by Troy Kirby
While creating positive incentives, negative ones can also work wonders to retaining fan members:
If they “break” the chain (i.e. fail to renew), they are placed at the back end of the line. This keeps them building up points, as well as passing a membership down to family members, etc.
Each month of the season/off-season has specifically targeted events outside of the games. This pushes further the idea of a subscription-type membership model where the fees will consistently be paid.
Extended bidding system:
Each game/match has the ability to allow the users to manufacture their own season ticket for a specific seat, or seats, within a bidding system. Now you create your membership, which allows you the right to be part of the category auctions.
Each auction takes place during a certain period of the off-season, where each online bid is placed. There can be a maximum threshold that a blind auction (amid a static, base price of what each user is willing to bid) for that seat. They do so against users within the membership seating structure and there is a time limit.
What this does is create a maximized revenue data system – each user has the right to claim ownership over a seat for the specific games that they want, as well as bid on exactly how many seats to request for those games.
Say a user wants four seats to the Yankees vs Red Sox, but only two seats for twenty other games. He would be able to place an auction type order, specifically targeting sections and various rows, including variances of rows or seating patterns (2 x 2 or 4 across). Then he would bid. The user would receive notice if that bid was accepted or not, and if not, alternatives would be suggested for the user to buy into – the optional bid being a higher one than the others posed within another area as an alternative.
The whole idea is to create larger revenue patterns by taking the ultimate highest price that a customer is willing to pay for the seat, not just using a dynamic ticket pricing pattern on the primary market, but also a blind bidding system.
Bidding within one game/match, but as the amount of bids per buyer increase, the static reserve price overall goes down. Thus, it is a dynamic system build on true demand of the product.
Bidding Scenario No. 1:
1. Each building has selected sections which are designed for fan members only. In order to access, a membership plus a ticket must be purchased. There are also standard, less desirable sections where only a ticket is required.
2. Each membership, upon annual renewal, is allowed to purchase tickets/seats in the previous year’s seating location.
3. Standard section seat holders only have the right to purchase in a membership section as long as they join the membership. Then, they are placed in a priority line number based on points accrued.
4. Once a fan member decides to cancel membership – “break the chain” – she is displaced from eligibility within the membership sections. She also loses priority within the line and must start at the bottom.
Bidding Scenario No. 2:
1. An opening blind-bidding system is created online for seating and games.
2. Each seat, as well as games within that seat, have a static, baseline price. Each member that bids on a seat or game for that seat, does so through blind bidding, thus the seat and/or individual game may garner more revenue than just a standard season ticket.
3. Each bidding call goes under a category 1 thru category 9 bid call system.
4. Each member has the ability to openly bid for each individual seat within that section, based on their category bid call number within a priority line system.
5. Within each category, the highest bid for a seat will be selected and sold to the member.
6. After each category bid call has completed, the next category grouping will be allowed to bid.
Scenario No. 3:
1. Each member is assigned priority points based on the level of “activity” within the franchise ecosystem. Each agrees to tie a specific credit card or priority points card to every ancillary transaction, which builds points based on financial impact of money spent, and personal frequency of attending games.
2. If the fans use StubHub (thus selling through a secondary broker), they will receive a reduced amount of points.
3. If they sell through an approved secondary broker (Ticketmaster), they will not have their points diminished. The goal of this is to retain actual stakeholders for a longer period of time, as well as push them forward to continue to purchase ancillaries.
Fan Membership Payment Options:
To meet the criteria of a fan membership, let’s suggest that the goal is to gain $612 from each member. This would be only one level, but at least cover the basic level achievable. Now, there are many ways to reach that goal.
Monthly Incremental Model - A continual, monthly payment to continue a membership. Notice that a $50.95 per month expense, charged to a credit card, never has a re-up period. This allows the membership to feel as if it is not a temporary or seasonal charge, but more of a lifetime expense. The member can choose to disengage at any period of time, however, by doing so, he “breaks the chain” and lose all rights to seating options or events within membership sections. $611.99 collected over the course of each year.
Advanced Lump Sum Model - It is a lump sum, $612 per year model. This is more of a season ticket traditional model, yet focuses on one time throughout the year. This also means an annual call to contact a member, who may decline to continue their membership. This can be problematic since it allows members to have sudden, unprepared life issues that can stop them from renewing.
