How Different Membership Options Can Grow Your Club Or Association

 

Attract more members and increase membership signups with strategic membership package options. Discover tiered options for varied activities, explore corporate membership plans, and implement family membership structures to boost member numbers. Learn how offering sponsor packages can also increase revenue and engagement for your club or association.

I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of streaming services that offer multiple different options when you sign up: a cheap option with limited users and features, a slightly more expensive option with more users and features, and a top-of-the-line option with more users and features than you’ll ever need. 

This model is an excellent example of a company offering multiple membership packages for its users. It allows the streaming service to present a range of price points to potential customers, broadening its prospective subscriber pool. 

This works really well, too. It’s why all (approximately) 87,000 streaming services I am paying for offer multiple different membership packages. I bring this up because this model of offering multiple different membership packages/options to customers is something that you, as a club or association, have at your disposal, which you should really be taking advantage of. 

So with that in mind, let’s cover the benefits of offering multiple membership options and how you can use them to your advantage. 

What Are Membership Options? 

The concept of membership options is straightforward. The idea is to provide your community with choices. You create different membership packages, each with a distinct price point and a corresponding set of benefits. This allows your members to select the best membership for them and their needs.

Thereby increasing the number of people who sign up for your membership. To go back to our streaming service example, I pay for Stan Sport, which means I pay $37 a month, which allows me to watch rugby in 4K, because I need to watch the silky smooth skills of Lukhanyo Am in full 4K. 

 

However, for all the others out there who don’t want to watch Lukhanyo, they don’t have to pay $37 a month, as Stan’s prices start at $12. 

Imagine how many fewer subscribers Stan would have if they didn’t offer multiple membership levels and just made everyone pay $37 a month. Or visa versa, how much money they would be losing if they included the 4K streaming in the $12 price.

Benefits Of Offering Multiple Membership Options  

We've talked about this before, but the big upside of offering different membership tiers is that it widens your potential member base, which can lead to more revenue. By giving people a range of options at various price points with different perks, you can appeal to a lot more individuals and their budgets.

This tiered approach helps you bring in members who might be unsure about committing to a pricier, full-package deal. A more affordable, basic membership acts as an entry point, allowing those on tighter budgets to join your club or association. At the same time, the premium tiers with extra benefits attract dedicated supporters who are ready to spend a bit more for exclusive perks and a stronger connection.

This strategy helps you capture a wider audience, turning more interested people into paying members compared to having just one membership option. By addressing varying needs and financial situations, you can create new revenue streams and build a more inclusive and lively membership community.

How To Organise Membership Options To Help Your Club Or Association

It’s all good to say offering multiple membership options is great and leave it at that, but they won’t do you a lot of good if you don’t use them strategically. So, let’s look at a few ways to utilise different membership options to your advantage. 

Membership packages allow you to control which members get access to various perks and communications. With different membership packages/options, you can:  

• Tailor communications - specialise your communication to specific packages
• Tailor events - hold events for all members or just members of specific packages
• Give discounts - control which members get discounts on events, membership merch, etc. 
• Control access - control which members can access which parts of the website and what resources 
• Control perks - choose which members get certain perks and abilities in your system

Let’s have a look at how some of these things can be controlled and organised in practice. 

Different Benefit Levels

The first and simplest way to use multiple membership packages is to set up at least three membership options, each with different levels of benefits. The usual way of doing this would be to have: 

• Basic Membership - Can attend events, receive the newsletter
• Standard Membership - Event discounts, extra access to resources 
• Premium Membership - Exclusive content, extra discounts, etc. 

Obviously, the names of the options and what each one gives members are up to you, but the principle remains the same. 

Here's a key tip: aim for at least three membership packages. Some interesting marketing psychology is at play here; people tend to gravitate towards the middle option. When presented with a choice of three products at different price points, the majority will often select the one in the middle. Knowing this, you can strategically design your membership options. 

Make your 'Standard' membership the one you ideally want most members to choose. Price it accordingly and include all the essential features and benefits, as if it were your only package. Then, create a 'Premium' option with a few extra enticing perks and a higher price point to appeal to your dedicated super fans. Finally, offer a 'Basic' option at a more accessible price, with a reduced set of features, to capture those who might be hesitant to pay for your standard package. This three-tiered approach can help you guide the majority of your sign-ups to your target 'Standard' membership, while still catering to different budgets and levels of engagement.

Membership Packages For Different Activities 

Another great way to use membership levels is to have different tiers for club or association activities. The best example is a bowling club with one membership level for bowlers who get a discount on food, drinks and games of bowls, and one membership level for social members who only get food and drink discounts. 

Obviously, this can be customised to your needs, but making different options for different activities within your organisation is a great idea. 

Corporate & Family Membership Packages

Another great way to use membership packages is to allow certain members to add secondary members to their membership. This might sound a little odd, but bear with me. Think of it like offering a bulk deal or a family plan. This allows a primary member, whether an individual or a business, to extend membership benefits to others connected to them. 

For instance, it's a fantastic way to cater to families, enabling a parent to manage memberships for their children or partner under a single account, often at a more appealing overall price than individual sign-ups. Similarly, businesses can utilise this structure to include their employees as secondary members, enhancing the value of their corporate membership. This approach makes your club or association more inclusive and convenient for a wider range of people and can significantly boost your membership numbers and overall revenue.

Plus, with more secondary members comes more people to market to, suddenly it’s not only primary members seeing event notifications and merch sales, but their partners and employees are also seeing them. Which in turn can equal greater profits. 

Membership Packages For Club & Association Sponsors

The final type of membership package we will look at today is membership packages for your sponsors. You can set up a sponsor membership option that grants them certain perks. Here is a great example of this from the Australian Miniature Horse Society.

 

 

The AMHS has multiple sponsorship membership packages, each with different sponsorship perks available at different prices. This allows their sponsors to come to their website, scroll through their nine different sponsorship options, choose the one with the perks and price that works best for them, and then pay for it. 

Doing this is a great way to get sponsors on board more easily, clarify what sponsors get for their money and make the whole process a lot less manual. That is barely scratching the surface of how you can use sponsor membership packages. For more information, check out How You Can Use Sponsors To Fund Your Club’s Membership Management Software. 

More Information On Membership Packages For Your Club Or Association 

So, that is what different membership packages and options are and how you can use them to help your club or association. 

If you want to know more about how to set up membership levels and how membership products work alongside them, have a read of Membership Level vs Product: When Do I Use Each?

For more information on group memberships, have a look at What Are Family Memberships & How Can They Help Your Club?