The days of being “the local gym” are
gone. Word of mouth is still the best
way to spread your name, but it definitely isn’t the only way now. Gyms with an average facility and coaches can
soar in popularity due to expert sales and marketing (I’m sure you can think of
a few). In cities competition has always
been high, but now even in rural areas, you’re not going to be the automatic go
to solution for local residents. With
home workouts and online coaching soaring in popularity, now competition is
tighter than ever. Which means that as a
fitness business owner, you need to explore every avenue possible and be open
to change.
The old journey from prospect to member used to look as follows: people would hear about your facility from a friend, walk through the door, sign a membership, and probably stay for life. Walk-ins were the only avenue needed to gain members. But now all the competition is stepping up their game, and you should be too. I’m sure you’ve heard of at least a few of these tactics gyms use to gain members, and more importantly to retain them: online advertising, organic social media, influencer marketing, partnerships, up sells, CRMs, email marketing, SMS marketing, search engine optimisation, automations, loyalty programmes, member nurture, lead nurture, referral programmes, community events, seasonal promotions… the list goes on. If you want to stay profitable with your fitness business and keep ahead of the competition, you need to be utilizing at least half of these.
Simply being a great facility isn’t enough, you need to be able to keep leads and members engaged in your business. A great member software isn’t just about storing data and allowing entry into the gym anymore. A great member software should be able to help you take a prospect from not knowing you, into a raving fan… and it should be a pain-free process too! If you feel that your member management software doesn’t do exactly that, if you feel it is “clunky”, and you just “can’t be bothered to switch”, then maybe it’s time to invest in change.
I understand the frustrations of having multiple systems for multiple purposes. When I was managing a local gym in 2014, we had just that: member access, email sending, automations, payment provider, and don’t get me started on all the jobs we did with a pen and paper! If we wanted to track anything it was always a manual counting approach, which became a task I despised very quickly. No reports were accurate, and forecasts were completely out of the question. With an all in 1 software like Quoox/GymOS, you can run reports and track different metrics throughout the member journey. If your software doesn’t take a complete 360 approach to serving all your needs as a business, then you’re wasting time, wasting money, and are limiting your growth.
Having worked with roughly 50 gyms myself as a marketing consultant, the ones that hit their goals are the ones that take a multi-level approach to increasing their monthly memberships: both client acquisition and retention. If your membership platform does anything but ease this process for you, I suggest you take action. Because if your front door was faulty and stopping people coming in, you’d change it. You should treat your membership software the same.
Regan Phillips – Gym Marketing Consultant
The
Fitness Marketspace