Tuesday 7 November 2023

Memberships

 There is a confusion that I have noticed with how organisations set up membership schemes that I think is worth spelling out, so I can just refer back to this in future. 

There are two kinds of membership schemes, for two kinds of member:

Type 1 members are your best friends. They want to support you. They want to give you money so that they can feel good about themselves. In return, they might appreciate a thank you and a news letter, perhaps priority booking or a mention in the programme. 


The membership scheme is effectively a recurring donation, and is set up to benefit from gift-aid - it is important that nothing of quantifiable value is given in return for the membership. With their membership, they are giving you money.

 

Type 2 members are your best customers. They buy a lot of tickets already, and are prepared to commit to continuing to buy tickets if it saves them money. You are prepared to give them a discount per ticket in return for a minimum up-front payment; you are taking the security of knowing you have their membership fee over extracting the highest possible margin from them - perhaps even going as far as giving them a free ticket to every single film, for an up-front payment.