Memberships are an excellent way to promote repeat guest visits, increase recurring revenue and elevate your guest experience with exclusive benefits and discounts.
This guide walks through how to create fixed-price and recurring membership products in Venue Manager.
Why memberships?
Memberships are a great way for you to generate a steady stream of recurring revenue and they increase guest engagement with your venue, helping you to build a dedicated community of loyal customers.
Memberships can also offer your guests numerous benefits, such as exclusive access to products, discounts, and perks. You can:
- Create different membership tiers (eg Basic, Epic, Ultimate) with varying benefits and price points.
- Add adult and child membership pricing for each membership product.
- Set up fixed-priced or recurring membership programs.
Tips for creating a best-in-class membership product
Building a successful membership product is about creating a valuable, engaging experience that keeps members coming back for more. Below, we have a list of tips to help you do just that!
The best performing memberships are usually monthly recurring memberships. Monthly billing cycles are easier for members to manage and remember. Having a consistent, once-a-month payment reduces the mental load associated with more frequent payments.
The cost of your membership should equate to approximately 1 visit per month for guests to see value. This means you should price your memberships to align closely with your regular passes.
When configuring your memberships, have a clear value proposition in your product description, otherwise guests won’t be tempted to purchase.
Here’s an example: Enjoy unlimited access to our trampoline park with exclusive member perks, priority booking and special event invitations—perfect for endless fun and fitness all year round!
Incentivize your guests to purchase memberships with discounts on extras like food and beverage purchases, merchandise and party packages. Or, include exclusive benefits for members so guests feel like they are purchasing something they wouldn’t get anywhere else.
Simplify your offerings. Have 2—3 great membership products for guests to choose from, rather than confuse them with a big selection.
You can implement membership tiers with different perks for each (eg gold/silver/bronze membership). Tiering your membership program means you can cater to different guest needs and preferences, offering varying levels of access, perks and pricing. This structure not only attracts a broader audience by providing options that fit different budgets, but it also encourages guest loyalty and engagement by incentivizing upgrades to higher tiers.
The industry-standard minimum term is 3 months, which guarantees recurring revenue during this time period. And, after this, remove the commitment, members can cancel at any time. This creates a sense of trust and flexibility, reducing the hesitation some guests may feel about committing long term. This “no-strings-attached” approach can make your memberships more appealing by removing the risk or fear of being “locked in”.
Retrain your staff to upsell memberships at POS — you could even implement a small commission for your staff, so they’re incentivized to upsell memberships.
Create a new membership product
To create a new membership product, follow the steps below.
- From Venue Manager, go to Products > Create Product.
- Select Membership from the list of product types on offer.
- Add a product Name (required) and a Description (a Detailed description is optional). What you add here appears in the online checkout. Have a clear value proposition in your product description, otherwise guests won’t be tempted to purchase.
- Add a product Image to display online and at POS.
- Add Tags to help manage your product. Tags reduce the administrative burden of manually managing and updating the products in your POS menus and progressive checkouts.
- Create your Membership variations, such as different types of memberships varying in the price, number of redemptions per day or eligible products. Read on for further details.
- Set Sales availability and membership redemption dates. Read on for further details.
- Select from the Additional options to further customize the membership product, such as including a booking agreement for recurring memberships.
- Select Save.
Membership details and variations
A membership variation is the specific kind of membership a guest buys, like an adult membership for a Gold membership product. You can create fixed-price or recurring payment variations.
Fixed-price memberships
To create a fixed-price membership (one-off payment), follow the steps below.
- Under Membership variations, select the existing General Admission variation (this is an example and you can replace its contents). When creating a new membership variation, select Add variation.
- Give your variation a Name (eg Adult or Child (16 and under)).
- Add a Price and then select One-off payment from the payment frequency drop-down.
- Add the Membership discount for the variation. Read on below to learn more.
Recurring memberships
To create a recurring payment membership (eg regular weekly or monthly payments), follow the steps below.
- Under Membership variations, select the existing General Admission variation (this is an example and you can replace its contents). If you're creating a new membership variation, select Add variation.
- Give your variation a Name (eg Adult or Child (16 and under)).
- Add a Price and then select the payment frequency from the drop-down. You can set this to Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Yearly. Then fill in the additional fields below.
- Specify the Payment period: how long recurring payments will be paid for by the guest:
- Indefinite recurring payments ensures the membership runs until it is canceled.
- Specify number of recurring payments allows you to select the number of recurring payments required before the membership expires (eg 6 payments required).
- Select Minimum payment term to specify the minimum number of payments guests are required to pay before a membership can be canceled (eg 3 payments required).
Then, if a guest tries to cancel their membership before the minimum payment term has elapsed, they are charged any amount outstanding from the minimum payment terms. - Select Memberships expire after completion of billing periods to override the valid days from purchase and valid days from redemption settings. This setting will only be available if Specify number of recurring payments is selected above.
- Add the membership discounts. Read on below for more information.
Add the membership discounts
For each variation, configure the membership benefits such as discounted entry or products. Follow the steps below.
- Under Membership discount for each variation, select Add discount.
- Select the products that can be discounted and the discount amount (eg 100% discount on a 60-minute Open Jump product).
- Select the Unlimited checkbox if there is no limit to the number of redemptions. De-select the checkbox to set a limit on the number of times the discount can be used (eg two redemptions per day/week/month/year).
