How to Keep Members Engaged After Your Certification Program Has Ended

A lot goes into setting up an engaging certification program. What is equally important is how do we keep the members engaged after they have completed the certification program.

By successfully adopting a few strategies, organizations can increase their member’s engagement and provide satisfactory results post-completion of the program:

Planning:

Every successful strategy has to start with an effective plan for engagement. The first step for planning would be to put out a set of questions like how do we get the new members to interact with the other programs? How do we get them to apply for a membership program? What immediate action needs to be taken post-completion of the certification program?

All these can be answered by setting a yearly roadmap starting with:

Introducing the members to the culture and benefits of the organizations by sending out customised onboarding emails Allow the interested members to apply for a free membership trial that will help them make up their minds and understand the working and benefits of the organization in a better way Automate emails to invite and participate the members to the conference, live streams, boot camps, training sessions that will boost their engagement Develop a referral program that will allow the members to bring in new individuals Automate a follow-up mail to the members stating the benefits of the membership program Provide membership offers, discount codes or a downloadable free ebook

Engagement:

Track engagement of the potential members through their interactions with the content, sharing, activity and participation, email or blog clicks, social media interaction and engagement and also referrals.

The organization can also categorise their members based on their engagement and customise the responses and offers accordingly. Suppose a set of members display continuous engagement, reward them for loyalty and participation. On the contrary, if a member shows inactivity, interact and ask for constructive feedback to improvise the program and also offer exciting benefits to keep them engaged.

Marketing:

In the present digital era, where competition is at its peak, marketing, advertising and promoting the program is crucial. Not adapting to the trending marketing strategies would fail the organization from reaching the target audience and falling behind hindering progress. Digital marketing is the most effective way to market the organization’s program. This is done through:

Content Marketing: A marketing strategy that targets traffic by creating relevant content like blogs, articles, posts, and videos. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a key role in Content Marketing targeting keyword research. A domain name, site performance and so on. Content marketing can be done organically by setting up relevant keywords and non-organically with help of paid services like Google AdWords or Google Analytics

Social Media Marketing: Marketing through social media is proven to create brand awareness and increase engagement. Each social media platform like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have their own paid services to promote the brand and track engagement. One can also organically market their program on social media by making relevant posts, engaging with the members personally or by hosting a digital event.

Email Marketing: is the best way to get the attention of a member who has visited your site. Customizing the mail, automating responses, subscriptions, newsletters, announcing exciting offers and events can be done through emails.

In Conclusion:

Nothing is ever difficult to achieve once you have a set of plans and strategies for the same. Engaging members digitally needs a lot of effort and adapting different strategies but it’s going to help the brand in the long-run creating awareness and promoting the program.