correlate with membership growth. Associations that report increases in professional development registrations and certifications are more likely to report one-year and five-year membership growth.
In this guide, we share five recommendations for drawing in more learners, keeping them engaged with your organization, and amplifying your brand based on the data on our recently published State of Credentialing Report and real examples from the International Institute of Business Analysts, the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, and more.
Learners are eager to earn credentials. 60% of learners are more likely to complete a course when a digital credential is offered. And 96% of learners who have earned a digital credential consider it valuable for their career, and 78% believe it increases their chances of getting a job offer.
However, to drive course or certification signups, your credentials must provide what learners want. While learners didn't have an instant preference for digital credentials, our data shows that they wanted everything that only digital credentials can provide:
This poses a significant opportunity for issuers — not only to maximize the value of their digital credentials via metadata but also to better communicate this value to learners.
Associations can do a few things to make the value of their credentials clear off the bat. First, add metadata and branding. Not only does this make your certificates and badges look more professional, but it also clues employers (and potential learners) into what learners have done to obtain a credential and their level of competency.
The North American Veterinary Community (NAVC) does this exceptionally well. As seen below, each of their digital credentials:
Next, you’ll want to add more detail to your program page and credential-related emails to explain your credentials and how they can impact learners' careers. Some examples could be:
The International Institute of Business Analysts (IIBA) does a fantastic job of educating earners and prospective learners on its digital badge program page.
Upon visiting the page, users are prompted to browse the IIBA professional directory or log in to access their badges. Below the fold, IIBA includes videos outlining what digital badges are for, how IIBA members can use them, and how easy it is to print, share, and embed them.
Our data shows a mismatch between what learners expect to see in an association’s learning program and what they actually get.
These numbers tell us that learners are hungry for real challenges — when they’ve applied their skills or passed a challenging exam, their digital credentials become much more meaningful. Beyond that, learners want to understand what else you have to offer that they can use to further their careers, opening the door to reenrollment.
Addressing these gaps may seem like a daunting task. To simplify it, consider breaking down existing courses into focused skill modules and integrating existing content like webinars and guides. Pairing these materials with hands-on projects and assessments within a structured pathway allows for a flexible, comprehensive learning experience that builds skills progressively through interconnected microcredentials.
Helping learners visualize their learning pathway and awarding digital credentials along the journey will increase learner retention and application, encourage them to keep going, and reward them for staying the course.
Take Food Skills Canada, for instance. They’ve broken down their Skills Training Across Canada (STAC) microcredential into multiple short modules within a pathway. Each pathway step comes with a digital certificate of completion that learners can add to their resumes and social media profiles.
Other issuers have taken a similar approach, seeing notable increases in learner engagement:
Real-time learner completion rates in the backend of Accredible’s Pathways can reveal where projects or assessments would be most helpful to learners, helping organizations prioritize enhancements to their coursework.
Though only a third of learners report finding their course via referrals, referrals happen in less direct ways — seeing badges on social media, resumes, personal websites, or email signatures.
In our State of Credentialing Report, issuers reported that the most significant benefit of adopting digital credentials is increased credential sharing online. Yet only 33% send a reminder to learners to open and share their credentials. Worse, less than half (44%) don’t recognize the learners who share their credentials.
When members post about their credentials on sites like LinkedIn, they feel a sense of accomplishment. Plus, their entire network gets exposed to and potentially interested in your learning program.
The Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) saw this firsthand, with a 123% increase in LinkedIn share rate. James Swisher, Director of Continuing Education at IISE, shares: “I think all of us underestimated the additional exposure Accredible’s credentials would give the Institute on social media. It helps other folks understand what kind of programs we offer and gets them thinking about a membership.”
IISE isn’t the only organization to see impressive results:
But seeing these results takes more than sending one email. It takes:
Learners are busy and may not immediately open their credential email. Accredible’s Email Campaigns can help you remind earners about their credentials and make a case for sharing them on a cadence you feel comfortable with — without manually crafting and sending them each week or month.