- Define any further membership discount variation settings. Read on to learn more.
- Select Save.
Membership discount variation settings
Configure the settings that will apply to this membership variation.
Setting | Description |
---|---|
Purchase limits | Set a minimum and/or maximum purchase amount. For example, a family pass which requires a minimum of 4 memberships to be purchased. Make ticket compulsory automatically adds the membership variation to the cart when guests are purchasing online. This membership variation must be purchased if the guest is buying another membership variation. For example, the family membership is made compulsory before a guest can purchase an additional family member membership. |
Description and image | Allows you to add a description to the membership variation and override the product image. The override image appears in POS. |
Tax override | Override the default tax settings. |
Override reporting category | Override the reporting category selected for this membership product. |
Hide from online sales | Enabling this setting hides this membership variation from the online checkout. The membership variation will still be available at POS. |
Sales availability
After creating the membership variations and any instructions, you can define when the membership can be purchased and how long the guest has to use the membership benefits (the discounts) after purchasing a membership.
Days valid from date of purchase versus date of redemption
You can set the number of days a membership is valid for from the date purchase or from the initial redemption. How you configure this depends on if this is a fixed-price or a recurring payment membership variation.
Type | Action |
---|---|
Fixed-price membership | Choose the number of days the membership is valid for commencing from the date of purchase (online checkouts or POS) OR from date of redemption (in POS). |
Recurring payment membership |
Leave the Days valid from date of purchase / redemption fields blank to ensure the validity of the membership depends on the guest paying for the membership each recurring payment period. If payments fail, or if a guest requests to stop their membership payments, the membership benefits are no longer redeemable. You cannot change the validity of a recurring payment membership once it has been issued.
|
Redemption dates
Define the days that the membership and its discounts can be redeemed by the guest. Follow the steps below.
- Under Redemption dates select Select dates.
- Select the date under Date range and a calendar appears. Select the days that the member benefits (the discounts) can be redeemed. For example, discounts to be used for the next year.
- Select Apply, then Select days of the week (these are the days the membership can be redeemed on).
- Select Save when complete.
Online checkout sales period
Here you can configure when guests can start purchasing a membership using online checkouts and when sales close.
Under Online checkout sales period select the date range in blue to open a pop-up. Then follow the steps below.
- Set From to be the first day guests can purchase the membership online.
- Set Until to be the last day or last hour each day that guests can purchase the membership online.
The default is set up to the day of booking at 11 pm, which is the latest time each day that a guest can purchase the membership online. If this is a limited time promotion, nominate a fixed date.
Additional options
Here you'll find further options for configuring your recurring payment membership products to require booking agreements and waivers. You can also allow your guests to upgrade and renew their own memberships when using online accounts.
Setting | Description |
---|---|
Add-ons | Boost your revenue by adding any product type (except party packages) as recommended upsell items after this product is added to the cart in online checkouts. Search for and select products from the drop-down list, then click Done. Add-ons appear only in online checkouts; for Venue Manager or POS, you'll need to add them manually. |
Alternate address | Provide a different location if the activity occurs away from the main venue. |
Booking agreement | You must select this option if you require guests to complete a booking agreement before purchasing and redeeming the membership product. |
Forms | Add one or more custom forms you've created in ROLLER to capture additional details for the booking. Guests will be prompted to complete the form post purchase in online checkouts. Select and apply the form from the drop-down menu. |
Hide from online sales | If you want to exclude certain membership products from online sales, upgrades and renewals, then you can enable this option. When enabled, guests cannot purchase the membership product in the online checkout. The product will still be available to purchase at POS. |
Instructions | Provide important instructions to guests about this product to display post-purchase in online checkouts, order confirmation emails and booking reminder emails. |
Reporting category | Assign products to the reporting categories you've created in ROLLER based on general ledger (GL) codes. You'll need to create your reporting categories first to enable this option. |
Tax override | Set a specific tax rate for the party package, different from the default rate set up in venue settings. |
Terms & conditions | Add specific terms and conditions for this product. These will appear after your venue's terms and conditions for guests to agree to in online checkouts. |
Ticket holder captured | Enabling this option captures the name of each ticket holder when purchasing items in the online checkout. You must also select this option if you require guests to complete a booking agreement before purchasing and redeeming the membership product in the progressive checkout. |
Waiver | If guests are required to sign a waiver prior to participating in this product's activity, select this option to link the venue's waiver. Guests are prompted to sign waivers post-checkout, in order confirmation emails and booking reminder emails. |
Learn more about the additional options you can customize.
Save the membership product
Once done, remember to Save the membership product. Then add it to your online checkouts or POS device menus for guests to purchase.
FAQs
Can I package up memberships with the packages product type?
Memberships are designed to be sold as standalone products and cannot be used in conjunction with the packages product type.
Can I edit the membership email provided to guests?
If you want to edit the membership details email that is automatically generated upon purchase, this can be done via the template studio.
Learn more
- Create a booking agreement
- Sell recurring memberships in POS
- Redeem memberships in POS
- Redeem memberships in Venue Manager
- Encourage guests to self-serve membership upgrades and renewals
- Use the membership list to track member data
- Cancel & reactivate memberships
- Update credit card details for recurring billing