Unlocking the active world

In a LinkedIn article on 3 April 2020 I signed off with these thoughts.

“I believe therefore that there are many reasons why we should collectively be positive about the future and it is vitally important that we use this hiatus to pro-actively challenge ourselves and our thinking. We need to increase the rate at which we adopt technology and re-imagine our relationship with our customer, the participant. We need to re-invent our business models so that it is fit for the future. We all need to be ready. So that we can capitalise on the opportunities that WILL come”.

Today, fifteen months later and two days before the return of our first major mass participation event on Sunday (25 July) we launch our new?LimeLight Sports Club membership platform.

The LSC membership platform, which we believe is the first of its kind in the world, allows our customers to pay a monthly or annual subscription and in return receive a host of benefits that can be summarised as follows:

·??????Receive discounts and freebies?– members will be able to access our ‘Originals’ events at a significant discount but will also receive discounts from other event promoters (those who follow LimeLight will know that we are big on industry collaboration and we will be promoting other events through the app if we think they are right for our members) and partner brands

·??????Exclusive access?– we will enable members to access some of the most iconic sold-out events around and will also be introducing member exclusives at our own events

·??????Win competitions?– in collaboration with our partners there will be a host of opportunities to win places to events and new products

·??????Personalised content?– relevant and enjoyable content that we hope will inspire more participation by our members including exclusive access to virtual training events and challenges

·??????Belonging to a community?-?an active community of like-minded individuals. Challenging themselves and inspiring others and sharing incredible opportunities together

·??????Making a difference?– 2.5% of the membership subscriptions will be donated through our Active World Fund to Laureus Sport for Good programmes

All of this value will be served directly to members through the new LimeLight Sports Club app which has also launched on Apple and Android today.

It has been a fascinating journey to get to this point and one that might have taken us years if the pandemic hadn’t presented us with the unique opportunity to stop, think and re-focus.

The membership platform will enable us to really understand our customer and to improve their experience not just for one event but throughout their whole journey in the active world. The data, insight and feedback we receive will help shape our future plans and our customer proposition and ultimately, we hope to grow both the numbers participating and the frequency they participate.

For our company moving away from a very transactional relationship with our customer to a subscription model will help flatten out peaks and troughs of revenue, reduce the cost of acquiring customers so that we can focus on retaining them through adding value to their lives and, after a challenging 18 months, will provide us with a stable revenue stream that will enable us to invest in new products, events and challenges.

I’m incredibly proud of what the team led by our CTO, Steve Dews have achieved in the last fifteen months:

·???????use this hiatus to pro-actively challenge ourselves and our thinking?- YES

·???????increase the rate at which we adopt technology - YES

·???????re-imagine our relationship with our customer - YES

·??????re-invent our business models so that it is fit for the future - TIME WILL TELL!

The whole process has been incredibly rewarding so far, but now the hard work really starts as we must demonstrate the value to our customers, convert them to members and then make their experiences extraordinary so that they stick with us but also more importantly stick with being active.

This will bring us another step further towards our vision – Creating an active world. Together