A lot of member drop off, people dont feel they getting value for money, and club churning out a glorified shoe box with a 10 year membership patch along with another cap and scarf to mark a milestone and say thanks, doesnt help one bit, ahows complete lack of effort and genuine care, and im not the lone wolf here. People just want to feel connection with the club, and treating us members with content, taking us for granted is the reason numbers droping off, IMO.
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Was thinking today that the market composition of a membership base would be pretty interesting to model.
No doubt there is a solid baseline of long term auto renew members. They are kinda the baseline group
Then there would be a number of variable groups who will opt in for a number for reasons (financial, team form, club vibe etc)
We must look at the data points from Google, merch sales data and short term attendance records and understand that we have massive latent potential for new members.
I hope the club is really clear on how they must engage supporters. Because our form might not pick up for a while yet.
They really need to improve their members value proposition. More engagement. Less emails about smart discounts.
Big challenge for the commercial team. But big rewards on offer if they get it right.
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Well done, great post. Basically everything I’ve been on about in threads like this for years.
The whole product offering needs to be reviewed and rather than pushing out packages and hoping for take ups, rebuild packages by getting back to understanding the various supporter groups demographics, locations, level of desired involvement and connection and going from there.
I’ve been of the view this club could comfortably have 100,000 members irrespective of o field success by segmenting properly and building packages that deliver value to the ‘different’ supporters. It should be driven by value proposition. Real perceived value. And then this should be supported by a broader engagement and communications strategy to maximise broader engagement and connection. And further supported by a strong service and customer focus. That’s how I’d approach the membership offer. Rebuild the entire thing.
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Update. On 22/02/22 we were at 61,922.
Therefore we’re tracking around 2,400 behind same time year ago.
The issue is our sales rate has slowed considerably last 8 weeks. The gap is widening at rate of 300-400 per week.
I know of a long term sponsor who took his sponsorship to Melbourne Storm as a direct result of this. He tipped in thousands in sponsorship as well as 5 high mark memberships for he and his family.
Let’s face it, the club as whole has been a tyre fire for a long time now with bad decisions, poor handling of sensitive issues and member/fan engagement/appreciation. As far as I can tell we’re the only Victorian club not offering a member pack to EVERY financial member.
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ahh well, just proves even rich people can lack critical thinking ability.
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The inability to include a $30 voucher code in the member pack is Essington level of ineptitude.
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Correct. It’s made lots of mistakes. It has lots of work ahead to rebuild trust and faith from its supporters. The latest membership tracking suggests there’s a significant disengagement for a host of reasons which I think we largely agree on.
Is that a surprise? After such a poor season, not not expected to be overly good this season?
What should they do?
I’m seeing a lot of validly raised problems. I’d love to hear what people think of some solutions.
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Haven’t got my membership pack yet and don’t really care. I’ve got my card. They keep sending my son packs and he hasn’t been a member for years.
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I agree. Absolutely no surprise. It represents a wake up call and is a very good indicator of a supporter bases relative engagement and satisfaction with ‘Essendon’.
In the last 5-6 years the Club had some strong ‘commercial’ executives who successfully harnessed and built supporter engagement, trust and belief in the Club post saga. This was evidenced by drawing alongside Collingwood on total membership sales (84,200 -2019) and recording H&A crowds 1M+ for 3 consecutive years without on-field success.
However trust was lost, covid pulled member / supporter engagement, service levels and support. And the Club basically entered a bubble for 3 years where it stopped talking to its fan base. With a really poor 2022 confirming ‘broken club’ status, fans drew a line in the sand. 2022 crowds were horrendous and 2023 membership is flagging and it has lost pace with its rivals at a time when they’re experiencing excellent growth driven by on field prospects…
So we’re here now. Hopefully we’re now commencing the journey towards being a good professional club first, delivering on-field success over the next 2-3 years and regaining fans trust in the process. In the meantime, reengaging with fans at every level is long overdue and recent improvement indicates perhaps things are turning the corner on this front.
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I got that email too.
I uploaded my concession card, however it had expired and was still waiting for a new one.
I rang them to ask if it was OK and I was still waiting for the new concession card to arrive. Only waited a few minutes to get through, guy tells me no problem at all then hangs up. 
Didn’t say upload the new one or anything else. Hmmm.
But how? What should we do?
I get the feeling that any attempt will be blasted as ‘trivial’ or ‘manufactured’ without infield success. I thought the after match coacbvideos were good, but people still complained.
I do think we need to start treating people better. Giving more diverse options for your membership pack in terms of merchandise, so it’s not just stuff you don’t need.
What can we do to engage members more?
On field performance is always the number 1 driver for plenty.
Can have the greatest membership department in the comp but if you consistently flounder in the bottom half and have not a single finals win in 20+ years then you support will wane.
Because we have sucked for so long I also do believe we have pretty much missed out on a generation fans and plenty of kids these days attach themselves to winners.
Yes our membership department could get better at some things but until we start winning regularly again we are never going to get the membership numbers to match others
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Hence why I’m so big on a proper schools program.
I think there’s lots they can / should do. I’ve covered it a bit elsewhere however a few pointers:
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Reinvest in digital / socials dept and drastically lift the quality & frequency of its social media output across all platforms. The last week has been an improvement in this regard
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revamp and reimagine membership offers and provide much greater value for all supporter types: match day / non match day fans. Reimagine by focussing on feedback from annual members survey
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Reintroduce open training / family days. This has finally been reintroduced
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reinstate interstate supporter groups lead up and match day (pre match) events, training, functions coinciding with interstate trips
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improve match day experience at home games. I feel this has lost traction recent times. Marvel is tired and dark and more can be done to lift the vibe match day
There’s a few. Yes, winning games helps however it should go hand in hand with the above.
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I don’t know what it’s like over there but I take my niece to Auskick at my local club and years ago out of the 100+ kids you would always see plenty of Essendon guernseys and we even outnumbered Crows and Port guernseys occasionally. Last season there was 1 kid with an Essendon guernsey but dozens with Collingwood, Richmond and even the bin chickens. Hell even Fark Carlton had more representation and they are just as big of a basket case as us
I would’ve agreed with the missing a generation of fans thing until Carlton proved me / this to be not necessarily accurate. I think disengagement is real however, as Carlton is showing now, once there’s genuine results and progress, they come from everywhere to be involved again. Fans are so resilient and stick fat. Essendon’s a bigger club than Carlton, I’m sure we can recover too.
Carlton 3 years ago were at a lower point than us. It’s crowds and membership rock bottom.
Last year it had the highest home crowds and its membership is currently 74,400, on target for 95,000!