Comprehensive Guide: Making Digital Badges Work for Your Association
If you’re running an association, you might have noticed that digital badges are gaining popularity amongst your peers and members. Typically shared by employees on LinkedIn and other social platforms, digital badges represent important parts of an individual’s professional identity, serving as proof of a person’s skills, memberships, and awards.
You’re not imagining it – digital badges are gaining popularity, and fast. The global market value for digital badges in 2022 is USD 193M, with Associations taking up the lion’s share of the market at 29%. The global digital badges market is forecasted to rise to USD 748.2M in 2030, nearly a 4x increase over a mere 8 years, giving us some foresight into how much more digital badges will grow amongst Associations across the world. (Fortune Business Insights, 2022)
What are digital badges, exactly?
Digital badges are a form of verifiable credential.
A common digital badge standard used is OpenBadges.
Here are some properties of digital badges:
- Tamper-proof
- Instantly verifiable
- Customisable
- Dynamically updated
- Storable in digital wallets
- Shareable on social platforms
Digital badges can be used to represent a multitude of things, such as (but not limited to):
- Certificates & Skills
- Awards & Achievements
- Membership status
- Titles & Ranks
- Event Attendance & Participation
- Licenses
- Permits
- And more!
Examples of digital badges and a verification page
More importantly, what’s driving the uptake of digital badges amongst Associations?
Associations are increasingly leveraging digital badges for the following reasons:
Motivating Member Learning:
1. Recognition of Skills and Achievements
Many Associations offer training and enrichment programmes. Some offer training for hands-on skills such as first-aid and baking, while others offer technical training like AI and UIUX.
Digital badges are a reliable, scalable, and cost-efficient way for Associations to congratulate their members and to also endorse their skills, accomplishments, and participation in professional development activities. This includes completing courses, attending conferences, and achieving certifications.
2. Micro-Credentialing
Digital badges also play an important part in micro-credentialling strategies. Micro-credentials represent specific skills or knowledge areas.
Benefits of a micro-credentialing strategy include:
- Empowering members to build a portfolio of competencies that can be showcased to employers and peers
- Incentivising continuous learning as members are rewarded for completing their courses – ultimately driving course revenue
3. Personalised Learning Paths
With a micro-credentialing strategy, Associations can leverage digital badges to create personalised learning paths for their members. By earning badges for various modules or activities, members can progress through tailored professional development programmes at their own pace.
Enhancing Member Engagement:
1. Incentivising Participation
Associations are leveraging digital badges to engage their members further. By providing visible and shareable recognition, digital badges serve as a motivational tool to encourage participation in Association events, such as training sessions, networking gatherings, golf tournaments, celebratory dinners, and more.
2. Recognising Member Contributions
Aside from incentivising participation, Associations can foster greater engagement by recognising member achievements through exclusive, specially-designed badges reserved for bigger contributions, such as those who offer to be speakers, panelists, or organisers. This may even inspire other members to contribute in similar ways to future events.
Digital badges can even be used to reward members who take on greater roles within the Association. Exclusive digital badges can be designed to represent specific roles such as Treasurer, Marketing Chief, Operations Officer, and more – creating another way of recognising a member’s status within the Association. These digital badges can be reissued and/or revoked when the role changes hands, ensuring that members, present and future, are always recognised for stepping up.
3. Celebrating Member Accomplishment
As an extension of member engagement, it is also important for Associations to recognise key members within their ranks. These may be individuals who have contributed significantly to the growth and maintenance of the Association, e.g. a sponsor, or individuals who have been with the Association for an extended time.
Digital badges, designed to reflect the prestige of the awards, can be awarded to members for significant contributions. In these instances, it may be important to still present a physical trophy for formality, especially if an award ceremony is involved. Digital badges are a nifty supplement to physical trophies, as this combination allows members to display their achievements proudly both in the physical and digital world.
