The response to our original post on creating a membership was so positive, that we decided it would be helpful to revisit this topic with an updated and revised post. So hold on to your butts, we are about to get into the weeds on what to consider when creating a membership or bottle society for your craft brewery, meadery, or distillery.
Our main piece of advice: keep it simple! We’ve spoken with countless people who have created a membership with the best intentions, only to realize…. oh man, this is a pain in the ass to manage.
But have no fear! We’ve laid out all the major factors you need to consider before creating a successful membership:
1. MEMBERSHIP TYPE
Questions to ask yourself:
How many memberships do you hope to sell?
What are the strengths of your business?
Do you have the production infrastructure/capacity to make exclusive one-offs for your membership?
What experiences can you offer that no one else can?
Recommendation:
Build your membership on exclusivity. Take any successful bottle society and you’ll see a membership based on exclusivity. Quite simply: unique styles in premium packaging, made in small quantities, and crafted exclusively for bottle society members. But exclusivity can mean many things…
Do you have one killer release every year that sells out immediately? Listermann Brewing’s League of Extraordinary Chickow! is a membership centered around one of its most highly acclaimed beers and provides guaranteed access to all its variants. Is your strength producing a high frequency of unique and exciting styles? Create a can or crowler club that allows members to pick up 1-2 crowlers or 4-packs each month.
The point being: select a membership type that fits your business and customers best. Here are some common membership types + the core value props you should consider:
Bottle Society: Society where members receive exclusive member-only bottles that are not available to the general public.
Member-Only Pre-Sales: Membership where members pay to have exclusive access to pre-order can/bottle releases online.
Release Specific: Membership where members have guaranteed access to a marquee release (e.g. Three Floyd’s Dark Lord or Highland’s Cold Mountain releases).
Monthly Allotments: Membership where members receive a monthly allotment of crowlers/cans/bottles for pick up in the taproom.
We also recommend creating additional value and exclusivity to any membership by incorporating:
Early access to pre-order can/bottle releases
Exclusive access to purchase excess member-only bottles
Behind the scenes experiences
Proxies for pick up
Member-only bottle shares and events
Member-only Random Draws (lotteries)
Member-only swag
Member-only taps
Member-only lounge areas
Free or VIP access to events
Discounts in the taproom and on merchandise
The world is your oyster, so get creative (but not too creative… see point #2)!
2. MEMBERSHIP TIERS
Questions to ask yourself:
How many tiers of membership should I offer?
Should I create different price points with different benefits?
Recommendation:
Keep it simple. Don’t get overzealous about creating value for your membership. The more tiers and benefits you create, the more you and your staff have to manage. The true value you should offer is access to exclusive (or extremely limited) high quality beer/mead/spirits. Use swag, glassware, early access to can/bottle release pre-sales, and a discount in the taproom to round out the membership. We suggest only offering one tier of membership, especially in your first year.
3. MEMBERSHIP TERM
Questions to ask yourself:
How long should my membership last?
Should I have a rolling sign up or a fixed window?
Recommendation:
Create a fixed term for your membership. If you are brewing and blending one-offs specifically for the membership, you want members to commit for a year. This will give you the time to plan your releases, order new ingredients/equipment, and brew, condition, and package. Traditionally, we recommend memberships of at least 8-12 months. You want your members in it for the long haul, especially considering the time and effort it takes to plan, sell, and execute a membership.
Rolling sign ups, even after the membership has begun are fine, but keep the membership term fixed. You do not want to be responsible for managing different start/stop dates for each of your members. The membership should start and stop on the same dates for every member.
4. PRODUCTION RISK
Questions to ask yourself:
Can our production team commit to the product needed for the membership?
Are we launching our barrel aging program through this membership?
What happens if one of our beers/meads/spirits goes bad?
Recommendation:
Mitigate risk ahead of time. One of the most common reasons that memberships (particularly bottle societies) stall before they get started, is lack of buy-in from the production team. Launching a bottle society places a lot of pressure on the production team, especially if the bottle society is being launched to fund the ingredients and equipment needed to start a barrel aging program.
The best way to alleviate these concerns is to mitigate risk up front. Here are three tactics that we have seen our partners implement:
Fewer Releases, Higher Quantities: Start with fewer one-off releases for members, but give them 2-3 bottles/cans of each. We’d suggest a quarterly member-only release at 2 bottle/cans per member (8 bottles/cans total).
Undefined Membership Term: While we recommend having fixed terms for your membership, we are going to contradict ourselves. Some of our partners end their memberships “30-60 days after the final release.” With this strategy, your production team isn’t confined to a fixed term and has flexibility should one of the releases need more time or not meet QA standards.
Monthly Allotments: Avoid member exclusive releases altogether. Create a membership where each month members receive a hand selected allotment of beers/meads/spirits or simply select their own allotment from the taproom.
5. INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
Questions to ask yourself:
How are you going to keep track of your inventory?
How will you know who has and has not picked up their bottle/cans?
Recommendation:
You need one universal source of truth. Many breweries sell memberships on a web-store/ticketing platform and then use printed out Excel spreadsheets to mark off members manually as they pick up their bottles/cans. Spreadsheets get lost or destroyed, are a pain for your staff to manage, and require someone to update info on the computer later. We recommend you use a technology like Oznr (shameless plug), where redemption of the bottles/cans is done via the members phone and information is synced in real time. That way you always have one universal source of truth to measure the health and progress of your membership.
6. PICK UP
Questions to ask yourself:
How many bottle/can releases are you offering over the term of the membership?
Do you have the additional space to store that inventory if the members decided not to pick up after each release?
Recommendation:
Provide designated pick up windows for each release. We can’t tell you how many times we run into a scenario where a brewery is running a bottle society or membership where the members have until the end of the membership to pick up all their bottles/cans. This causes two main issues:
You are responsible for storing all of that inventory in your taproom, where space is usually limited.
Inevitably there will be a flood of members trying to pick up at the last minute and if you don’t have a good process for inventory management (see point #5) you’re going to have no earthly idea which members have or have not picked up.
We recommend you set a pickup window of 30-60 days for each release. For growler/crowler fills or free 4-packs, they should be redeemed on a monthly basis. The added benefit of this approach: more taproom visits from your members.
7. COMMUNICATION
Questions to ask yourself:
How are you going to effectively communicate with your members?
Recommendation:
Give your members the ability to manage their membership themselves. The most common member complaint we hear from our partners is communication. Members want to know about upcoming releases, when they will be available, what they’ve picked up, what they haven’t picked up, and the list goes on... Effective use of email, social, text messages, and your staff are all part of the equation for effective communication. But to truly nail communicating with your members, give them access to manage their membership right from their phone. Any time they want to read about an upcoming release, manage their pick ups, rsvp to an event, or see what’s next, they can do it from their phone. Easier for them, easier for you.
Want to create a membership, mug club, or bottle society for your brewery? Need help managing an existing membership? Hit us up for your FREE consultation!
Our headache-free membership platform makes it easy for you to create, sell, and manage your membership. For more information, email us using the button below.
Cheers! - Eric Thelen, Founder
