How to Save Time, Save Money & Make Car Club Renewals Easier

Car clubs can be awesome. You get to enjoy a bunch of amazing cars and hang out with fellow petrolheads. What's not to like? That said, running a car club isn’t always a walk in the park. Even the best car clubs may encounter some issues. These can range from membership renewals to difficulties with historical plate databases or being a part of the Pontiac Aztek owners club.

Let's talk about the challenges car clubs face and how a membership management system can help tackle them. We'll review the pros and cons of using this system and show you how it can make things run smoothly for your club. We obviously won’t be solving the problem of the very real Pontiac Aztek Owners Club, just look at it, there’s no fixing that. 

 

 

Member Jungle has been helping car clubs run better for years. We’ve helped car clubs with as few as 50 members to clubs with over 15,000 members. Not to mention, several of our Member Jungle team members are actively involved in car and motorcycle clubs. We basically live and breathe this stuff. 

Today we are going to cover some of the most common problems car clubs have and how Member Jungle can help with those problems. Even if you have zero interest in ever signing up with Member Jungle there will be some useful information in here. So you can start solving any problems you’re having on your own.  

Typical Problems Car Clubs Have

Even the best car clubs can have problems especially when it comes to the running of day to day activities. So let’s talk about some of the most common problems that car clubs face. 

• Manual Membership Renewals 
• Taking Online Payments
• Communicating With Members
• Managing A Historic Car Registration Database
• Running Events
• Maintaining an Online Presence 

Manually Managing Membership Renewals

Running a car club can be challenging, as there are several important tasks that demand your attention. One of the most time-consuming responsibilities is managing member renewals. This involves keeping a detailed record of their expiration dates, sending reminders at the right time, handling renewals, and processing payments. Unfortunately, this process can be costly, exhausting, and time-consuming, leading to a significant waste of resources.

Below is a table displaying the time and costs of membership renewals done manually.  

The average cost of posting out renewal memberships including envelopes, printing, paper, ink and postage works out to around $1.20 per renewal notice. Each renewal notice will take about five minutes total to print and post. So, if you times $1.20 by the number of members you have you will have your total cost. If you times five minutes by the number of members you have you will have your total time spent. Keep in mind that this is only the total time and cost of sending off the initial membership renewal letters. Each subsequent step involves more money and more of your precious time. This quickly adds up to a lot of time and money for even the smallest clubs. 

Automating The Membership Renewal Process For Your Car Club 

With a membership management system like Member Jungle you are able to completely automate your membership renewal process. You can customise when renewal reminder notifications are sent, such as 30 days before, or 14 days before. Once a renewal date reaches your chosen time period, the system will automatically send an email notification without any further action needed.

Members will then be able to renew their membership and pay their membership fees online in a matter of minutes. They will be able to renew their membership from a computer or even their phone. You will receive a receipt of their payment and the system will automatically log and update their renewed membership. That’s it… you can replace hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars annually renewing memberships with a process as quick and easy as that. If you’re wondering how much a membership management systems’ like Member Jungle cost you can have a look at our Pricing Page.

 

Using a membership management system also makes it easier for you to offer returning members discounts on their membership dues, plus a whole lot more. If you want to know about what Member Jungle can do to help you car club have a look at What is Membership Membership Management Software? The main takeaway here is that using a membership management system will erase all those hours wasted doing paperwork and sending off renewal letters. 

Is Your Car Club Struggling to Take Online Payments?

Many car clubs begin with a small number of members. If your club only has ten members, managing online renewal payments, purchasing event tickets upon arrival, and manually processing a few payments is fine. However, clubs grow, and before they know it, club admins can end up dealing with thousands of payments and hundreds of hours of work. For car clubs to stay successful and save time and money, they need to be able to adapt and grow with their clubs. 

Not being able to accept payments online means a lot of extra work for you and your administration team, as you will have to take and record all payments manually. This will affect how you do your membership renewals, merchandise store sales and event tickets. Finding a way to accept all those payments quickly and easily online is super important. 

How Can Your Car Club Take Payments Online?

Using a membership Management system like Member Jungle would allow your club to take all payments online. From membership renewals to everything bought from your club’s merchandise store, you would be able to accept those payments online in seconds. This will not only make your life easier but it would make your club a better experience for your members. As they would have the convenience of paying from their phones in seconds. Member Jungle also offers its online merchandise store module for free to anyone on the Standard or Premium Package. 

What are the transaction fees on Member Jungle?

Member Jungle strives to make our system affordable for all organisations. To achieve this, we charge a monthly subscription and a platform fee on top of all online transactions made with debit or credit cards. The platform fee varies depending on your package, it ranges between 0.7% and 1.2% plus 69 cents per transaction. 

This way, organisations can pass the fee to their members and share the costs across their member base. It's similar to how Ticketek, Ticketmaster, or other online platforms charge a fee on top of the purchase value. 

