Why
You Should Create a "Fan Club"
for Your Retail Store
What Is a
Fan Club?
A
"fan club" is defined as a community of people
who share a strong, common interest in a person, place,
thing, or other entity. The club can be organized
very formally with registered members, a leadership, and
even club "benefits". Or, the club can be
nothing more than a group of people who share an interest
and regularly exchange information about that
interest. The most important thing to understand
about fan club members is that they are generally very
loyal to the focus of their club. Sometimes
wildly so.
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How
loyal are your customers? |
Why Do Fan Clubs Exist?
Let's
consider a music celebrity fan club. Depending on
the popularity of the celebrity it's not unusual for
members of a fan club to travel long distances --
sometimes at great personal expense -- to enjoy a concert
performed by the celebrity who is the focus of the
club. Fans of celebrities such as Michael Jackson
will even leave jobs and sell belongings so that they can
travel to -- not a Jackson concert -- but a court
appearance by the famous celebrity. You may
laugh at such outlandish behavior by fans, but the focus
of this kind of attention gets the kind of free publicity
that money cannot buy.
The
bottom line is that a celebrity fan club
exists for the benefit of the celebrity who gets 1) Free
publicity; 2) Multiple opportunities to reinforce fan
loyalty; 3) Opportunities to sell fan merchandise in many cases; and 4) Promote future public appearances. In
general, the celebrity uses his/her fan club to deepen
the relationship with his or her fan (customer) base.
The
celebrity fan club exists to benefit the fans as well. Fan clubs frequently grow their memberships by
marketing a level of exclusivity that may be unavailable
anywhere else. Such exclusivity may be in the form
of favorable personal information about the celebrity as
supplied by their managers or other "inside"
sources. Authorized "sneak peek"
photographs, online blogs written by the celebrity, and
opportunities for special access to them during public
appearances are all benefits that may be available to fan
club members.
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Do
you reinforce customer loyalty with exclusive
attention? |
How Do
Fan Clubs Succeed?
Celebrity fan
clubs succeed by offering something for which the fan member
must qualify: Exclusivity. Everyone enjoys being
treated like they are someone special and in exchange for this
exclusive treatment fans are generally willing to pay a
price. That price may be:
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The
purchase of fan club merchandise. |
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The
purchase of a fan club membership. |
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Registering
for free membership on the fan club website. |
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Participating
in an online fan club discussion group. |
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Downloading
a celebrities latest video or music from the fan club
website. |
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Providing
email addresses or other contact information of friends
who may be interested in the fan club. |
As you can
see, the price a fan pays may be represented in many forms,
but ultimately what the club wants is a loyal fan base
-- one that will actively promote the celebrity and support
his/her business enterprise.
Unless fans
are recognized and rewarded in some way for their loyalty then
they are likely to feel taken for granted and may lose
interest in the focus of the club. If this happens the
promotional value of the fan club to the celebrity diminishes.
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Is
the focus of your marketing and promotion to sell
widgets ... or to build a loyal fan base? |
If your
marketing and promotion focus is to sell widgets (or whatever
business you happen to be in), then you can simply set a
price, buy advertising, and wait for the customers to come
through the door. You ring up one sale after another
until Walmart, Home Depot, or some guy on the Internet in
Michigan starts selling the same widgets at pennies
above your cost. Oops!
Yes, you can
sell the fact that you offer better service than the
big boxes or Internet sellers. That's really a given,
however, because as a manager or owner of an independent store
you are closer to the customer anyway. Customers assume
they will have a different (better?) shopping experience and
get better service since you're not a big box
retailer. The challenge is to convert shoppers into
members of your store's loyal "fan" base by:
- Extending
the experience with your store beyond the in-store visit.
- Eliciting
feedback from customers about their shopping experience.
- Giving the
customer a solid reason to return to your store again and
again.
- Rewarding
customers (fans) for their loyalty with exclusive store
"benefits".
Assuming your
service is, in fact, demonstrably and consistently
superior to your competition's your long-term success will be
determined by how well you manage your store's "fan
club". This is where you will have a tremendous
advantage by virtue of your size over big box, Internet, and
other competitors.
Learn
more >>
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