4. Creating New Communication Touchpoints
Digital badges can also be distributed via email, meaning Associations can capitalise on the issuance of digital badges as a way to connect with their members further, outside of these events. Such emails could contain more information on upcoming events and courses that the Association is planning for, calls for donations, and more.
By creating new touchpoints for member communication, digital badges are becoming an essential communication tool for Associations around the world.
Elevating Brand Equity:
1. Ensuring Brand Equity
For Associations looking to maintain control over their membership, digital badges are a straightforward solution. Digital badges are dynamically updated and can be revoked or even automatically expired by the Association.
This safeguards the exclusivity and prestige of your Association’s membership status as individuals cannot falsely represent their membership status with you. Even if the individual presents an outdated or false membership digital badge, anyone will be able to verify it – the verification process checks for both validity and authenticity.
2. Integration with Social Media
Digital badges are easily shareable on messaging apps and social platforms, such as LinkedIn, websites, email, and even a direct link. Your members can easily showcase their digital badges online, celebrating their new skills, achievements, and awards, with their professional networks.
Examples of how your members can showcase their digital badges on LinkedIn
As your members share your digital badges online, it enhances your Association’s brand presence and equity. Your members are more influential than paid ads and even organic posts from your Association’s social accounts – your members are regarded as trusted individuals, and their posts are perceived as authentic opinions.
This has positive course revenue implications. As your members share their digital badges earned by completing training courses provided by your Association, their network can be influenced to sign up for training with your Association. According to a Nielson study, 92% of people trust Word-Of-Mouth over all forms of advertising, and drives over 20-50% of all purchasing decisions.
There’s nothing to lose, and everything to gain, from empowering your members as brand ambassadors with digital badges.
3. Improving Credential Transparency
Digital badges provide detailed information about what they represent, whether it be skills, achievements, or membership status. The information available includes issuer, earning criteria, validity period, and even evidence of achievement. This metadata of digital badges can be accessed by anyone who wants to verify the individual’s digital badge.
Enhanced transparency creates greater trust in an Association’s digital badges, making them more credible and valuable to members.
4. Collaborating with Educational Institutions
Your Association can offer accredited digital badges for the completion of courses provided in partnership with leading education providers. As these badges are backed by recognised academic entities, their legitimacy and value are enhanced greatly.
By offering accredited digital badges in partnership with premier institutions, your Association’s brand equity skyrockets. Your association is seen as a leading industry entity that provides accredited courses relevant to your members and their vocation. This can also drive course revenue, as individuals looking to acquire recognised training badges can sign up with you.
5. Facilitating Global Recognition
Supplement Value Delivery to Members:
1. Increasing Accessibility to Credentials
Digital badges can be stored online or in digital wallets, such as Apple & Google wallet, or even Association-developed apps. Unlike paper certificates, digital badges can never be lost and are always available on-demand. This means members can present their qualifications whenever they need to. By pinpointing popular courses, your institution can develop similar offerings to meet industry demands and capture a larger market share.
2. Supporting Data Analytics
Digital badges provide Associations with important data on member participation, course demand, and industry trends.
For example, Associations can easily track which event has greater participation and engagement outcomes based on the number of digital badges issued, verified, and shared.
Similarly, Associations can match training provision with industry trends. For example, certain courses may have a high issuance volume of digital badges, but low verification statistics, which may indicate falling relevance of the course in the industry. Conversely, a course with low issuance volume of digital badges, but high verification and sharing statistics, may indicate that this course is up-and-coming within the industry.
With this valuable data, Associations can stay ahead of the training curve, and continue to deliver high value training to its members based on both member and industry demands and trends.
Optimising Internal Processes:
1. Cost Efficiency
Unlike paper certificates which are costly and inefficient to print and mail, cumbersome to store, and not easily shareable – digital badges are none of the above.
Digital badges can be issued to members immediately upon completion of their courses. The digital nature of these badges means Associations can save a significant amount of money spent on printing and mailing paper certificates.
