



With the spread of digital marketing, the existence of "members" is rapidly increasing in importance. By making customers members, it will be possible to efficiently collect data on the attributes of people who are interested in the company's products and services, the attributes of those who are willing to buy, and purchasing behavior, and add detailed analysis. Because. In addition, an increasing number of companies are promoting their growth into royal customers by communicating more closely with their members.

This time, I will explain the basics of marketing strategy using the membership system, which continues to evolve with digital technology, from the basic area of ​​what a membership business is like in the first place.

What is a membership business? Business model and benefits

First of all, let's briefly explain the definition in order to gain a common understanding of the "membership business" that we will discuss this time. The term membership-based business has a broad meaning, but it means "a business model that provides some kind of service to customers and monetizes them after obtaining consent to register personal information and use services." It is common to think that it refers to. Obtaining "registration of personal information and consent to use services" is membership registration / membership.

For example, businesses such as sports gyms and rental video shops that receive service usage fees directly from members are also membership-based businesses, and like SNS such as Facebook and Twitter, members are not charged with service usage fees and advertisements. A business that uses income as a source of income can also be called a membership-based business. In a broad sense, there is also a scheme in which retailers and restaurants build their own membership systems, whether offline or online, and promote sales and retain customers by giving points and providing member-only services. It can be called one of the retail businesses.

The big advantage of the membership business is that you can turn your customers into your own assets by becoming a member. If the membership system is a monthly fee like a general sports gym, the number of members itself will be the direct profit. However, in the context of digital marketing, more importantly, it enables efficient collection and analysis of customer information. And it will be possible to formulate and implement effective marketing strategies based on the analysis results.

Marketing strategy using CRM that evolves and accelerates membership-based business

Obtaining information from members in the conventional membership-based business has a strong meaning of customer management. In the case of the sports gyms and rental video shops mentioned above, it is thought that there was a strong meaning of making it possible to identify service users by membership and reliably collecting usage fees. In addition, the measures taken tended to be biased toward the purpose of increasing the number of members.

However, membership-based businesses, which are talked about in the context of digital marketing, have a very different perspective. As mentioned above, we consider members not only as a source of revenue but also as an information asset, which leads to the planning and implementation of efficient and effective marketing and communication strategies. This is the so-called "CRM (Customer Relationship Management)" concept and method. CRM is an evolution of the membership business itself, and is also an accelerator for accelerating the membership business. Let's see what kind of marketing measures can be realized by CRM.

Accumulation / analysis / visualization of purchasing behavior by data analysis

In the practice of CRM, the first thing to do is to collect, analyze, and visualize member information. Member information here includes not only name, gender, age, telephone number, but also information on all purchasing behavior of members, including purchased products / services, leads to purchase, purchase date and time, etc. It will be. By analyzing and visualizing this enormous amount of information, it becomes possible to formulate the hypothesis that "promotions such as ▲▲ may be effective for customers belonging to the segment ●●". We will improve the efficiency of marketing by PDCA based on.

For example, by analyzing the hobbies / preferences of existing members and the process up to membership and implementing promotions, it will be easier to “acquire new members”. It is also possible to reduce the withdrawal rate by identifying the characteristics of withdrawals and considering countermeasures.

Communication that is close to each customer

By proceeding with the analysis of the above data, it will be possible to communicate more personally. For example, let's say a man buys a lot of DVDs and Blu-rays from an artist. At this time, if the man's email address, phone number, LINE account, etc. are linked to the purchasing behavior, the reservation information, product information, etc. will be pinpointed when the artist releases the next DVD / Blu-ray. Will be able to provide. It is also possible to recommend songs from other artists to suit the man's tastes.

There are various communication methods other than those directly related to sales promotion. It will be possible to provide a service such as preparing a member's My Page and a point system so that you can watch limited content by points. Increasing the frequency of contact with customers and providing valuable information promotes the building of engagement (deep relationships between companies and products and customers), and as a result, leads to the development of royal customers.

However, in order to practice CRM, it is not enough to prepare a membership system. We need a system that can efficiently analyze the information obtained from members and implement measures. These systems are often referred to as CRM solutions and are provided by system vendors. Finally, we have introduced an example of introducing membership management using a CRM solution, so please check it out.

Let's take a look at the success stories of membership-based businesses.

■ Membership Business Success Case ①: Yakult Swallows Co., Ltd. (Tokyo Yakult Swallows)

Yakult Swallows Co., Ltd. has introduced "Fan-Life Platform", a total CRM solution for fan businesses, in line with the renewal of the ticket sales system (construction of the team's official ticket sales site "Swachike"). The aim was to break through the current situation where customer information cannot be accumulated and to increase the number of mobilizations and sales.

In the ticket sales system, by analyzing the ticket purchase trend data obtained from the CRM solution, discounts and advance sales for fan club members have become possible, and seats can be individually selected for fans. It is now possible to respond to detailed watching needs.

At the same time, as a service limited to fan clubs, we released new functions such as providing a digital guidebook, registering support players and giving points by their activities. We are working to strengthen engagement by creating communication between the team and fans outside of the match. With these measures realized by the introduction of the Fan-Life Platform, the sales of "Suwachike" exceeded the target by several hundred percent, and the response to the recruitment of fan club members was significantly improved.

■ Membership Business Success Case (2): Pony Canyon Co., Ltd. (Anime mail order site)

Pony Canyon Co., Ltd. has adopted the total CRM solution "Fan-Life Platform" for fan business and the point management solution "Point Infinity SaaS version" for the renewal of the anime mail order site "Kyanime".

Fan-Life Platform is a CMS solution that makes it easy to analyze and visualize member attribute information and behavior information, and to generate a member-only My Page. As a result, Pony Canyon has made it possible not only to provide members-only My Page, but also to distribute content exclusively for paid members, to distribute e-mail newsletters according to the characteristics of members, and to carry out campaigns.

In addition, the Point Infinity SaaS version point system has been introduced to enable points to be awarded when purchasing products, as well as campaigns such as exchanging original goods for points. We have created an environment where we can speedily develop engagement and royal customers, which can be said to be the key to membership-based business, and we have started planning and implementing effective digital marketing measures.


I have introduced the current situation where the membership business is not just a stock-type profit model, but is evolving into a marketing method called CRM by incorporating the essence of digital marketing, with examples.

As in the case of Yakult Swallows Co., Ltd. mentioned above, there are many cases where the introduction of CRM directly leads to activation of communication with customers and a significant increase in sales. It's no exaggeration to say that companies that have a membership system but haven't touched on digital marketing or CRM are losing a lot of opportunities. Why don't you consider once again how to effectively utilize the valuable assets of members?

Related solutions

product name
Membership management
Fan-Life Platform
A total CRM solution for customers who need to attract customers and improve services to members. It also provides touch point functions with members such as email distribution, advertisement distribution, and questionnaires.
Point management
Point management solution PointInfinity
A solution that centrally manages customer information such as stores and EC sites, and realizes mutual customer transfer by sharing points of various channels.

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