Please note that these platform fees do not include any Stripe transaction fees. You can absorb the platform and gateway fees or incorporate them into your pricing. This pricing model allows us to offer Member Jungle a lot of functionality, constant product development, and zero setup costs. Additionally, you only pay transaction fees when you sell through membership, events, or the store. For more information on Stripe gateway fees, please visit Stripe’s website.

Does Your Car Club Struggle To Communicate With Its Members?

Effective communication between car clubs and their members is crucial to a club being successful. Without clear and timely updates on events, meetings, and other important information, members may miss out on opportunities that your club is offering. The better and more frequent your communication with club members, the more they will understand what your club is doing. The more they understand what you’re offering them the happier they will be with continuing to pay their membership fees. 

Good communication is a two way street. You don’t just need to be talking to your members, you also need to be listening to them. Finding out what they do and don’t like. Doing so will allow you to better understand the preferences of your club, allowing you to plan events and activities that are more enjoyable and engaging than ever before. Giving your members the ability to have their voices heard can only benefit your club. 

 

 

How Can Member Jungle Help Your Car Club Communicate and Engage With Your Members?

Member Jungle offers a lot of different functions and modules that can help you communicate more effectively with your members. Here are just a few of the features that we have on offer: 

• Push notifications to members phones
• Emails to members
• Email marketing and Newsletters 
• Polls and voting
• SMS marketing 
• Blogs

By taking advantage of all the useful communication tools that Member Jungle offers you will be able to communicate with your members better than ever before. This can really help add value to your car club and keep your members happy and engaged. Even if you decide that you are not interested in joining Member Jungle, find a way to implement as many of these features as possible. It will really help your club in the long run. 

Managing A Historic Car Registration Database

Regardless of the type of car club you run, keeping track of the cars in your club is crucial. For instance, if you run a vintage car club, you'll need to maintain a record of cars for members to qualify for official historic plates and registration. If you run a car club for mid-2000s JDMs, you'll want to record which member registered which car. Similarly, suppose you're the organiser of a 4WD or rally club. In that case, you'll need records to ensure all cars meet the required safety standards. In summary, no matter the type of car club, maintaining accurate and up-to-date records of the cars is fundamental.

Car clubs often have difficulty keeping an organised and user-friendly vehicle registration database. Many clubs use Excel spreadsheets, which are good but not without flaws. Spreadsheets can be confusing, difficult to navigate, and frustrating when searching for specific information. If you currently rely on a spreadsheet to manage your club's cars, you're likely familiar with the issues I'm talking about. The endless scrolling and filtering required to track registration deadlines. This can be painful, time-consuming and lead to mistakes. I’m sure you didn’t join a car club to do paper work. Find out more about how spreadsheets compare to Member Jungle by reading Excel vs Membership Management Systems: Which is Right for Your Club?

How Member Jungle Can Help Manage Your Historic Car Registration Database

Member Jungle offers custom data sets as an optional extra. These custom data sets allow for easy and efficient collection of important information for cars, including Registration Number, Registration Expiry Date, Colour, Year, Make, Model, and more. This feature also enables you to limit the number of cars associated with their Membership Product. Members can easily modify their information when signing up or renewing their membership, and both members and administrators can remove cars from their records as needed. This feature is available free of charge to customers on the premium package. 

This feature allows you to filter cars by their registration expiry date, making it easier for you to see which of your members' cars need to be registered soon. With just one click, you can send them an email alerting them of their upcoming registration without having to scroll through endless spreadsheets. This can save you a lot of time and effort when organising and keeping track of all your members' cars. If you want to know more about how Member Jungle can help manage your car and licence plate database, read How To Run Your Classic Car Club Better. 

Is Your Car Club Having Trouble Running Events?

Events are one of the most important aspects of any car club. They are essential for building a strong community and providing a whole range of benefits for your members. Including networking opportunities, the chance to showcase vehicles, exchange knowledge, and of course driving. 

However, organising car club events, like track days, car meets and cruises can be challenging for a lot of clubs. There are logistics, member participation, safety management, and legal requirements all to account for. As we’ve already talked about, if you can’t take payments online that means you are going to have to sell all your tickets in person. Possibly on the day of your event, making getting a good estimate of how many people will be turning up to the event, next to impossible. 

Overcoming these challenges is essential to ensure successful events, increase member engagement, and create unforgettable experiences. You can’t really have a car club without car events and you can’t have car events if your members aren’t turning up to them. So let’s talk about how you can better organise your events and overcome some of the problems we’ve already listed. 

How Can Member Jungle Help You Run Car Club Events?

