So, What’s in Your Gym Business Bag?
If you’re like most people, your personal gym bag carries a bundle of practical and commonsense workout items. These things express your personality, values, and workout intentions. However, the contents of your gym bag also hint at hidden opportunities to fine-tune the business model of your fitness club.
For an insight into what your ideal customers want, look into your own gym bag and apply the lessons to your customers and your business model. Most likely it includes the usual gym clothes and shoes, towels, and personal items. Perhaps you have weightlifting gloves or other articles you use in your workout routine.
So, what does this say about you and your workout environment? The contents of your gym bag balance basic human needs and the peculiarities of a given fitness regime. Of course, as a working industry insider, you might have a bag lunch and some necessary office supplies too.
What Is in Your Membership Personas’ Gym Bags?
Have you thought about the persona of your prototypical member? This is the marketing concept that gathers the traits and attributes of the consumers who’ll best fit your fitness offerings. You can both learn about the personas that represent your membership as well as what you might find in their gym bags.
Knowing a little about this aspect of the habits of members always helps you market your fitness club. In addition to all of the other elements that define your gym member persona insights, why not include gym bag contents? When you construct personas you’ll be using to market your gym, don’t forget to add the likely contents of their gym bags as a factor.
Your members might have towels and gear; they very likely have such things as water bottles and the accessories relating to the purpose of your fitness club. You can probably make some observations and informed guesses of what members have in their bags. If you can think of a tactful way to ask people what they carry, the responses might even reveal unexpected marketing insights that you can use to tweak your business model.
Getting into Member Gym Bags
Since we are talking about gym bags here, why not make an effort to serve your customers with a display in a foyer shop or display at the front desk. Having useful and relevant products on sale does them a favor. You provide the convenience of easy access to items they’ve lost or forgotten to bring while you generate an alternate revenue stream for your fitness business.
You can also provide branded items that advertise your gym. If you get to that point, it’s not to be underrated. How often do you see T-shirts and hoodies with gym brands? You can even include a range of branded gym bags with your logo proudly placed them.
You’ve probably seen brand names like Gold’s Gym and World Gym on clothing and fitness accessories. Talk to your local print shop about doing the same for your brand. Also research white label suppliers for merchandise. Somebody out there will put your brand on anything you want.
Starting Your Own Business in A Gym Bag
If you’re still standing at the edge of entrepreneurship, thinking about starting a gym business, you might be looking for ways to bootstrap your way into the industry. These days with tools like Insight it’s possible to start with just a gym bag and build a business.
If you have a smartphone, tablet device, or notebook computer in your gym bag, you can offer events and classes in the park or a studio space that you rent by the hour. The Insight Gym Management suite of software will help you with all of the digital tools to build your membership from zero to global empire.
Bibliography
Fable, Shannon. What’s In Your Gym Bag? Must-Have Items for your Group Fitness Class. June 12, 2016. https://www.acefitness.org/education-and-resources/professional/expert-articles/5935/what-s-in-your-gym-bag-must-have-items-for-your-group-fitness-class (accessed August 19, 2018).
Fagan, Lawrence. 3 Alternate Revenue Streams To Boost Your Fitness Business. May 15, 2018. https://blog.gyminsight.com/5002-3-alternate-revenue-streams-to-boost-your-fitness-business/ (accessed August 19, 2018).
-. Gym Member Personas: Who Are These Idealized People? September 9, 2017. https://blog.gyminsight.com/4611-gym-member-personas-who-are-these-idealized-people/ (accessed August 19, 2018).
Quinn, Elizabeth. An Athlete’s List of Gym Bag Essentials. March 15, 2018. https://www.verywellfit.com/gym-bag-essentials-3120245 (accessed August 19, 2018).