Posts from Pipp

Membership has its privileges.

Or so says the famous slogan. The question though is how to show the value of membership in your tanning salon to help you grow business and sales. And it's not as bad or difficult as it seems.

A tanning salon without members is like a Web site without visitors, a stadium without people, or a meatloaf without the meat: pointless. And having just a few dozen members, while nice, just won't do. To improve membership, you need to increase exposure, and do some work. It can be done without spending a lot of money on advertising or marketing. All it takes is some creativity and having a solid plan.

For the next three blog posts, we'll give you some ideas on increasing the value of your membership, including Getting Them to Join, Getting Them to Move Up, and Improving the Value of Salon Membership.

Getting Them to Join

Owning a tanning salon is no different than a country club, buying club, or movie theater. If you are going to give people a value, you need to offer them an incentive to join. Take some of your services and bundle a few of them. Sell this bundle to your customers as the membership so it becomes even more valuable.

For example, if you normally charge $7 for a single tanning session, and the customer only visits once a month, offer a membership of $20 per month for unlimited visits on Level 1 tanning beds. The client is now free to visit whenever they want. Not only are they getting an increased value for their membership (which comes in the savings after they visit that third time), they're going to keep coming back because they've paid for it. This gets them into the habit of coming, and continuing their membership, which increases cash flow. (Of course, this also means they're using more tanning lotion, which you'll also sell them.)

The benefit to you is that $20 per month will nearly triple your cash flow for that once-a-month tanner, and you'll turn a sometimes-tanner into a regular. The benefit to the customer is that they start seeing the extra benefits of tanning.

But don't just increase tanning frequency and call it a package. Create some more value. Add discounts on a couple items like a 10% discount on tanning lotion and teeth whitening. Give away a Free Friday upgrade per month to the next level bed, or a Free Friday pass for friends and family.

Now, instead of just getting extra tans, they're getting additional value, and the membership makes a lot more sense. The customer sees he or she will get all kinds of great benefits and will sign up to be a member, because for just three times their original amount ($7), they're getting more than three times the value.

Next time, we'll talk about how to move members up from Level 1 to Level 2 or Level 3 by increasing the value of each membership level.<br />