The Society of Independent Show Organizers (SISO) CEO Summit, the most important annual networking and information-sharing event for show organizers, took place in person last month for the first time in two years, bringing hundreds of eager attendees together for an experience punctuated by exceptional content and optimism for the industry’s continued recovery and evolution.

Every year, members leave your organization – they change jobs or professions, go out of business, retire, or just leave because they found a better alternative. That makes adding and retaining members to your association a top priority and a never-ending project. Let’s look at some reasons why your members might be going out the back door, and how you must keep new ones coming in the front.

According to a Marketing General Incorporated benchmarking report, 50% of associations reported that members do not renew their membership due to a lack of engagement. That’s why membership engagement has always been one of the top priorities for the leadership in associations.

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, grabbed everyone’s attention when he said he envisioned Dreamforce being an “always-on” type of event in the future—similar to a news channel like CNN. Asynchronous events "go live" at a specific date and time but offer a much longer event experience. Here are three benefits of delivering asynchronous event experiences:

Membership renewal is mission-critical to healthy and sustainable growth for associations. But the pandemic and its impact have created new challenges for associations of all sizes. 

Hybrid events are relatively new to the industry, and most organizations are still testing its possibilities. Determining what and how to sell sponsorships for hybrid events is also open for discussion. 

Looking to kickstart your sponsorship efforts for hybrid events? Here are some tips on how you can find and secure hybrid event sponsorships like a pro. 

The event industry has become a poster child for change. Before COVID-19, in-person events were the rule. Then, virtual events emerged to adjust for the world’s new normal of staying home and lessening contact with the outside world. Now, in-person events are slowly coming back … somewhat.

Your sales reps' expectations from sales kick-offs (SKOs) have changed. They no longer want boring business strategy monologues. They want to network, get energized, and figure out how they’re going to be successful that year. There is also the added challenge of meeting these expectations virtually.

When planning a virtual event, visualizing and setting up a virtual stage is quite a herculean task. The stage needs to be intuitive to interact with and needs to inspire engagement. You want to see your audience interact with your content, with other attendees, and build meaningful relationships.

Change cannot be put on people. The best way to instill change is to do it with them. Create it with them. – Lisa Bodell

Employee engagement was once just a good-to-have goal and used to involve tactics to make the employees "feel an emotional connect" around special occasions and conventional team-building activities.