Did you know that it can cost 5X as much to attract a new gym member than it costs to keep your existing members? If you have devoted time, money, and resources on attracting new members but overlooked your gym member retention strategy up until now, there is no need to panic. We’re here to help with guidance from the Retention Guru himself, Dr. Paul Bedford.
In a recent webinar, Dr. Bedford offered a number of gym member retention that can help boost member engagement and increase revenue too. In fact, a 5% increase in your member retention rate could increase your gym’s profits by 25% to 95%, according to research by Bain & Company.
In this installment of Dr. Bedford’s three-part success series, you’ll learn the answers to these important questions:
- How can selling services as products help retain members?
- How do I productize my gym’s services?
- How do I increase member loyalty and engagement?
- How do I upsell to existing members while boosting retention
- Why is it important to let members feel in control?
Start by Productizing Your Club’s Services
One major pain point for many gym members is that the service they’re paying for is not always tangible, which causes some to question the value of the service. To overcome this challenge, Dr. Bedford recommends differentiating your gym by selling your services as products or programs. Here’s how you can productize your gym’s services:
- Choose (or create) a specific fitness program or group class
- Give it a unique and descriptive name.
- Map out the program on a day-by-day or week-by-week basis
- Clearly define what members will get out of the program.
- Create marketing and messaging for that program.
- Sign up your members!
Whether you’re offering personal training or nutritional programs, Dr. Bedford explains in the webinar that this packaging strategy creates more revenue and a more tangible and valuable experience for your members
Retain Members by Building Confidence and Competence
Dr. Bedford also explains the importance of fitness adherence, or your members’ ability to completely integrate exercise into their personality and lifestyle. Whether you’re a personal trainer or fitness instructor, you provide members with a program to follow, right? But how many of your members follow their workout plan perfectly 100% of the time?
One of the best ways to boost retention is to help nurture a regular, consistent fitness schedule so that it becomes a part of their routine and lifestyle. You have to help your members create a routine around doing things they enjoy doing so they stick to it longer and commit to achieving their long-term goals at your club.
Additionally, Dr. Bedford explains in the webinar, you have to help your members build their confidence through building competence. When you create programs that are easily repeatable and predictable, your members will more easily fall into a routine. Over time, they’ll start to want variety, and that’s when you can upsell them on other programs or packages that help them achieve their long-term goals.
Build Loyalty to Keep More Members
Lastly, Dr. Bedford explains how there’s more to building loyalty than rewarding your members, because rewards don’t always result in loyalty. Loyalty happens when your members have an emotional connection to your business, when the association with your gym is enough. Think about how loyal certain people are to Apple or Peloton.
To increase loyalty, you have to foster a strong culture around your gym community. Be sure to engage with members on social media and in your gym, and make them feel like they’re a part of something larger than themselves. Also, reinforce your members’ progress and encourage them to keep moving forward based on how far they’ve come.
Watch the Full Session Now
Are you ready to learn more about cultivating a loyal membership base and retaining your members longer? Watch the complete webinar series now.