Mt Annan Leisure Centre takes Membership Sales Online

The YMCA managed Mt Annan Leisure Centre has taken its membership sales on line.

Linking their online membership sales tool to a special promotion – during September new members could join online and pay nothing until October – the technology has generated remarkable results.

As Victoria Head, Membership Services Co-ordinator at the YMCA Mt Annan explains “with the campaign promoted only through the website and our Facebook fan page we generated more than one membership sale a day via the online channel.”

The initiative was backed by direct debit provider Ezypay’s online membership sales tool – the direct debit gateway, which simply integrated into the Centre’s website via an iFrame application.

As Craig Lambeth, YMCA Sydney’s General Manager Support Services, explains “the direct debit gateway was very easy to set-up. We did it in a couple of days.”

“Not only was it quick and easy to set-up … it took for the first membership sale online –a grand total of 19 minutes.”

Lambeth adds that “the online membership sales tool has been incredibly cost effective for us … equating to a 333.33% return on investment (ROI).”

Explaining the relationship, Celeste Kirby-Brown Director of Sales, Marketing and Relationships at Ezypay, states “tThe YMCA Sydney has been a long term partner of ours (and) we are very pleased to be able to support their continuous contribution to the health and well-being of their local community.

“When we launched the direct debit gateway we knew it would change the face of membership sales in Australia but we never would have imagined that it would take only 19 minutes for a prospect to sign-up online!”

Ezypay is excited by the potential for digital media and social media to enhance sales and customer relationships in the leisure industry. Referring to a report by market researchers Nielsen (NielsenWire) from June this year, Kirby-Brown explains that the “Australian internet audience is reported to be 14.59 million, with the average Australian spending 39 hours and 32 minutes (home and work) on the internet in a month.

“Mt Annan’s use of Facebook to sell memberships is a great idea too when you consider Australians lead the world in social media engagement.”

Ezypay is an outsourced direct debit service provider dedicated to offering a payment collection system that assists businesses in the regulation of their cash flow and revenue without the hassle of managing members' bills.

The Mt Annan Leisure Centre is located west of Campbelltown in Sydney’s south west. Managed by the YMCA in partnership it offers a range of health and aquatic programs in its 25 metre indoor pool, leisure pool, fitness centre, Spin studio and program rooms.

The potential of digital media and social networking in leisure is explained in a feature in the September/October 2010 issue of Australasian Leisure Management.

Ezypay can be contacted on 02 9425 2015.

View the Mt Annan Leisure Centre’s promotion at http://bit.ly/cLLxfb

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