Tips and tricks for annual membership or season pass design

January 20, 2025
In Blog
annual, member, season pass, subscriber
5 min read

Creating a successful annual membership or season pass program for visitor attractions requires thoughtful design, pricing, and user experience strategies.

Clear call to action
On your website, “Join” should be up there with “Tickets” – clearly visible from the home page (usually positioned at the top right) and all other major visit related pages (through the page and/or down the page), plus as site links in search results if possible. Onsite, use signage to promote membership sign up and make it easy to do so when entering, exiting, waiting or resting during the visit (such as QR code on cafe tables). Use the opportunities where a member benefit occurs to promote membership to others with a call to action (for example, at the retail counter).
Take the friction out of purchasing or renewing
Onsite, allow a guest to redeem the value of their visit against their membership. If they’ve entered a queue with an expired membership, provide a quick jump facility to help them into renewal rather than frustrating the guest at the moment of entry. Online, make sure the sign up and payment flow is simple, quick and straight forward. For example, if you don’t need to collect a delivery address in addition to the billing address, don’t ask for it. Provide a variety of easy payment options (alternatives such as Apple Pay can help optimize conversion rates) as well as a gifting option as memberships make great gifts!
Use pricing user experience design
In the member section of your website and in other assets such as onsite signage and brochures, use pricing user experience design techniques to clearly lay out options and benefits in a way that doesn’t overwhelm or confuse the visitor, especially if there are multiple plans to compare. Consider multiple pricing tiers to capture those who want to spend less or more, clustered around the mid range target option. Group benefit lists into easy to scroll clusters in descending importance.
Hero the mission
For cultural institutions, focus the visitor first on the cultural mission of your organization and how they can support and participate in this social good as a part of your community. Endorse this experience through the membership design, such as educational events.
Highlight the primary return on investment
If a selling point, clearly state the primary return, such as the number of visits, or show the return on the average member’s savings gained across the year to shift the buying decision from cost to value. The same applies to savings on family passes and concessions.
Think about the total cost to visit
Consider discounts for retail plus food and beverage, but also other common costs to visit, such as parking.
Offer a renewal incentive
Most members only renew when they next visit after their membership is lapsed. Offer an incentive (or reversely, a penalty) for timely renewal to condense the revenue recognition position and encourage members to renew online from an email or SMS prompt.
Consider auto renewal
In today’s subscription economy and with credit card payment, auto renewals can be considered a convenience to the visitor while offering far superior renewal rates for the attraction. If you’re unsure, provide both options with a pricing benefit for the visitor.
Offer multi year
With a discount or additional benefit, offer multi year commitment options (either paid up front or on subscription), for improved revenue surety for the attraction.
Multiple sites
If you have multiple sites in your portfolio, provide a simplified pricing structure that clearly marks an individual site membership product versus a portfolio wide membership product or similar benefit site (ideally, offer both options).
Guest passes
As a single issue ticket, discount or year round benefit, offer a member guest benefit. Ideally, have the member’s guest sign in and sign up to email subscriber’s list and market a membership product to the guest.
Refer a friend
Offer a friend and referred dual benefit for referring a friend to the membership program. This doesn’t have to be a discount – it could be a free muffin with coffee for example.
Express entry
If your entry or other pinch points have queues, operate a separate express queue for members as a benefit. Make sure this queue actually moves faster than general admission! Express car parking (even if paid at full rates) is also a benefit for members to increase the convenience of their visit.
Dedicated visit time
If visitor volumes support the operating hours, consider a time when only members can visit as an added benefit, such as early entry or late nights, or the first day of an exhibition or new activity.
Exclude peak times
If your location operates at capacity during peak times, consider blocking out peak days or times such as school term breaks where members on lower tier priced plans cannot visit free.
Lounge
Offer a dedicated relaxation space for members only, with facilities to appeal to the member target and food and beverage options nearby.
Offer a collector’s lanyard or member identifier
If your brand value supports it, offer a collector’s edition or personalized lanyard or other member identifier access item. This also provides a good physical prompt for the visitor at home to remind them to visit, or promotion opportunities (such as a car parking sticker on the rear window to access a member parking benefit).
Provide a digital sign in option
Offer and promote a way for visitors to sign in without their member access card to promote members to visit when they’re out and about and may not have left home with their member key.
Sister site benefits
Team up with other local or associated attractions to cross promote member benefits such as a special offer or multiple site member program.
Data, data, data!
Make sure to scan a member’s ID at all transactions, including admission, parking, retail or food and beverage. Even if you don’t integrate your systems together for a single customer view, you can still use this data point on your ticketing and point of sale transactions to do all the analysis you need and to identify members for upsell, cross sell or churn prevention. Identify the member’s persona elements through their member type (e.g. student, senior, etc), collect their zip or postal code and survey members at least annually for their Net Promoter Score (NPS), motivations and feedback (ideally at least 90 days prior to renewal to give time to action if a churn risk).
These data points can then be recycled back into your member program’s design and continuous improvement.