Jonas' promotion has me thinking of an article I published in the TTA Update several months ago. Below is that article on the importance of rewarding your membership and some ideas on how to accomplish this.

A strategic, well thought out loyalty program can have a tremendous impact of member club usage, satisfaction, and retention. Reward and entice your members for their participation and spending at your club. Jonas has a flexible loyalty system that when paired with the Cash (or Gift) Card module will draw your members back to the club.

Loyalty Programs
What behavior do you want to reward? Perhaps it starts with member attendance at club events, progresses to merchandise purchases in the pro shop, then extends to bringing prospective members to the club. Rewarding these behaviors by way of a loyalty program provides incentive to your membership to continue choosing the club when making buying decisions. Consider a strategic program utilizing software that automatically tracks and rewards the desired behavior.

The Jonas Loyalty module rewards the participants by allowing them to accumulate points that can be redeemed for goods or services in your club. Rewards spending with accumulating point values. Incorporate other modules such as prepaid services and cash cards within your loyalty programs to assist in delivering a flexible, yet effective benefit for choosing your club.
Let’s take a look at an example of program below:

The club’s pro shop can reward members by giving a $50 or $100 credit after purchases of merchandise exceed a certain level. These discounts can probably equate to less than 5% or 10%, but members love getting a cash amount back in the form of a cash card. Companies that can improve the retention of their best customers by as little as 5% can increase enterprise profitability by as much as 75%. Financial benefits through loyalty based programs are extensive in light of the minimal level of effort and investment necessary to implement.

Cash Cards
Starbucks, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Macy’s- do any of these companies exist within your wallet in the form of a gift/cash card? These cards generate additional revenue streams and keep members coming back to your club. In fact, the average gift card value is $50, and consumers typically spend 20% more than the face value of the card. Eliminate the hassle, time, labor, and fraud associated with paper certificates. Custom branding cash cards helps reinforce brand awareness, thus potentially increasing the club’s profitability.

Going beyond a holiday or birthday gift, cash cards can also offer the ability to reward employees or can be sold to corporations when hosting a tournament. This increases revenue, as well as promotes the club to prospective members. Other cash card benefits include:

· Increased Revenues
· Generate Additional Business
· Reduce Costs
· Reduce Manual Processes

Answering growing demands for a “cash free” club, the user-friendly Jonas Cash Card module offers the opportunity to customize and brand cash cards with your club’s name and logo. Issuance, activation and redemption of cash cards are available within the Jonas POS system, and the reporting features give you quick and detailed tracking of all cash cards.