2. Boosting Internal Work Culture
What digital badges can do for members, they can do for staff too. Associations, like all organisations, face the challenge of motivating and rewarding their employees – especially more so if the Association is run by volunteers who have generously given their time.
Associations can reward employees for outstanding performance and incentivise continuous upskilling with digital badges. With easily shareable digital badges, Associations can recruit both their members and staff to be authentic brand ambassadors, creating a positive brand image of the Association as a whole on social.
Let’s make sense of the strategic benefits of digital badges for Associations
Associations face several challenges:
1. Membership Retention & Growth
2. Funding & Revenue Generation
3. Engagement & Value Delivery
4. Strategic Planning
5. Event Management
6. Communications & Branding
7. Measuring Impact
8. Technology Integration
9. Regulatory Compliance
Digital badges are a helpful supplement to the strategies undertaken by Associations in meeting these challenges. While the details of how digital badges can benefit Associations have been elaborated above, it’s helping to map those benefits directly against these challenges to be able to visualise the full extent of how digital badges can digitally transform Associations into well-oiled, high-performing, value-delivering machines.
Challenge: Membership Retention & Growth
| Personalised Learning Paths | Incentivising Participation | Recognising Contribution & Celebrating Accomplishments |
|---|---|---|
| Members continue to support the Association as they can pursue continuous learning with it | Members continue to support the Association as they feel compelled to join its events | Members continue to support the Association as they feel appreciated and celebrated |
| Challenge | Benefit of Digital Badges | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Membership Retention & Growth | Personalised Learning Paths | Members continue to support the Association as they can pursue continuous learning with it. |
| Incentivising Participation | Members continue to support the Association as they feel compelled to join its events. | |
| Recognising Contribution & Celebrating Accomplishments | Members continue to support the Association as they feel appreciated and celebrated. | |
| New Communication Touchpoints | Members continue to feel engaged with the Association through strategic and timely communications via various channels. | |
| Ensuring Membership Exclusivity | Members continue to support Associations aligned with their career needs as their memberships are exclusive and cannot be falsely represented | |
| Integration with Social Media | As current members share their digital badges online, new members may be incentivised to join the Association to reap the same benefits or undergo the same training courses | |
| Collaborating with Educational Institutions | Current and new members may support the Association to pursue accredited digital badges backed by recognised education providers | |
| Funding & Revenue Generation | Personalised Learning Paths | Members may continue to sign up for courses with the Association to complete the entire learning path |
| Recognising Contribution & Celebrating Accomplishments | Digital badges can incentivise continued support from donors and sponsors as they feel recognised and appreciated for their contributions | |
| New Communication Touchpoints | Digital badges provide an opportunity to share upcoming courses or relevant courses to members which can drive course revenue | |
| Integration with Social Media | As current members share their digital badges online, new members may be incentivised to sign up for training with the Association | |
| Collaborating with Educational Institutions | Current and new members may sign up for courses with the Association to pursue accredited digital badges backed by recognised education providers | |
| Supporting Data Analytics | With data, Associations can provide in-demand and up-and-coming training courses to drive enrolments and course revenue | |
| Engagement & Value Delivery | ||
| Recognition of Skills & Achievements | Digital badges provide a shareable way for members to showcase their skills endorsed by the Association, which creates value beyond the classroom for members | |
| Micro-credentialling | Digital badges delivers value by enabling members to build a portfolio of skills through micro-credentialling. | |
| Personalised Learning Paths | Personal learning paths also deliver value to members as they are able to take charge of their own professional development and pick up skills relevant to their career needs | |
| Incentivising Participation | By encouraging participation in Association events, members feel engaged and a sense of belonging to the Association’s community | |
| Recognising Contribution & Celebrating Accomplishments | Associations can engage dedicated members through awarding digital badges, making them feel appreciated and celebrated | |
| New Communication Touchpoints | Digital badges provide an opportunity to engage with existing members. | |
| Ensuring membership exclusivity | The membership with an Association should be valuable in of itself, and this value is maintained through the control afforded by digital badges | |
