What makes the Club Great and How to Get New Members

I first joined the CC>CC Club in 1988 – I’m not currently a member. My membership expired two years ago, but nobody sent me a notice that it was expiring. Why not? Why not a couple letters telling me what I would be missing and asking me to join again? You had me again, but you lost me, again. For what it’s worth, here are a few things I would do to try and attract new members:

1) Fix the CC>CC web site. Does the front page of the site generate any excitement? http://www.ccgtcc.com/ For goodness sake, the person fought dozens of chip listings to actually find the club site and is probably looking for chips and chip collecting information. On the site’s front page the magazine cover even says “Casino Chip” in big letters. Where are the chips? There are NO photos, no enticing stories about the hobby and the club, nothing. You got ‘em to the front page………and lost ‘em.

2) If an Internet surfer makes it to the club site and then to the magazine site, they get some great info – and access to old issues. You might consider offering a small selection of issues for readers to show how great the mag’s are, but only allow full access to club members. Make it password protected. I would be a lot more interested in joining if I found that I could look at dozens of old issues plus get new ones for a year.

3) As far as the quarterly goes, it looks great and has a lot to offer. However, I believe it should be aimed at collectors, not people that just want to be in a club. Lose some of the “club” stuff. A one-page President’s message is almost all I can stand. A dozen pages of voting, results, club finances etc. is not what most collectors want. If you have to put all that stuff somewhere, great, stick it on the club web site. Oh, it’s already there, then why is it in the mag? Dump ‘em and cut the cost of printing.

4) Sheldon Smith’s “Buyer’s Guides” for casino collectibles are great. Have the club produce a hardback version that runs about 40 pages to sell in casino gift shops. The inside cover would be a great advertisement about joining the club. Maybe a FREE back issue. This gets NEW people interested in the club. There are hundreds of casinos with gift shops - this is PRIME space for getting new members.

The title should be something like “The Fun of Chip Collecting” with chips on the cover. My thinking is that the booklet would be a simple 5x8 size with a color cover showing different chips. Inside would be similar to the buyer’s guide but might have a short history of a dozen casinos, photo of each, chip photo of each, and then a few color pages of chips.

The last few pages would be paid advertising from club members. This little booklet needs to sell cheaply, perhaps $9.99 in the gift shops, and it can be sold wholesale for half that at a profit! Want to really make people pick it up as a gift? Put four actual 25-cent or 50-cent chips in it so the buyer gets something tangible.

Does that sound like it would work? For what it is worth, I have sold thousands of my books in casino gift shops. People want things to read on vacation, and they like to take gifts home! How about a similar guide for collecting dice and one for ashtrays. Same deal, $9.99 And, finally, a similar booklet that is a price guide. A new collector does not want to pay $60 for a guide that lists 128 different roulette chips from a single casino. That’s not a knock on the current guides, which are great, but think like a new collector. I want info, and I want it cheap enough to get me in the door!

5) Let people enter the show in Vegas for free. Charging $10 at the door does not promote interest in the hobby. You have to get ‘em in the door! Free entry or a nominal charge of a couple bucks is better. Make the entry $5 and give a free gift that includes the above “guide” with chips – that gets the new person interested and started in the hobby.

6) And, there should be something at the club desk (or a dealer nearby) like a display of cheap chips. Nothing kills a new collector’s interest as quick as seeing a bunch of beautiful chips that cost $250 each. Make a whole sales display of $2 to $5 chips and treat them like they are valuable. Sell them out of the flock-dividers in 2x2 flips, not out of a bucket. Get ‘em started on those – they can move on to more expensive chips later.

7) I don’t know how much advertising the club does in Vegas pre-show, but get somebody into the radio stations and TV stations with the stories about the hobby’s popularity, about the lady who sold her chip for $29,900 on eBay, about how fun the hobby is. Promote the hobby – not the club.

And finally, give away the quarterly to those attending the show. Let them see how great the mag is. Sell the mag and the hobby – not just joining the club. Not everybody wants to be part of the club. Lots of people want the information in the mag and well, maybe some club benefits. Sell the fun of collecting!