Americas: Want to Grow Globally? Start With Conferences
A new five-year survey of almost 700 trade and professional associations from more than 20 countries finds that associations looking to grow globally find conferences to be one of their top strategies for breaking into new international markets. In fact, for trade associations, membership just barely beat conferences as the top product to export, while the difference was a bit more pronounced for professional associations.
The study was conducted by international association firm Globalstrat LLC to gauge how associations have been approaching global membership, programs, and engagement from 2013 to the present. It found that both professional associations and trade groups put in-person training and education and online training and webinars as their third and fourth most-preferred products to lead with when entering a new market. Trade associations reported holding more in-person networking events, while professional associations were more likely to provide journals or other publications to lure new international members into the fold.