Running a Membership Presale

Overview

Selling your Memberships before the Club's doors open is a great way to secure Members and generate revenue as soon as possible. During a Membership Presale, court Reservation bookings I turned off, Events/programming are visible at a future date or not yet populated, and the only action a Customer can perform is creating a Profile and buying a Membership.

Three things are required to start presales:

• Defined Membership types and their perks
• A start date, meaning how far ahead of the Club's opening the presale begins
• An end date, meaning the day when the Club's doors open

Step 1: Create the Memberships

Coordinating the Membership types and perks suitable for the system with your Onboarding Lead, your Club will work with the Customer Success team to create the Memberships in the environment. A Membership can be public-facing or hidden from Customers.

Inviting a specific group? See Hidden Memberships for offers that stay out of the App's Membership list and are reached by a direct link.

Step 2: Decide the Presale strategy

Settle the shape of the offer before any marketing goes out. Answer each of these:

• Is the Club contacting a preset list of people who previously expressed interest?
• Does the offer open to friends and family first?
• Is there a cap on new signups before the price rises?
• If there is a cap, what is the price-raising cadence and structure?

A cap marks the Membership Sold Out once the limit is reached, so decide the number before the offer goes live.

Step 3: Send marketing blasts to Customers

Decide whether the blast goes to a preselected group, and decide what the content covers. Include a link to the Membership page in the More tab of the App so Customers can create a Profile and buy a Membership. Such a link would be /account/membership . See more links to your App here.

Tell Customers upfront what they pay today and when the next charge lands:

• On a standard presale, the Customer pays the full Membership rate at purchase.

  • The second charge lands one month after the Club opens for a Monthly Membership, or one year after for an Annual Membership.
• On a presale with a deposit, the Customer pays the deposit at purchase and the balance of the first period when the presale ends (Club's open date).

State the charge schedule in the marketing itself. A Customer who expects nothing until opening day and sees a full charge at signup treats it as a billing error.

Step 4: Open your Club!

Stay in close communication with your Onboarding Lead about when the Club will open, so the presale end date reflects reality. The next charge date on Memberships sold during the presale lands one month or one year after the doors open, depending on the Charge Type the Customer purchased.

If the opening date moves, the presale end date needs to move with it. Existing subscribers can be realigned in one action.