The NRA Wine Club

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 4:59PM EST · Published Dec 8, 11:05AM EST

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The National Rifle Association has a wine club. Why? Almost certainly due to a cardinal rule of membership organizations: Offer as many benefits as possible to put glue on those members, even if the glue has nothing to do with its primary mission. Members who leave are often hard to replace, which adds to marketing expenses. A low churn rate of members makes adding new ones easier.

The NRA pitch:

A Special Offer from the Official Wine Club of the NRA- 12 Wines for Under $7 a Bottle

It’s an exclusive, first-time offer and an unbeatable value: “Lowest Price Available — Save $110. World’s Finest Wines, a Vintner’s Reserve Table Top Opener — Plus Tasting Notes.” All wines are guaranteed, and there’s no obligation to purchase more.

The practice is not very different from what credit card companies do, or public company retailers who have memberships, like Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) or Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST). Be a member, get a deal. And more deals and more. The organizations measure to see the point at which adding things to keep people attached has reached a profit peak. At that point, it may make sense to taper off, unless there is a strategic reason to add more people.

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The NRA’s closet cousin in these approaches is the AARP. Insurance, for life and health (in the NRA’s case guns). A Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) card. Prescription drug discounts. Hotel and car rental discounts.

The NRA and AARP have enough members that these organizations can negotiate favorable deals. Each can bring in millions of potential customers. Those discounts are passed along to members — more glue.

The NRA Wine Club. Clever, but with plenty of precedent.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.