Haveselskabet is a nationwide Danish association for garden enthusiasts of all levels, founded in 1830 and now home to 30,000 members. A major digital transformation has brought a new member universe, restructured memberships, and a brand-new app — built on starti.app.
Haveselskabet is an association for garden enthusiasts of all levels, offering insights and inspiration for cultivating the garden. They have 30,000 members across Denmark and collaborate with all the Danish municipalities for local presence.
Haveselskabet operates based on four values: Community, Credibility, Care for nature, and Garden joy. These values are evident in everything they do — events, open gardens, professional advice, the magazine HAVEN, and their online platform with inspiration and articles for gardening enthusiasts.
Haveselskabet is also a constantly evolving association, working to modernize its traditional membership. The goal is to become more data-driven, ensuring that each member always receives content tailored specifically to them.
Naturally, the way we think of a membership or subscription has changed somewhat over the past 200 years, and that's something Haveselskabet has had to adapt to.
"We have members who request a 'digital-only' membership, while we also have members who definitely don't want anything to change. We must cater to both types of members, which requires us to rethink our traditional 'one-size-fits-them-all' membership," explains Katrine Kert Sparre, Cross-Media Project Manager at Haveselskabet.
Today, Haveselskabet offers three types of memberships — Basic, Plus, and Premium — allowing members to choose what suits them best. "We did this to keep our service highly relevant to our members. They should only pay for what truly provides them value," says Katrine.
Built around what members actually use Haveselskabet for — and ready to grow as the universe expands.
Haveselskabet organizes many events and benefits for its members. To gain access, members need to present a membership card — which is only available digitally. That digital membership card was the primary reason Haveselskabet got an app, and it came directly from member requests.
The app's purpose goes far beyond the digital membership card, though. It will help Haveselskabet become more data-driven. By better understanding their members' interests, Haveselskabet can show them the content they actually want to see. The more targeted and relevant the content, the higher the likelihood members will renew their membership time and again.
We live in an era where it's common to jump between different subscriptions. For us to retain our members, it's crucial to tailor content specifically to their interests — and the app will play an important role in this.
Katrine Kert Sparre
Cross-Media Project Manager at Haveselskabet
Over the past few years, Haveselskabet has noticed a new "competitor" emerging in the form of social media influencers. Many skilled content creators produce gardening-related content, which has led Haveselskabet to realize that especially younger members demand content that is brief, precise, and just what they need when they need it.
"One of our big advantages is our brand and credibility. You can be 100% sure that our advice and guidance are accurate — something you can't always be sure of when browsing social media," Katrine explains.
With the app, Haveselskabet hopes to improve its position against this new competitor — and push notifications will be a key tool. "As an example, if we know our members' interests, where they live, and so on, we could send them a push notification with information about upcoming weather changes, reminding them to take specific actions," Katrine says.
Since Haveselskabet launched their new website and enhanced membership portal in March 2023, they have focused on becoming more data-driven — and that focus will continue.
"We've come a long way, but we're not there yet. Although the app's primary role right now is to show an overview of garden events and the digital membership card, I have high hopes for how the app will develop once the entire membership community becomes accessible there," Katrine says.
A new version of the app, where members can access the member community, save favorite articles, share their interests, listen to podcasts, and more, is what Haveselskabet is currently working towards.
Since starti.app's technology uses Haveselskabet's website as the core of the app, it's quick and easy to decide which parts of the website to display in the app. This way, Haveselskabet can easily add more sections from their website to the app without increasing their annual subscription costs with starti.app.
When we launched our new website in 2023, our old app stopped working, and updating it proved too time-consuming and costly. So we closed it down. But soon after, our members started asking about the app — they wanted it back. That's why we decided to take a closer look at starti.app, and I am just amazed at how fast, easy and affordable it is to build and maintain an app using the starti.app technology.
Bente Yde Enert
Head of Press and Communications at Haveselskabet
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