How to retain members in your gym

Initially, gaining members through flyers, social media, and the ‘new business’ boom was perfect. However, long-term success relies on retaining members at your gym and building a solid customer base. Keeping existing and returning members will underpin the longevity of your gym business; long-term, consistent members are the backbone of any membership-based business. 

Through specific periods of the year, specifically during New Year’s resolutions, gyms get a massive influx of new clients and members. This is great for business, so retaining these members throughout the year is imperative.

Community-building is key

Building a community environment at your gym is required to retain members and members. Holding community events, hangouts, group activities, charity fundraising, and so forth involves the community and your members in your gym outside their set workout regimes. This builds a powerful retention tool for your business. Encouraging your members to attend your gym before or after their workouts is a great way to retain interest. For example, offering post-workout relaxing areas encourages members to stay and engage in conversation.

A coffee shop or station allows people to have a pre or post-workout drink with friends and other members. Your front-line staff and personal trainers play a massive part in building a community vibe at your gym. They are also there to provide their duties during set hours; throughout their whole time at the gym during their shift, they should be engaging with members and inviting them to try other classes, other events, and activities and supporting the retention of your business.

Engagement to add value

Getting your business on social media, emails, phone calls, and texts is excellent for keeping your gym in the limelight. Also, members not attending classes or time slots are the first sign of dis-engaging. Why not email or text reminding them what they are missing out on? You can set up automated emails for members who miss a worth of workouts; this is a great way to keep your clients engaged with your gym without you spending hours sending emails and texts manually.

Furthermore, you can get an automated notification when any member is not showing up for classes over an extended amount of time. You can even assign a specific staff member to be notified if they have a closer relationship with that member. This is the ideal solution to improve your customer relations and community involvement.

Results-based decisions

Making your gym where clients see results is the perfect opportunity to build on member retention. There is nothing worse than becoming a member; months later, the member doesn’t see, recognize, or understand if they have improved. To retain more members in the gym, it is essential to use gym scheduling software that helps to manage members, booking, and scheduling processes. Setting goals with your members keeps people on track and focus on what they want to achieve at your gym. Going to your gym costs money, so members want to see results.

Building retention becomes more accessible and robust when your team aligns with your members’ goals. Holding regular reviews with members, taking photos, discussing changes in measurements, body fat percentages, and so forth goes a long way in developing a member’s confidence and motivation.

Just as importantly, this keeps them coming back for more. With some classes and gym members, you can even set conditions and leaderboards amongst like-minded clients to set more shared goals for them to strive towards. Comparing their results with compatible members builds healthy competition and focuses on returning clients and membership retention.

Gift cards to reward members 

Gift cards should operate with the same visual merchandising, pricing, and product development techniques as any other product in a business, not to mention the necessary offline and internet advertising. It isn’t fair to anticipate that purchasing plastic gift cards will increase sales. We have looked at some key benchmarks that will help you profit from your gift card schemes to ensure you are not investing in a system that includes spending money on goods without providing a return on your investment.

Selling gift cards for your company seems like a no-brainer; they are mobile marketing for your brand and reduce the product returns typically involved with presents because the buyer isn’t selecting the wrong color, size, etc. However, poorly planned and unadvertised gift card campaigns might occasionally fizzle out. Get a rate on premium plastic gift cards from our website if you’re thinking about launching a gifting program for your company.

Extra retention tips

Here are a few extra suggestions you may utilize to improve the retention rates of your gym members.

Class schedules

Keep track of member attendance and match it to the classes being offered. Offer a group class during such times to see if members grow interested, and schedule them if you have many members who have expressed interest in specific categories. 

Account freeze

However, it can be a make-or-break situation for some users who may feel exploited when asking for temporary account freezes. Frozen accounts may be an excellent opportunity to boost a little revenue. Increase member confidence and pleasure by being more tolerant of blocked accounts when necessary.

Stay connected

Create innovative marketing techniques based on your members’ interests and first-party data. Give them tips and recent fitness fads to improve their exercise and wellness.