How to do membership marketing well? 6 key points!

Taobao 's 88v ip membership, annual passes for tourist attractions, airline memberships, street bakery memberships... the membership economy has blossomed everywhere and is affecting the business models of all walks of life.

There is even a saying: "Organizations that do not move toward membership are doomed to fail."

In the era of membership economy, the marketing focus will inevitably shift from ordinary users to one’s own members. With the disappearance of the demographic dividend, the cost for companies to acquire new customers has exceeded the cost of maintaining an existing customer. Therefore, it is inevitable to introduce a membership system and focus marketing on the company's own members. Member marketing will only become more important as the membership economy becomes more and more popular.

In the era of membership economy, how can an enterprise or business do membership marketing well? I think there are 6 key points:

1. Really pay attention to member marketing and establish the correct organizational structure

Paying attention to member marketing mainly includes two aspects:

1. It is not just a change in marketing tactics, but more importantly a change in the attitude of the company's leaders and all employees, ensuring that every employee recognizes the importance of members, regards building sustainable relationships with members as a work priority, and firmly implements it. Customer service with this kind of attitude change will no longer be the same as Didi ’s.
2. Ensure that member benefits are genuine and attractive. Although many businesses and enterprises have introduced a membership system, their mentality is still a one-time deal, where they make as much money as possible. For example, when they sign up for membership and receive discount coupons, they think they can deduct the amount from the current order, but in reality they are told that they can only use it next time and cannot use it on holidays. Every time I encounter this kind of thing, I feel disgusted and I must complain that it is a rip-off. This clever way of tricking members will naturally not last long. The membership economy is meant to establish sustainable relationships with customers, but you treat membership as a one-time promotional transaction.

When a company truly values ​​its members and really wants to develop a membership economy, its organizational structure and work focus will also change accordingly. Member marketing runs through the entire process of member joining, retention , and loss, so it must be a large and complex system that needs constant adjustment and improvement. Therefore, it is not enough to just find one or two operators to randomly divide members into different levels and give them preferential benefits. It definitely requires a good team to do it well.

2. Establish a simple and effective way to acquire members

For membership marketing, you must first have members, and if only a small number of a company’s users are members, there is no membership economy to speak of.

The main work of obtaining members includes two aspects:

1. Increase motivation: First you need to understand your members’ needs. For example, a bakery’s membership requirements may include the following: discounts, additional coupons, free delivery for takeout, new product trials… Are these membership requirements consistent with the benefits you can provide? If you can provide these benefits, then when guiding users to join as members, highlight one or more of them and promote them in a targeted manner to attract ordinary consumers to become members.
2. Reduce resistance: The process of becoming a member should be simple and smooth. For example, to apply for a membership card at the supermarket downstairs from my home, I have to go to the service office a hundred meters away. The cashier does not issue membership cards, so I am not a member yet. There are also some that allow you to join for free with just a few clicks. However, if I see that I have to fill in all kinds of troublesome information, I can't help but consider whether this membership is worth joining. Once I hesitate, I may not bother to join. However, for some paid membership applications, users can be guided to fill in more information for the first time. After all, the cost is relatively high since they have already paid, so spending an extra minute filling in the information is no big deal.

3. Continuous innovation to help new members grow into loyal members

Companies all hope to cultivate member loyalty, which requires corporate strategies and tactics to encourage members to develop consumption into a habit, and this cultivation behavior must begin when new members join.

For any member, the first few days of membership are crucial to whether they will become a long-term loyal member. When users first become members, they generally have a positive attitude towards companies and merchants, and are also in the novelty stage. At this time, seize the opportunity to communicate with members relatively intensively, such as through user feedback, member value push, etc. to promote members' experience of member benefits.

In the early stages, try to cultivate the habit of users participating in corporate marketing activities . This habit may continue and become their daily habit.

But now there are too many push notifications and activities, and most of them are not original. After all, many companies’ event marketing is just doing what others do. There is no freshness and it will only be drowned out by a lot of other information received by customers.

If you want members to notice you again and participate in your activities, it is definitely not enough to use other people’s templates. You must continue to innovate and create your own new ideas and intentions to impress customers and improve the quality of member marketing.

