Looking Forward 2016: How to Reduce Costs with an LMS

In our last blog post on the 'Looking Forward 2016' report from Association Laboratory, we noted that 6 of the top 7 impacts outlined that concern association executives relate to the creation, management, delivery, and quality of information, content, and education. In this post we are going to look at how an association LMS could help to address the economic impacts that concern association executives, and provide some helpful advice to get you started.

In Looking Forward 2016, “Growing demand for online and virtual training opportunities is a significant concern, and the issue of configuring and pricing education or credentialing products is increasing in importance. All reflect a concern for finding affordable and convenient means of ensuring a well-trained workforce.” We believe that an association LMS is the answer to this need. Let us show you how an association learning management system can help your organization.

‘Creating compelling professional development/training programs’ and  'Members’ more limited ability to pay for/attend professional development activities’, are listed as a top ten concern in both the primary and workforce impacts that concern associations. One way to reduce the cost of attending professional development activities for members, is to make more training available online, through an Association LMS. Initially, this could be as simple as giving members access to live or recorded webinars, and over time as association executives become more confident in using learning technology, the organization could graduate from webinars to online courses. Some tips in best practice for creating eLearning content for delivery through an LMS may also be helpful.

There are also a number of related economic impacts that are listed as concerns for association executives in the workforce factors outlined in Looking Forward 2016. These are:

• Developing different marketing strategies to address diverse audiences,
• Differentiating the value of the association’s education/credentialing products,
• Configuring and pricing education or credentialing products.

An association LMS could also contribute to strategic plans to address these concerns and reduce the costs, helping associations to increase non-dues revenue in several ways. The Association LMS offers a centralized reporting tool for all education offerings with detailed personalized data on learner training history (especially when integrated with the association AMS), which can be analysed and used to develop different marketing strategies for different types of learners – members, non-members, students, professionals, those with a general interest or requiring accreditation or certification. This guide to getting useful data from your LMS might help association executives to get started with reporting on the education resources managed by their LMS, in order to analyze and strategize more effectively.

Configuring and pricing education and credentialing products is made easier when all professional development/training offerings are managed through a single system, such as an association LMS. Once the association has analysed the data to understand which training resources are in demand, or are more valuable to members, or which may need a marketing boost to promote participation, the association LMS course catalog and ecommerce capabilities can be used to put in place different pricing strategies on education and credentialing products for members and non-members. If members have more limited ability to pay for education offerings, perhaps prices could be adjusted for non-members to make up the difference, or special offers could be provided to increase interest and participation in particular training resources. Associations might find these eight quick tips to boost eLearning revenue and this guide to successfully marketing your association LMS useful when reviewing marketing and pricing of training resources.

Hopefully we have provided associations with some useful resources to successfully address some of the key concerns that may impact on their operations in this blog, but if you have any questions about how an association LMS could help your organization to reduce the impact and costs of these environmental factors, please contact us and we will be happy to share our 20 years of experience in helping associations to power their education and certification programs with you.