Advanced Lump Sum Entry Point, Then Per Month Continual - A six month lump sum ($600), then a $9.95 per month continual membership throughout the remaining six months. This has one of the same issues that the Lump Sum model does, of a lump sum expense which may hit some members harder to pay off than others.
Marketing The Membership Experience:
If there is one aspect of fan experience which can be promoted universally, it is what kinds of food are served at the concessions stand. This means creating specialty items unique to the stadium, to be a pull for new members to want to be a part or current members to want to stay a part of the fold. This also means that specialized lines can be created to delineate service based on membership status and rank, as a way of promoting the fact that membership benefits continually are realized by those who join.
This wraps part of the marketing effort around something unique to your stadium. It also creates a social media aspect to allow others in surrounding areas to see what they can have at the stadium. The idea is to create something which is gluttony, a food challenge, or a delectable treat for the club when attempting to win interest from the fan base. The factor is that the spend isn’t actually very large, since most of the components are already located within the concessionaire and simply need to be organized in a way creates a promotable trendy food item.
Fee structure:
This is where the club starts to negate its fan engagement by still charging a lump sum on an annual basis. This allows the fan to evaluate the entire year as a whole, but may also compare the cost with other, more unexpected expenses throughout the year because the amount is so large. This is one of the many hold-overs from the season ticket model, as payment is seen as a whole transaction at once. This also prevents buy-in from fans who cannot afford to be able to generate enough financial impact in order to experience the full benefits of the membership, and may turn down the opportunity since they will miss half of the benefits by the time they can afford it.
One of the many ways to generate membership income is through an incremental action. When someone buys in at a per month transaction which is smaller, the impact is small enough that it runs right off the credit card, and not viewed as a major expenditure.
These transactions can become larger given the levels per month, but they allow the membership opportunity to flourish because it isn’t a lump sum mentality at joining. Plus, there is no annual basis recorded, so it i
s always viewed as a way to keep your membership alive, never breaking the chain, by continuing to pay in regardless of the time of year.
Another method is to promote a membership enticement program is through presenting future enticements each month that are either annualized or unique to that period of time. For example, each April there will be either a unique event or annualized event, which will cause members to justify their monthly renewal at the end of March, looking forward to what April and future months have to offer. This creates a calendar of expectation of events in which the membership is viewed in a holistic manner, creating a meeting place environment for those seeking to use it.
There is a specific growth opportunity available for some annualized events to offer up buddy passes for full fledged members at the highest ranks to offer to possible candidates to entice them to join. This should only happen at the larger gathering, be very limited, and have it stressed to the membership that this happens only once per annual season as a way to help win further support for their club.
This is also where sales culture helps the club, who can have team executives around to engage, enlighten and recruit new memberships from the buddy pass recipients. All buddy pass recipients should have to wear a special name tag for the event, so it is easy for club representatives to know who has full membership and who is simply there as a guest, waiting to be prospected for a membership.
Personal Recognition:
There may be an American standard that may not work for overseas fan memberships. However, it may have never been attempted. There is no standard recognition for current members who sign up others for memberships, as well as continue to keep them in the fold.
Some of the membership kit scarfs have the amount of years listed as a continuous member of the scarf wearer, but perhaps there is the opportunity to include smaller patches (with years and last name) of every member that the scarf wearer has signed up. This would also include the opportunity to have the other scarf wearer provided with a patch that says “introduced by” and the name of the referring member who brought them into the fold.
Coupled with the idea of another patch, for the original scarf wearer, which would show the amount of collective years of membership that that scarf wearer has been responsible for bringing into the club. This allows the referrer to work as a precinct captain; they will make sure that folks do not diminish or reduce memberships – as their direct involvement is within a social circle with the original member. It can also create a new classification system, where those who feel most passionate are signing up new members, illuminating those referrers to an exalted status amongst their peers.
When the most passionate members receive their kit annually, they may end up signing up young family members. This means small children or children not yet born, in order to help indoctrinate the young into the organization as members – a cradle to the grave methodology. You know who you support because your grandmother or father or great uncle signed you up when you are in the womb, and you continue to garner years of support as a child.
The highest per cap realization comes from fan members. The lowest comes from season ticket holders. Especially when it comes from television. Season ticket holders who don’t attend the games, likely are not watching those games on television. But the fan members, even if they don’t attend the game, they will watch it, creating higher ratings and activation for that sport.