| Integration with Social Media | By providing more ways for members to represent the Association, digital badges enables members to continue engaging with the Association’s brand when sharing their skills on social | |
| Improving Credential Transparency | The trustworthy nature of endorsed and verifiable badges make the Association’s training programmes more valuable | |
| Collaborating with Educational Institutions | Accredited digital badges backed by recognised education providers are valuable to members as they are perceived as legitimate buttresses for their vocational competencies | |
| Facilitating Global recognition | Being able to have their skills recognised across borders is highly valuable to members who travel abroad for work often | |
| Increasing Accessibility to Credentials | Being able to easily access and share endorsed, verifiable skill badges is valuable to members who have to produce proof of their competencies often. | |
| Strategic Planning | Supporting Data Analytics | With data, Associations can identify in-demand and up-and-coming training topics and themes. This can guide course and training provision, as well as thematic events planned for the year, ensuring continuous value delivery by staying ahead of industry trends. |
| Event Management | Incentivising Participation | Digital badges can encourage participation in events. In addition, digital badges can be used to streamline registration, and other events-related operational processes. |
| Recognising Contribution & Celebrating Accomplishments | With digital badges, Associations can reward members who contribute in greater ways, such as those in the organising committee and those that offer to speak. | |
| New Communication Touchpoints | The issuance of digital badges provides an opportunity to engage with existing members. Some communications that can leverage this opportunity include event reminder email and post-event communications. | |
| Communications & Branding | Recognising Contribution & Celebrating Accomplishments | As key members display their digital badges online, your Association will be seen as one that is trusted by your most esteemed members, enhancing brand perception. |
| New Communication Touchpoints | Digital badges provide an opportunity to engage with existing members through communications. | |
| Ensuring membership exclusivity | The exclusive membership with an Association boosts its brand perception as not any individual can pass off as a member. | |
| Integration with Social Media | By providing more ways for members to represent the Association, digital badges enhances an Association’s online presence and bolsters its branding. | |
| Improving Credential Transparency | The trustworthy nature of endorsed and verifiable badges make the Association known for high-quality, trusted certifications, enhancing brand perception. | |
| Collaborating with Educational Institutions | Accredited digital badges backed by recognised education providers heightens an Association’s brand as it is seen as a trusted partner of leading educational institutions. | |
| Measuring Impact | Supporting Data Analytics | Digital badges can supplement the evaluation of an Association’s impact and value to members and external stakeholders through the provision of data. With issuance, sharing, and verification data, Associations can track the impact of their training programmes to their members. |
| Technology Integration | Provider-dependent | The provider of digital badges will have to be able to provide simple implementation processes, such as offering a comprehensive API suite or a SaaS platform. |
| Regulatory Compliance | Provider-dependent | The provider of digital badges will also have to be compliant with prevailing legal and regulatory requirements, including data protection laws and nonprofit governance standards. |
Why choose Accredify's digital badges?
Accredify’s SaaS platform enables your Association to easily design, create, issue, and manage your digital badges.
Example of Accredify’s Badge Designer
Through a simple and intuitive interface, you can start issuing digital badges with Accredify instantly!
Accredify also has a comprehensive API suite that enables seamless integration with any existing systems that your Association is currently using, so implementation is a breeze.
Security is our utmost priority, evidenced by our ISO 27001, 27017, 27018, and 22301 certifications, as well as the IMDA Data Protection Trustmark. Furthermore, Accredify’s SaaS ensures compliance with data residency requirements, guaranteeing adherence to data protection regulations. Learn more about Accredify’s security measures here.
Our customer support and smooth onboarding processes have been called “top-notch” by our existing clients, so we’re confident that getting started with Accredify will be the easiest thing your Association has done this year!
Embracing these advanced data-driven strategies enables institutions not only to maintain competitiveness but also to deliver unparalleled value and innovation in education, ultimately driving growth and revenue.
If you’re ready to get started with digital badges, reach out to us and we’ll get in touch as soon as we can.
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