How to increase gym member retention at your fitness center?
- Personalise your member’s experience
- Facilitate communication with gym members
- Create a local community within your club
Here’s how to increase gym member retention rates
Gym Members are the lifeblood of any fitness center, health club or athletic institute – driving revenue and determining overall business success. So, why focus on gym member retention strategies over new marketing activities? Couldn’t a gym simply ‘replace’ instead of ‘retain’?
While new member registrations are a vital aspect of managing a gym, an increased retention rate is the most cost-effective way to increase revenue. New clients have a higher acquisition cost with expenditure ranging anywhere from 5-25 times more than simply retaining current gym users. Additionally, boosting retention rates by as little as 5% can reflect a profit increase upwards of 25%. So, yes. Retention strategies are highly important.
But, how do you increase membership retention rates at your gym? Here’s what some of the most successful businesses are doing.
Personalise your member’s experience
The fitness industry is no stranger to major disruption being largely driven by the ever-changing views of members. So, in today’s holistic society where members crave individuality, how do gym’s adapt?
While personalisation may seem daunting and inefficient, it is the most effective method of retention as members receive a more meaningful experience that keeps them coming back. Collecting 1st party data is typically the easiest way to create a better experience for gym members, utilising unique information to better tailor products or services toward their needs. Valuable insights such as club attendance, milestones, equipment usage, and item purchases can be used to make recommendations that add value to your members, creating a deep level of differentiation from local competitors.
Though collecting this data may seem complex, the use of leading gym management systems such as VIGYR allows unique data entry through custom field creation – facilitating greater personalisation and longer member retention periods.
Facilitate communication with gym members
One of the largest factors affecting gym member renewal rates is a lack of communication, causing members to disengage and feel undervalued. While new members tend to have a strong drive to accomplish all of their fitness goals, older members can begin to lose motivation or feel as if they have not progressed. As a Gym owner, it is vital to openly communicate with members to re-energise those who may be falling off track and keep motivated members on course to achieve their goals.
Great tactics to reach members on a personal level and convey important information include both email and text. Simple messaging after a workout has been missed or a lack of attendance has been noticed can provide a truly immersive experience for the member that improves brand perception and customer loyalty.
Again, client management systems can act as an absolute asset in this space with custom messaging solutions and email analytics available across higher-end platforms such as VIGYR. Just remember that you can’t expect to just sell more memberships without the intention to communicate or add-value.
Create a local community within your club
Alongside communication and personalisation, community acts as a powerful retention tool – making gym members responsible for more than just themselves. Working out in a ‘tight-knit’ community not only promotes a more positive member mindset, but also paves the way to greater results – enhancing the overall customer experience. Allowing members to compete alongside friends and peers can help tap into competitive motivations which, often-times yield better results than self-driven motives.
Creating weekly group challenges or hosting exercise classes can be a great way to keep old members engaged, while encouraging new members to join the ‘club’. The higher sense of community, the more empowerment an individual will feel, resulting in much higher retention rates.
Scheduling tools can be extremely beneficial in streamlining this process, allowing members to access group class times as well as book in to personalised sessions. Software such as VIGYR has a fully integrated system with a simple design, making it easy for both owners and members to interact.
So, what’s the solution? Here’s how to increase your gym’s chances of success
This article may just seem like a hefty lump of words, so here is a simple rundown of how to increase your gym’s chances of success… Care about your members… That’s it! Personalisation, communication, and community building are simply just the effects from genuine care for member well-being.
Treat each member as an individual and genuinely find interest in how to best help them achieve their goals. Everybody is on a separate journey and the more you can make them feel like they’re important, the longer they’ll remain loyal.
So, See how they are. Welcome them to the club. Ask them how to best serve their needs. Attention and genuine interest is, after all, the cornerstone of most successful retention campaigns.
Seems simple right…? Well, it is! When you have the right mindset and take advantage of the right tools, you’ll be surprised at what you can achieve.
Improve Gym Member Retention with VIGYR
VIGYR has been mentioned throughout and for good reason – it’s simply the most innovative and integrated client management system. VIGYR has been providing leading results for all partners and offers a completely revolutionary approach to gym management that remains unmatched by other alternatives. VIGYR has been developed with the customer-experience in mind, focussing on delivering integrated solutions that streamline all processes, allowing you to focus on what matters – your members!
VIGYR Client Management Software not only gives exclusive access to the industry’s best and most innovative feature set, but allows your gym members to reap an elusive list of benefits through complete process optimisation.
Want to know more about how VIGYR can help improve your members experience, delivering leading business results?
Contact us today on 1300 362 561
