Every fitness facility, large or small, well-established or just barely opening their doors, is faced with the retention riddle. Health and fitness is a commitment toward a better lifestyle. It requires time, conscious thought, planning, and let’s face it, a lot of hard work and effort! Everyone can agree that hard work and no play is no fun. What causes no fun? Lack of interest! So, at the very least, one can deduce that at least one step towards solving the retention riddle is to incorporate fun at your health club. How do you do fun? Keep your members socially [...]
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We’ve all bought something we’ve not used. The question is why didn’t we use it? Maybe it was aspirational – something designed to change us or make us a better person, but actually using it becomes the challenge in itself. Gym memberships are a lot like that – our clients sign up because they have goals and ambitions for their health and physiques. Showing up, however, means facing their own insecurities and lack of knowledge. So they don’t go — ever. Targeting Low-Usage New Members The best time to curtail this sad outcome is right within the first 30 days [...]
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The Virtuous Circle Of Improved Retention Since the topic of membership retention is still fresh on the pages of the Gym Insight Blog, let's talk about the strategic points to hold on to your customers a little longer. No doubt, you have some idea of what you are doing well and what can be improved, and there are uncounted sources of ideas for retention on the Web, but it never hurts to have an over-arching strategy in place, right? The Upside Of Improved Gym Member Retention As an example, if you can increase your retention rate from ninety-two to ninety-five [...]
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Choose Your Application If you could develop a mobile application or app for your gym members what would it be? Would it be purely account information or training records? Would you want to make it a stand-alone Giga-download giant or a lightweight gateway app? Would it help you communicate with your membership or just dole out the advice? I've been giving this subject some serious consideration lately and I'd like to share my thoughts here, as a sort of roadmap. The best part about it is that it's a roadmap to membership retention. Allow me to explain with a simple [...]
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There is nothing more worthy of celebrating, when you own a gym, than bringing in new memberships. It gives you hope for the future as you watch your list of members grow. This so-called on boarding period is a highly critical time that you can use to secure your relationship with customers. You have the perfect opportunity to assure a high lifetime value for you, and positive experience for them. Selling Means More Than Surviving This transitional time period can determine how long new members stick around and how they present their experience to friends and on social media. It [...]
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Doing Well By Doing Good Membership retention is the one weightiest factor in running your business, after winning initial sign-ups. I've been reminded of this because, according to the author of the book Blue Zones, Dan Buettner, almost all of your members will drop out within three years of first signing up. This is your recidivism rate. Improving and extending these numbers will reduce the turnover rate at your gym. The Importance Of Membership Retention Your revenue is going to benefit from marginally extending the averages on your memberships. Revenue comes from your subscriptions and if you are doing the [...]
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If you are a gym owner, then one of the things you may have noticed is that a large number of people who often sign up for memberships do so with great interest, motivation and good intentions. However, due to the unending demands of their professional or personal life, they slowly stop visiting the gym regularly and seemingly may even forget that they even have a gym membership altogether. This member oversight may, very well, have nothing to do with your health club facilities or services. So it is important to remind your members about your gym and why they [...]
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It is no secret that without motivation, it is hard for any exercise program to survive. Although there are many factors that go into the longevity and success of your personal-training business, one of the main factors that this post will focus on is your ability to motivate your clients. As you are probably familiar with yourself, motivation is not a simple task and requires a great deal of commitment, time, energy, and thought. When you are responsible for motivating another person, you have to still bear in mind yourself. As a personal trainer, there are two people that have [...]
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Having a good ventilation system is important for the health club experience and environment. Fact: Most gyms are indoors and many people are sweating and breathing in recycled air. Problem: Risk of infection is high in gyms with poor ventilation systems. Factors contributing to the problem: 1) Viruses, germs and bacteria thrive; 2) Humid areas compound the problem; Result: 1) Foul smell; 2) Shortness of breath; 3) Infections; 4) Your members will experience incomplete workout sets and poor performances; 5) Ultimately resulting in member avoidance, cancellation, and bad reviews; 6) Waste of money. Real World Experience: I know of a [...]
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