Member Jungle offers its event management module with all of its packages to help you better manage your events. Member Jungle’s events module allows you to do all of the following:

• Set the amount of tickets you want to sell
• Set the location of your event 
• Set the time of your event
• Set any requirements to attend the event
• Set with it is a members only event or open to the public
• Notify your members via push notification directly to their phones
• Sell tickets online via website or app
• Collect any details you need i.e. insurances, drivers details, experience etc. 
• Accept all payments online
• View attendance list 
• Monitor member engagement 
• Send emails to members with event information
• Send event emails to everyone registered so they know what’s happening

Using our services will make your event organisation and marketing more streamlined and efficient, resulting in a stress-free experience. With easy event planning, you'll be more inclined to host more events throughout the year. Your members will benefit from more events and more well-organised and timely communication about upcoming events. Meaning they're more likely to attend. Ultimately, we aim to make event planning a breeze for you, so you can focus on creating more memorable experiences. To learn more about running the best possible car club event read Member Jungles Guide to The Best Car Club Event. 

Is Your Car Club Struggling With Its Online Presence 

It’s the digital age and like it or not every club needs to have a website.

It is the first impression a lot of potential members will get of your club and if that first impression is visually unappealing and hard to use they probably won’t hang around long. A bad website doesn’t mean a club is bad, but it doesn’t mean that less people will stick around to see how amazing your club is. Your club's website is crucial for attracting and retaining members. Designing a website can be quite tricky, especially when you need it to be a great website. You’ll need to ensure it has a visually appealing design, easy navigation, compatibility with computers and phones, your club's logo and colour scheme, social media links, blog articles, high-quality content, and user-friendliness. So how can Member Jungle help with this?

How Can Member Jungle Help With Your Car Clubs Online Presence

At Member Jungle, we provide a custom-designed website and app specifically tailored to your club's needs. With the ability to personalise your club's colour scheme and logos. 

The website serves as an excellent first impression for prospective members. Furthermore, the website and app offer a variety of features, including chat rooms, newsletters, blog posts, upcoming events, a merchandise store, and ticket sales, all exclusively available to members. Members can also update their personal and vehicle information through the website or app. Our platform allows you to monitor member engagement and easily access and search for any information you need. 

A great looking and functioning website helps a lot of the problems we have discussed here today. From running events, communicating with members to looking after those all important licence plate databases. Whether you choose to continue exploring what Member Jungle can do for you or not, getting a great website should be a key priority for your car club. 

What is Member Jungle?

Member Jungle is an all-in-one membership management system. It's a software platform that helps clubs, associations, and organisations manage their memberships efficiently. With Member Jungle, you can keep track of all your members, automate tasks like renewals and event planning, and even handle your finances. Plus, it's all in one place, so you don't have to search for different tools or use multiple additional services. Best of all, it's designed to keep your members engaged and happy while making your life easier. Perhaps the most important feature of Member Jungle is how it can automate your membership renewal process, saving you a lot of time. 

Member Jungle is designed to replace all of the following services: 

• Excel 
• Website builder
• Domain hosting service 
• Email campaign service 
• Event ticket sales service
• Merchandise sales service 
• Online payment system

 

 

Member Jungle has been helping car clubs like yours for years, in fact we help manage dozens of car and motorcycle clubs around the world. 

Newcastle H.O.G’s Experience with Member Jungle

Dave Watson is the membership officer for Newcastle Harley Owners group. Newcastle H.O.G has been using Member Jungle for several years and Dave had this to say about his experience with using Member Jungle. 

 

“Through automating day-to-day tasks like registration renewals, payments and ride registrations, what was once a 25 hour a week job is now only taking a few hours a month. It’s great!”

 

“Member Jungle is instant. It helps muster the iron horses together quickly. Members can sign-up on the spot through their smartphones and an email is sent almost straight away and it’s done. Everything is automated,”

 

“I think the ease of signing up has contributed to the significant growth in our membership as well.” Dave said. 

 

If you want to hear more about Dave Watson’s experience with Member Jungle have a look at Driving Membership Management for his full interview. 

What Does Member Jungle Cost?

You’re probably thinking well this all sounds great but what’s the point if it costs an arm and a leg? Well good news membership management systems like Member Jungle are actually reasonably priced. The price of Member Jungle will vary depending on how many members your club has and all the different features you want to use. Generally speaking the price of Member Jungle will scale in line with how large and complicated your club is. This means you will only ever pay for the things you need and the price will only take up a percent of your annual member dues. 

 

If you want to know more about Member Jungle’s prices or how to use the pricing calculator to help work out how much this will all cost you have a read of How To Work Out How Much Your Member Jungle Package Will Cost. 

How to Implement Member Jungle in your club?

Implementing a membership management system can be a daunting task, there’s a lot to consider and weigh up. Though choosing to run your car club without a membership management system also leaves your club vulnerable to a lot of the problems we have already discussed. If you want to know more about membership management systems why not read, What is Membership Management Software. If you have any questions that weren’t answered in this article why not reach out to us and have a chat. You can do so here, book a free call with a Car Club Membership Specialist.