In addition, as members join and grow and the external environment changes, companies must also accept the fact that member psychology will continue to change. If you do not find ways to continue to innovate and continuously improve your member experience, then the company will not be able to achieve long-term success.

4. Design a membership system

In the process of membership system design, a word is often mentioned: gamification . Common examples include accumulating points, membership status levels, and providing additional rewards for reaching certain levels of member participation.

Gamification can provide extrinsic motivation for customers to engage with a business until intrinsic motivation kicks in. A user may spend money to get 10 points just because he is 10 points short of reaching the next level. But what will ultimately work sustainably is whether the sense of value of membership truly meets the expectations of users.

Gamification design is a basic idea, but each industry has its own characteristics, and member attributes are also different. We must stand from the user's perspective, communicate and interact frequently, be familiar with user needs, and pay attention to data feedback in order to truly design a membership system.

If your members' needs are completely aligned with the benefits your business provides, members will stay. Whether you are suitable for free membership or paid membership, whether you are suitable for points-based membership or upgraded membership, these are inseparable from the benefits that the company can provide. Regardless of the format, if you can’t prove to your users that there’s value in maintaining an ongoing membership, then the membership model is likely to fail.

Generally speaking, the following three points are considered when designing a membership system:

1. Number of members. Through what channels and methods can you convert your ordinary users into your members, so that your basic membership base will grow larger and larger.
2. Membership growth. With a basic number of members, how can we keep them growing? What kind of stimulation is needed at what point in time to make them continue to participate in the company's activities? This is the focus of the entire membership marketing system, which needs to be constantly improved and adjusted.
3. Membership lasts. Especially for paying members, or membership systems with downgrade systems, it is key to pay attention to which products or services they are willing to continue paying for and continuously improve member satisfaction.

5. Improve the backend system of member marketing

Member marketing is a refined marketing aimed at members. If you want to do refined marketing, data closed loop is inevitable. What types of members are targeted, how are they reached, what are the results, and what are the members' attitudes. This process generally includes five systems:

1. Member database: At least it should allow marketing personnel to intuitively view the distribution and status of members in the membership system and to easily filter out the types of members.
2. Marketing channels: How to reach users: SMS, email, phone, WeChat , community... These channels must at least remain smooth.
3. Marketing data feedback: After a marketing campaign, data tracking for each process and data feedback must be comprehensive and intuitive.
4. Communication feedback: In addition to data feedback, feedback such as attitude, interest, preference, etc. are also important reference indicators for marketing activities. Two-way communication not only makes members feel important, but also allows companies to have a more comprehensive understanding of the effectiveness of this marketing.
5. Marketing Automation: Member marketing is an ongoing activity that requires constant testing, adjustment and optimization. In addition, there are new member status changes all the time, which inevitably requires automation of the marketing background. Manual processing is inefficient and unrealistic.

Of course, it does not mean that you must have the above five backends. If a backend system has the above five functions, it is of course fine. In addition to point 4, several other backend systems are necessary for affiliate marketing, especially when you have a large number of members. If you want to do your job well, you must first sharpen your tools; otherwise you will struggle in the quagmire of inefficiency.

6. Focus on members and create a unique membership experience for the company

Even if an ordinary user has become a member, or even is still moving up in membership, he or she may not be truly loyal to the company and may just be in the stage of taking advantage of the situation. Most members of companies do not think their membership has any meaning. Their consumption behavior may be to get something for free, it may be a habit, or it may be a coincidence...

When all companies and businesses have launched their own membership systems, your customers are your members as well as your competitors' members. How can you make them loyal to you rather than your competitors? This inevitably requires you to provide something that is different from other companies, such as: the most affordable prices, fun member gatherings, the brand 's public welfare appeal, smoother communication with members, etc.

For example: when a supermarket launches a membership service that has lower discounts than other supermarkets, the price advantage is the supermarket’s unique membership experience.

In addition to providing investment rebates like other platforms, an investment platform can also provide members with professional investment consulting services. The additional consulting service is its unique membership experience. In addition to having the same great craftsmanship and reasonable prices as other barber shops, a barber shop also has service staff who can call every member by name. This human touch is the unique membership experience of this barber shop.

Companies need to focus first on the services and products that members want, and then provide other added value and continue to impress customers and make them happy. Creating a unique membership experience that impresses members will have an unexpected effect on member loyalty.

Source: Ale