From Loyalty to Membership

Membership is maintenance. Research shows that consumers prefer small repeated gains and incremental rewards over big infrequent ones

The goal is to make people feel like they’re a part of something — and like you’re part of their identity. And the payoff — if all goes well — is in the form of fierce loyalty, word-of-mouth promotion, organic curiosity and attention, higher lifetime customer value and share of spend, lower acquisition costs, etc.

As consumers, our most valuable affinities will be to brands and communities, not specific products.