If you want to give your players the freedom and flexibility to play tennis or pickleball on their terms, you should offer a range of membership levels.
Membership levels help you increase participation and signups. They encourage more players to join as full-time members. They help make sure your tennis and pickleball club appeals to a wider audience. And they generate more regular revenue for your club.
But how should you differentiate those membership levels?
How should you structure the different tiers to engage as many potential members as possible… and effectively generate increased income for your club?
There are 5 key ways to create membership levels for your pickleball and tennis club:
- By use
- By time
- By age
- By skill
- With a combination of the above
Which could be right for your player demographics?
1. Tier membership options based on use
The most common way to create membership levels in your club is to think about how often your players want court access.
At the lower end of the scale you have your visitors, irregular players who just turn up every so often. They won’t want to pay monthly or annually, but instead will have a higher hourly rate for court reservations.
Next, you have those semi-regular players who play occasionally. They might be happy to pay a small regular membership fee in return for better value open play and court reservation fees.
At the top of the scale, you have regular players who play weekly and want priority access to court bookings, tournaments and everything your club has to offer. They will pay more monthly in return for preferential rates on courts and event fees.
2. Create memberships based on access time
Another population option for membership levels is to split out peak and off-peak access. This is a great way to increase the value of your courts when they’re most in demand, while also encouraging more participation during quieter periods.
Use data from a club management system like CourtReserve to see when the most popular times are for court use at your facilities. Look at daytime vs evening use, weekday vs weekend and structure relevant membership levels around key times.
For example:
- Off Peak – Play before 3pm weekdays
- Peak – Play any time
- Late night – Play after 8pm weekdays
- Weekends – Play at weekends only
You could even consider seasonal memberships, lowering pricing during winter months and increasing fees during the more popular summer time.
Time-based membership levels attract a wider demographic including retirees, shift workers and families, and can really increase court utilization.
3. Segment membership levels by age
To directly appeal to a wide demographic, why not create membership levels based on age? This way you can use different membership types in your marketing to specifically attract key audience types, like under 18s or over 65s.
Popular options include:
- Junior
- Teen
- Adult
- Senior
You might add a family membership option here, with discounts to attract everyone from a single household. The right membership management software can even link multiple memberships together.
Membership levels by age also give you the opportunity to create age-appropriate lessons, competitions and social events.
4. Build membership levels based on skill
If your players want to play in competitive matches, you might want to think about structuring your memberships based on skill level.
When skilled players know they’ll have access to the top facilities and similar-level competitors, they’re more likely to sign up. And when beginners know they’ll be matched with other beginners, and don’t need to worry about feeling out of place, they’ll be more eager to try out your tennis or pickleball club.
Skill-based memberships also let you upsell training sessions, clinics and one-to-one sessions with pros, run more exciting tournaments, and tailor different club offers to different groups.
5. Combine different membership levels with CourtReserve
To give your members maximum choice, reach the widest demographics and deliver value to every player, you might want to combine different membership options.
You might base your membership levels on court use, but add options for peak and off-peak, family or individual.
Or you might use CourtReserve’s DUPR integration, to easily match players’ abilities to memberships based on access time.
The secret to creating successful membership levels is having the right club management software to support you.
You need software that can easily create different membership levels at the click of bottom, and clearly track all your membership types.
Software that makes it quick and simple for new members to look at their options and find the perfect fit (and easily switch when they want to!)
Software like CourtReserve.
Want to see how it can help you create the right membership levels for your club?
