Set up your business with confidence when choosing a suitable membership database.
Your membership data is the heart of your business and the key to its continued success. Therefore, one of the critical elements of running your business is to invest in good membership database software.
Membership database software is a solution for managing all aspects of your memberships, packages, and subscriptions. It streamlines processes, reduces administrative burden by keeping track of attendance and remaining value, and can dramatically improve your interaction with your members.
This article will teach you what a membership database does and how it can help you grow your business. We’ll look at some key features of a successful membership database and the best membership management tool you can use to create a wonderful membership experience.
How To Create a Membership Database with Excel
If you are just starting to create a membership program, you need ways to track your member’s data. One way to do it is in Microsoft Excel.
In this tutorial, we will create a database in Excel to store member information.
Step 1: Determine What Information You Need to Track
The first step in creating your Excel membership database is determining what information you need to track. A basic spreadsheet with minimal columns and rows contains the names, contact information, package or subscription type, and the remaining value of the member. You can add more columns when you feel comfortable and want to store more data. Information about your membership program can be tracked. When the customer attends a class or books a service (or cancels one), the remaining value must be manually updated.
Step 2: Create an Interesting Visual Presentation of your Membership Data
A pivot table is a statistical tool to summarize and reorganize columns and rows of data in a spreadsheet or database table to generate reports. Creating a pivot table allows you to easily filter target data to track payment status, methods, renewal due dates, membership levels, and other information needed.
Step 3: Manage User Access & Privacy Control
As your business grows, you can provide access to your team. Store the document on a shared access path visible to authorized members. Dropbox or Google Drive is a common online storage platform.
Excel is a powerful tool for creating a membership database. However, it has limitations due to its manual nature and does not allow you to connect information or perform actions with your data.
Using industry-proven membership management software like Always on Time (AOT.plus) can take the manual work out of managing your memberships. You can grant access to whoever needs it and have the peace of mind that your information is up-to-date—no more chasing members to confirm their scheduling or collect membership dues, since payments are handled online and recorded in the system.
Your member data is safely stored in one place. This will help you automate most of your tasks, send emails to members, process membership fees, build booking pages, and more. As a result, you can focus on your business rather than the simple administrative tasks, billings, and other time-wasters.
How a Membership Database Works in AOT
AOT is an intuitive and fully customizable online appointment scheduling and membership management software.
The standout feature of AOT is the quality of its client and user interface. AOT provides an easy-to-use and inviting platform that will enhance your productivity and reduce administrative hassle.
AOT helps you automate payment collection, cutting down on the amount of admin work when chasing invoices. It offers integrated communication features that streamline registrations, subscriptions, and renewals. This software is straightforward to use and has considerable integration capabilities.
What Are the Benefits of Using Membership Management Software for Membership Databases?
If you can build a membership database using a simple tool like Excel, why would you need to use membership management software? What advantages can these platforms bring to your business and members? Let’s dive in.
- All-in-One Access to your Member Data
One of the key benefits of a membership database is having a “unified system.” Membership data contains confidential information about members, packages, and communication preferences. This is why having an updated database of member information is a must.
However, updating your member database is a time-consuming process. Effective membership management software automatically updates membership data. This facilitates easy decision-making for business owners and communication with members.
2. Save Time on Administrative Processes
Administrative processes in membership-based businesses can be time-consuming. A membership database allows businesses to have a single, comprehensive system. This saves time by removing the need to use multiple programs to complete tasks. With a system embedded in your membership database, you can keep track of events and bookings between you and your members. A unified membership database offers a more streamlined approach than managing separate software platforms.
3. Boost Appointment Registration and Attendance
If your business offers a lot of events throughout the year, then you are familiar with the pains of event planning. Finding the right membership management software can simplify event planning with integrated membership database registration.
Membership management platforms feature a system that allows you to create an event listing, perform online ticketing, and handle payments. This saves you on fees and reduces the hassle of using multiple tools to get the job done.
Even if your chosen membership management software does not offer its own ticketing module, you may find integrations with popular tools like Eventbrite to book events easily with your membership database.
4. Produce Accurate Reports and Analyses
Data-driven decision-making is vital for successful businesses. When spreadsheets are being used, the chances of errors are high, and analyzing and generating reports can be time-consuming.
With membership management software, you can instantly generate membership database reports and analyses. Compare and produce accurate reports on booking scheduling vs. attendance. Also, the data you receive will be free of human errors and inaccuracies.
5. Integrations with Popular Tools
Integrating various tools you need to run your business with your membership database can help simplify daily operations and administrative tasks. This enables you to centralize your business tools and gives you better control over your data and better oversight of all business activities.
With AOT’s booking integration, your members can find and view your event schedule. Customize and integrate your business with over 5000 tools and plug-ins via Zapier. AOT also provides a check-in kiosk to track and report teacher and student attendance.
6. Return on your Investment
The money you spend on membership software is correlated with your growing your business. Time is your most important asset, and streamlined membership databases and management gives you a serious return on investment.
AOT can contribute to your business success in more ways than one. Designed for small business owners to easily manage members and build a membership database. AOT also provides features like membership tracking, predicting membership growth, and assessing cash flow.
If you are interested in what an all-in-one membership management system can do for your business. Click here to start a free, 21-day trial with full access to all features of AOT. Easily customize your membership database in minutes and take a closer look at AOT today!
Furthermore, if you’d like more details on further customizing your booking pages to your business, all possible ways you can use it, and answers to all possible troubleshooting issues, be sure to visit the AOT Help Center.
AOT Technical Writer
You must be logged in to post a comment.