How Florence Marine X built a simple and effective membership

Retail is a tough category, traditional sales models have low margins, inefficiencies and poor modeling that leads to overstock and seasonal sales. There are substantial costs involved in breaking into the market and cementing a position can be exceptionally difficult. When watersports apparel brand Florence Marine X, fronted by world champion surfer John John Florence entered the technical apparel space in 2021 they faced all of these headwinds.

Their approach to market was slightly different to many of their competitors. Florence Marine X has built a membership directly into its go to market model since its launch. A membership fee will get a user access to a wide variety of added benefits, with the fee itself refunded with the first purchase. This ensures that a direct ongoing relationship is established with all users. The premium model is easy and clear to understand, with the value exchange laid out for users.

The Florence Marine Society is a very similar model to the REI approach, with a few differences. There’s a lot that small businesses can take away from how they have implemented it. Here’s six key lessons:

1. Make it valueable

The bundle of value within the Florence Marine Society is well developed. It touches upon multiple key areas for membership, from exclusive access to products, to discounts and expanded experiences such as travel. The brand’s commitment to its environmental mission is also included with a percentage of the membership cost going towards their initiatives.

TAKEAWAY: Develop a multi-faceted approach to your membership benefits to surround your user with tangible value.

2. Make it easy

The membership is incredibly easy to purchase and access, all it takes is adding it to your cart with a separate product purchase. This also guarantees that a user purchases a product to enter the membership experience.

TAKEAWAY: Create a simple tiering and pricing structure for your membership it makes the messaging simpler and pathing easier.

3. Make it a no brainer

If you’re buying a product from Florence Marine X it makes total sense to add a membership to your cart, you receive your money back off your next order. It’s hard for any customer to overlook this at check out, they benefit next time so why not?

TAKEAWAY: If you’re charging for membership don’t bolt the option of membership on without creating a tangible reason users should become a member.

4. Make it simple

Complexity is the enemy of any membership and subscription product. Florence Marine Society is very simple and easy to understand, a single payment with lifetime access to the experience, it doesn’t get much simpler than that.

TAKEAWAY: Keep your membership tiering as simple and easy to understand as possible, you don’t want a leaky funnel at the point someone is willing to join because they are confused.

5. Make it expandable

The ability for the membership to develop further is incredibly important, too many transactional loyalty programs offer nothing beyond a discount. The brand’s membership could go in multiple directions as it develops and they even allude to that with ‘more…?’.

TAKEAWAY: Don’t lock your brand in to specific benefits such as discount only in your messaging, give the option to expand your membership as your business scales.

6. Make it inclusive

The Florence Marine Society test pilot program is a great example of a way to make the brand’s most loyal members feel like they are part of the business itself and actively included in product development.

TAKEAWAY: The more you integrate your members into your experience the greater the engagement and loyalty to the brand you will see from your core users.

A beta or ‘test pilot’ program is a smart way to engage your highest value users.