Honing your fitness culture

Each year, the leisure market becomes more and more saturated with competition.

It could be a ‘life-changing’ piece of technology, a new fitness craze or another low-cost, big-brand gym. Whatever it may be, it has the potential to be the next industry game changer that will turn your members’ heads.

Across a lifetime, the average Brit will spend £65,000 on gym memberships and health-related purchases, trying a different exercise regime every three months.

So, with all that noise, what does it take to create brand advocates for your facility?

Make your inductions count

Left to their own devices, your new members won’t see the results they expected, questioning what they’re paying for only a few weeks later.

One in four will avoid gyms because they don’t know how to operate the machines, with other common ‘gymtimidation’ reasons including:

– Being too embarrassed to exercise in front of people.

– Not knowing what to wear.

– Not having the confidence to ask for help.

From the offset, you need to implement an effective nurture marketing journey for your members that reaffirms your value. A simple induction email – set up as an automated trigger – provides the perfect touchpoint.

By getting them booked onto an induction or signed up for a new class, you can help set them along a path towards forming a new habit centred around exercise. 

Appeal to the individual

In an age of on-demand services, managing customer expectations was never going to be easy.

Around 77% expect brands to offer products that appeal to them personally, meaning that providing creative fitness solutions and a diverse range of classes are all that more important.

When dealing with members who are losing motivation or not seeing the results they’d initially expected, offering choice will help you get them back on track.

Cross-sell your PT sessions and classes, tracking engagement based on email opens and click-throughs to target them more effectively in follow-up communications.

Appeal to them all

A lack of diversity can create an environment that is non-inclusive, with studies showing that in leisure, it ‘hinders exercise participation’.

There is a need to support your members, whatever their gender, age or race. Providing them with a work out space where they feel comfortable and that gives them a sense of belonging is critical.

Having regular conversations with your customers will ensure that you co-create experiences with them, i.e. that you are giving them the service that they want, not what you think they need.

Be consistent 

Brand consistency, whether it’s in your marketing or facility performance and quality, needs to be seen as business critical.

Customer lifetime value cannot be achieved without a consistent experience or regular use, and yet, up to 80% of gym memberships go unused and unchecked.

Automating emails with key contact data fields, such as ‘last login date’, will help you to identify lagging members before they make the decision to quit completely, which could be three months after their last session.

The social element 

After six months, half of all new members will have cancelled.

Although there could be 101 reasons for this, it’s usually an inability to incorporate their new membership into their lifestyle.

Working out with friends provides an abundance of fitness benefits, with research indicating that group exercise helps an individual form a ‘social routine’, making it easier to maintain it in the long-term.

Six in ten (58%) will follow fitness recommendations from their friends, so helping your members see exercise as a social activity rather than a chore will ultimately influence your retention rates.

To understand how automated marketing can help you to manage and meet your members’ expectations, talk to BriefYourMarket.com.