Engagement on social media
Show that you are proud of your earners by liking, commenting on, and reposting their shares. Make it easy for people who see the posts to learn more about what your organization has to offer.
Consider offering a membership discount or a coupon for another course whenever an earner shares their credentials online or to your ‘credential influencers’ with high social engagement from their credential shares.
Several issuers have seen the benefits of incorporating Email Campaign best practices firsthand. After building credential view and LinkedIn share reminder email campaigns, InsideTrack, a leading provider of coaching services for higher education institutions, increased:
The College of Professional Studies at George Washington University had even more impressive results — particularly on LinkedIn. Its LinkedIn profile credential add rate went up by over 130%, and its LinkedIn share rate skyrocketed, increasing by over 580%.
In our research, 94% of learners stated they wanted to take additional courses to meet their career goals, which is great news for associations looking to beef up non-dues revenue. Here’s the catch: one in four learners don’t follow through — they’re looking for recommendations, but they're not getting them.
In addition, 84% of learners want to be highlighted in an online directory of certified credential holders for future opportunities, yet only 35% of issuers provide the opportunity.
The good news is that associations have a unique (and highly valuable) opportunity: if they can meet more learners’ expectations, they can convert them into lifetime members.
Course recommendations prevent analysis paralysis, giving learners a concrete next step. At the same time, you increase the likelihood of their reenrollment and continued loyalty to your association.
IISE uses Accredible’s Recommendations feature to push learners to other courses on digital credential pages (its own and other issuers’ pages) and at the top of CourseFinder, Accredible’s credential directory and course search platform.
By advertising in both places, IISE can guide new and existing members to the courses that will benefit them most, spurring additional program enrollment and revenue.
An online directory is another boon for learners and issuers alike. Learners have a better chance of getting in front of hiring managers, and you can show how many people have invested in your learning program.
Take the American Board of Emergency Medicine, for example. Using Accredible’s Spotlight feature, its branded directory has a whopping 45,700 members — all of whom have earned the board’s credentials and believe in their value.
And they do their part to recognize their learners, enriching their profiles with professional experience, work availability, and social media profiles. This makes it easier for employers to search for qualified candidates and for members to land new jobs.
Without data and insights, it’s impossible to understand how your program is doing, let alone refine it. But most credential issuers are flying blind. Only 54% of issuers track which learners complete a course, and less than 50% track critical data points like:
To make matters worse, many associations don’t track what happens after a learner earns their credential — behavior critical to continued participation and generating new business. Only 23% track which learners take additional courses, and just 13% of issuers monitor program referrals from shared credentials.
If you haven’t started tracking your credential KPIs, now is the time. A digital credentialing platform makes this a lot easier, automatically tracking course completion rate, course completion time, credential open rate, and credential share rates.
James Swisher at IISE has made reporting a part of his everyday routine, but he also goes beyond traditional educational metrics to track the marketing aspects of digital credentials. He explains, “We now want to understand the reach of our programs. How do they share their accomplishment? Are they proud of it?”
Since IISE began monitoring and optimizing its credential marketing flywheel, it’s hit an 88% credential open rate and increased its credential share rate by 96%. Ultimately, these changes have gotten IISE’s brand in front of more potential members and earners.
Per James: “We can now prove that learners are opening our credentials and sharing them at a very high rate. Those are two metrics we didn’t and couldn’t measure four years ago.”
Knowing what you can do to improve your certification program is one thing. Implementing those strategies is another — especially without a modern credentialing platform.
Accredible has helped over 2,300 organizations, including the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), The Digital Marketing Institute, the American Council on Exercise, and the Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP), attract and retain members, boost engagement and sharing, and drive non-dues revenue.
Want to lean on a digital credential partner you can trust? Find out all that Accredible has to offer by booking a demo today.
Schedule a demo and discover how Accredible can help you attract and reward learners, visualize learning journeys, and grow your program.
Book a demo
Accredible is the world’s leading digital credential platform, enabling education and training leaders to increase learner engagement and drive program growth.
Accredible is the world’s leading digital credential platform, enabling education and training leaders to increase learner engagement and drive program growth.
