Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
This year at the Float Conference, Derek hosted a marketing forum and took questions that he wanted to share with everyone here.
This episode focuses on how Float On handles memberships, including tiered memberships and how to gracefully transition from one type of membership to another.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode not currently available
Greg: So I’ve been using the tiered membership style since I opened two and a half years ago.
Derek: Okay.
Greg: Since about two years ago I’ve been wanting to switch down to the single type of membership, and just wondering if you, especially Derek since you guys did it after six years, can provide ideas on how to do that? I think I have an email from you guys from when you did that.
Derek: Right.
Greg: Yeah, just ideas for switching that.
Derek: Anytime you have to bring news to people, and this wasn’t necessarily bad news. This was news of, you’re not gonna have to pay $110 a month, you’re now gonna have to pay $54 a month. If it was bad news like a price hike or anything like that, that’s different. If you’re raising your membership prices, you really wanna try to spin it into a celebration because you’re gonna get upgrades and stuff like that. But if you’re actually just going to laterally move from breaking down what your lowest package is, let’s say, or maybe picking a price point that benefits the center. We made sure, when we picked our price point, if anybody was going to be paying more at that, we grandfathered them in.
So that was one of the key things that when we did this, it’s like, “Hey, we’re switching up our memberships.” We added some things we never added before, so it created this newness, this excitement. We call it unlock and limited. So it you float six times that month at your membership rate of $54 per float, you can float the rest of the month for free.
And so that was a key thing that people like, it kind of gamified it almost. It kind of made that like, we have a dozen people every month floating unlimited, and they’re loving it, and those are your best floaters and they’re actively talking about it. So creating little extra things is what we did. Again, making sure all of your existing members never pay a cent more. So grandfather the old rates in. Like, there’s some people still paying $35 a float for their membership. But we wanna take care of those people ’cause they’ve taken care of us.
There is some growing pain in it. I’m not gonna lie. You’re gonna watch these numbers, and you’re gonna watch this monthly recurring revenue of X number of dollars, dramatically dropped to if they all floated once a month. And then you’ll watch that grow back up as they continue their habits they’ve already had. And you’re gonna have more people excited. So yeah, some people may float less, but it’s offset by more people floating, and more people floating at your center, as we all know, is great for word of mouth.
Gloria or Cindy, you wanna add anything to what you would do in a situation where you have to go from one structure to another?
Gloria: Yeah, we did, again, fairly early on but we did have a handful of members in each tier. I would just say rip the Band-Aid off and give them grandfathered pricing and really, figure out how many does it affect. Most of the members are probably in the first year anyway, which is gonna be in line with whatever you probably stick with. So does that affect 30 members, 20 members. I mean, if it’s under 50 people, you might want to call every one of them. But if it’s thousands, then yeah, do a mass email. Right? But yeah, I’d say rip the Band-Aid off. It’s so much easier.
Greg: So did you guys just send the same email to your entire mailing list? Or did you have an email towards just your members?
Derek: Right.
Greg: Did you make phone calls to every member?
Derek: Right. We segmented out. So you’re gonna have a different conversation with the people that their lives are changing more, and then those customers who aren’t members, you’re gonna have a new, exciting conversation. Floating’s even more accessible than ever before.
Greg: Okay.
Derek: Right? And again, We did another thing that was actually, If anybody knows Float On culture, it’s super loosey goosey, easy, yeah, you can get whatever you want with us. We actually added a three month commitment to our membership. We’ve never had commitments. And we did the numbers. We’re numbers people. We looked at everything and we looked at a lot of our churn when we were on the tiered memberships, is couples floating that just wanna get a cheaper price so they sign up and cancel like, after their float. Right? They’re just signing up for membership, get the better rate, ’cause there was no commitment, and then they were never coming back. So we had a lot of churn people wanting to save on two floats or on four floats if they’re having a party.
So when we dropped it down to that one price point, we asked for a little bit of commitment. So people did drop off, but they were probably gonna drop off anyways. And then when the three month came around, we’re like, “Oh no.” Those people stayed. It actually did what we wanted to do. We were happily surprised.
Recent Podcast Episodes
How to build a pre-opening mailing list – DSP 99
It’s difficult to overstate the usefulness of building a big mailing list when starting up your business. This isn’t unique to float centers, but we do have specific instances that make our cases unique in comparison to other industries. How soon is too soon to start collecting email addresses? Who should you be asking? Graham and Ashkahn drop some knowledge on the subject and doll out some useful tips and tricks as well.
How to handle membership credit cards that fail – DSP 98
Many float center memberships provide a discount on floats that’s contingent on an agreement of a membership fee that has a contract that extends for a certain period of time, usually at least 3 months. What do you do if after the first month, the members credit card is declined? Graham and Ashkahn meander through this concept, while discussing some of the differences of memberships that many float centers offer.
What type of hydrometer to use for float solution – DSP 97
If you don’t know the specific gravity of your float tank solution, it makes it really difficult to make sure you’re providing an accurate float experience to every customer. Hydrometers are tools built specifically for this, but not all hydrometers are created equal. What types of hydrometers should you use and what do you need to look out for? Fortunately, Graham and Ashkahn have a lot of experience shopping for hydrometers (they break fairly easily, unfortunately) and are more than happy to share what they look for in these little measuring devices that help us make the magic happen.
Using client waivers for your float business – DSP 96
Lots of float centers have waivers. Protecting from liability in case of accidents is a straight forward and sensible thing, especially with a lesser known alternative wellness treatment. Float On doesn’t currently have waivers, and Graham and Ashkahn go into explaining their reasoning behind making that decision. They also explain the common sense justifications for deciding to have waivers as well.
What type of thermometer to use in a float tank – DSP 95
Being able to measure the temperature of your float tank solution is incredibly important, especially since a small variable can make such a huge difference in the variability of the experience. But what kind of thermometer is going to be the most accurate that can still stand up to the demanding environment of a float center? Graham and Ashkahn weigh in.
Latest Blog Posts
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
