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Spreadsheets are no place to manage a membership club. The web is teeming with sophisticated club membership software. It’s time to put Excel to rest, automate your routine administrative tasks, and free up mental space for more meaningful pursuits.
In this blog, we discuss the top 10 best club membership management tools you can use to run your social club, association or community.
An online membership system is a web-accessed gateway to an association, exclusive experience or close community. It guides new members through an entire onboarding process with security checks and payment processing before making them a fully-fledged member of your organisation. Once admitted to the organisation, members are given a user ID which they can use to dip in and out of the system any time they please.
Online membership systems make adding and managing new and existing members a completely hands-free process, saving you hours of time in admin. No sign-up sheets needed nor manual filing involved. You can welcome members in your sleep and still have everything running smoothly.
Online membership systems come with a myriad of features members can play around with:
Different online membership systems have different features and functions, so always keep your organisation needs in mind before committing to a software long-term.
As we mentioned in our previous blog, How to Start a Social Club, club membership success revolves around keeping members engaged and satisfied. But this may vary depending on the type of club you’re running. For instance, social clubs may thrive better in conditions where member interaction is given prime importance. Meanwhile, professional associations may require more structure in terms of acquisition, onboarding, and continuous engagement to keep an upward trajectory.
There is no hard and fast rule for creating winning club memberships. What we can offer though is a glimpse of the membership landscape and its most urgent demand through our recent market research.
Eventcube surveyed over 200 paid membership subscribers and asked about their experience, the resources available to them, and the tools they wish to see from their membership. Our main takeaway–members want easier access to more membership perks.
This means that membership clubs should invest in two major areas:
Whether these factors directly predict club membership success is outside the scope of our study. However, the customer demand remains valid and valuable.
And you put them in the context of club membership where well-serviced, happy members are the sole drivers of longevity and success, you’d be smart to work around these insights when planning for the future.
We have previously addressed the knowledge gap in coming up with ideas for your members’ perks package. This time, we’re helping you pick the right club membership software to upgrade into and off-load some of your worst membership admin nightmares.
Eventcube Memberships is one of the three powerful technologies in the software’s product suite. But it’s more than just a membership database with fuss-free payment processing. Eventcube Memberships integrates seamlessly with its virtual events and ticketing counterparts, bearing with it a competitive advantage when it comes to member-exclusive ticketed events.
Virtual gatherings are Eventcube’s forte, which means that you can include expansive virtual events with live broadcasts and networking rooms as part of your membership offer. This is perfect if you manage event-focused communities such as professional associations, charities, gyms, and sporting fan clubs.
Wild Apricot is an all-in-one platform to manage and power your membership organisation. It offers a secure database that’s accessible on any device and it’s got an easy-to-use website builder you can use to design your membership environment.
What’s interesting about Wild Apricot is that it’s built with your sources of revenue in mind. Apart from its email marketing feature and simplified event management system, it also comes with an online store you can use to upsell products and services.
If you’re a business using WordPress for your website and are thinking of expanding your offer to include a membership subscription, MemberPress is the perfect solution. MemberPress is a WP plug-in that equips your site with powerful paywalls and subscription billing systems to successfully manage a membership.
The software works best for gated content, online courses, and digital downloads which is very characteristic for the CMS giant that is WordPress.
Staying on the topic of courses and membership, Mighty Networks does it differently by shining light on communities. The software boasts an exclusive social media-like environment you can build and customise to reflect your brand.
Each member has an activity feed that rolls posts from courses and groups they joined alongside announcements from the main community. Mighty Networks also comes with landing pages, smart pricing plans, and a beautiful onboarding experience. It’s like a Facebook Group but prettier and paywalled.
Glue Up labels itself as a customer relationship management (CRM) platform first and a membership management system second. This tells us that your membership experience with the software will be nothing short of efficient.
Glue Up is built with features targeting the major challenges in membership management. Which is why you’ll find digital application systems in place for member attraction, customisable renewal workflows for improving retention, and networking features such as 1-on-1 chats, private groups, and media sharing to keep engagement high.
Omnify is a loud and proud online booking system for fitness and recreational activities and sports facilities. We thought it’s still worth including in this round-up because it’s not like any other booking system. It’s one with a membership feature and an impeccable user experience!
Omnify allows you to create your own service store where you can display and sell your own classes, coaching sessions, and wellness packages anywhere, anytime. And if you have clients who are in it for the long haul, you can offer a membership package and manage member databases, schedules, and renewals all in one place.
Sport Member is an online membership management software for multisport clubs of all shapes and sizes. The company understands the nitty gritty of running a sports club and has taken it upon themselves to simplify the process for administrators, coaches, and parents alike and encourage collaboration.
The software doesn’t only register members and keep track of membership payments on autopilot, although that in itself is heaven sent for busy sports facilities. They have features for communicating with members, too, managing multiple activity calendars, and a personalised feed for sharing event photos and game play statistics.
On to more sports team-focused club management processes, SportEasy Club boasts a host of features that keep all your teams in line. It offers a centralised information system for all your club activities through a shared calendar; plus additional messaging capabilities to boost team spirit. But what’s most sought-after about the software is its easy-to-access members info board, a catch-all area for storing members’ information, creating unlimited teams, and managing membership fees.
SportEasy is made for players, administrators, and coaches, but it didn’t neglect the crucial role sponsors play in the organisation. The platform offers a dedicated space for up to 15 sponsors to fill and use to increase brand visibility. This makes a great source of additional club revenue beyond due collection and membership renewals.
Marketed to serve chambers of commerce and professional associations, MemberClicks’ advantage lies in its enterprise-level workflows and accounting system. It’s designed to hold large membership organisations and create a valuable experience to members in the form of educational programs, job boards, and networking events.
Club administrators would also benefit from its detailed reporting tools that track revenue and measure engagement. And if stakeholders are most concerned about sustainable marketing, MemberClicks has a built-in email marketing tool to offer as well.
JoinIt’s power is in its simplicity. It promises an intuitive and scalable membership management solution that removes repetitive tasks out of your way. The software lets you create multiple membership tiers and set-up flexible payment options with an automatic rebill function that collects payments even in your sleep.
Much like any club membership software, JoinIt has a secure database for storing member information; one you could easily share authorised access to fellow administrators. But member management doesn’t end there. You can further organise your member pool into segments and craft targeted email campaigns that meet their needs. Otherwise, assigned statuses are available for labelling members according to where they currently are in their customer life-cycle.
And that’s 10 of the best club membership management software in the market to run your business with. Investing in the right tools can supercharge the success of your membership community.
But as with any other commitment, your selection process must be guided by the needs of your organisation because more often than not, software's marketed for a particular industry will have features intended to satisfy all possible use cases in the niche.
For instance, when it comes to memberships that heavily rely on exclusive virtual and in-person experiences, Eventcube can foresee the demand for secret ticket tiers that are hidden from the public or offered at a special discount to members only. And that’s just one small aspect of the vast universe that is ticketed events and gated content.
If that’s what you badly need at this time, don’t hesitate to book a demo with us. We would like to help you explore a world of possibilities.
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