What membership model means to us

We are a Collective— united behind a movement to deliver forward-thinking, elevated, and effective skincare while maintaining affordability. How do we make this affordable? Through our consumer-friendly Collective Membership. This membership allows us to offer discounts to our guests and express our gratitude for their continued loyalty. Most importantly, achieving and maintaining healthy skin is a journey, and our membership helps people stay accountable, focused, and build the right habits.

Not all membership models are created equal

Anyone can sell memberships, and many do. However, for membership to be a win for all stake holders (i.e., both the consumer and the business), it must be thoughtfully designed. A membership that truly benefits both sides needs to be built into the business culture and systems from day one; otherwise, it will simply remain as another item listed on an overwhelming service menu.

Membership must ad-value for the member: Today’s consumer is smart

If a value proposition is too complicated to put into practice, it won’t drive value for the business as intended. Our Collective Membership offers clear financial benefit (discounted pricing on ALL services + products), is simple and transparent (we have only one membership level without added “fluff”), rewards usage (through member loyalty points), works seamlessly with our back-end system (easy to redeem for members and easy for the owner to manage), is easy to cancel (it will happen, so make it easy), plus provides other attractive member benefits (gifting credits to friends, roll-over of unused credits, and member-only events).

Membership must be “sticky”

It is all about life-time value (“LTV”) of a member. This metric is often what most brands don’t monitor, nor they understand how to improve it. Spend too much money to acquire members, with not enough LTV, and the model eventually fails. You end up on a hamster wheel of continuously replacing members. There are plenty of examples out there. The more your membership costs, the more value the member will expect from it. Boutique fitness, wellness and beauty are all big on memberships; however, for most, they don’t have enough to keep the member “interested” for more than 6 months on average.

Let’s keep it real: people get bored easily. They will try everything once, maybe few times, but a lot of them will eventually get drop off unless the membership value is “sticky” enough to keep them coming back. Engaging members through personalization, healthy mix of services and add-ons that can be mixed and matched are a few ways to create longer value and “stickier” membership that drives higher LTV. Side note, you must be careful not to over-complicate which will have the opposite effect.

At facial collective, we offer a carefully curated core service mix with targeted treatments to help our estheticians personalize the experience and design the most effective skincare regimen. Having few options also creates “service variety” for our members and guests to try; thus, keeps them more engaged. We offer rotating seasonal treatments as well, since weather changes do affect our skin. Plus, it’s fun! And finally, our experts recommend at-home skin routines, which get modified as we age, or our skin needs change. All these details add up and are why our members’ LTV is growing. They are “sticking” around as members longer.

Membership breakage is not cool

 You may have heard of the term membership “breakage”. Many brands made a “killing” in the past from members paying for membership while not using the services. There are still some out there. These brands essentially want members to NOT come in as much, for reasons such as capacity, costs associated when members coming in, or inability to get members to spend more money when they come. However, today’s consumer is smart— and unless they find membership valuable enough to keep going, they won’t stick around long. If your monthly membership dues are over $100, you better offer some serious value to your members. It goes back to our previous point to ensure your membership has clear long-term value: your service mix keeps them engaged and interested, and they will gladly pay for your membership and keep paying for it. 

At facial collective, we are proud to see our members coming back every month with member average lifetime approaching 12-month mark (based on 2024 metrics). They are experiencing great results and embracing preventative skin care as “fitness” to reduce potential issues at later age. The side benefit for the business and our operating partners is that when our members come in, they spend more money than non-members. We deliver value with a transparent pricing strategy, and memberships makes it more than affordable.

Membership alone is not enough

Clear membership value is the non-negotiable for a successful membership-based business. However, to truly drive unit-level success, the business must cultivate internal culture and processes to support the membership-based model. Business functions such as operations, sales and marketing, team training, and monitoring the right metrics, all need to be aligned to make membership model to work at scale. It starts with membership pre-sales, to grand opening strategy and post-opening support. Can you drive each unit to membership level that “guarantees” success— and how quickly can you do it?

Join the Collective

 Facial collective is a membership-based skincare studio. Our team has the operational expertise across membership-based businesses to drive unit-level success. Our members are at core of what we do. We have intentionally built a WIN/WIN for the consumer and the business owner. Come join the Collective as our Operating Partner and see for yourself! Learn more here.