We’re very good at identifying gym members. We know who they are, how often they visit, what they use and, increasingly, what they want.
But what about the people who want to be healthier but have no intention of joining a gym?
They are one of the biggest untapped opportunities for the health and fitness industry.Since the 60s, we’ve built businesses around helping people become fitter, more active and more knowledgeable about exercise. And it has worked, to an extent, but membership growth has plateaued, and that tells us something...
Today’s opportunity isn’t simply to find more people who want to get fit.
It’s to find more of the people who want to get healthier.
We’re pretty good at identifying members, activating people who want to be active, or persuading them to leave their current club and join ours.
We have got lots of data about our members. We know their attendance, their class preferences, their engagement, their health and fitness goals, and sometimes we know when they achieve them!
But there’s an obvious limitation.
If your only route into your organisation is membership, and all you’re really offering is fitness, then you’re going to be invisible to a large potential audience. Because not everyone who wants to be healthier wants to become a gym member.
So, what does a HealthSeeker look like?
A HealthSeeker is someone who wants to be healthier, but doesn't necessarily identify as a gym member, or even as someone who wants to exercise.They don’t want an exercise programme, they won’t enjoy running on a treadmill, probably don’t want to lift weights, and might not even be particularly interested in getting "fit".
But (and this is an important distinction) they do want to be healthier.
Most people already have some idea of what being healthier means to them. They might want to sleep better, drink more water, improve their nutrition, have more energy, manage their weight or simply feel better.
They almost certainly don't need an instructor telling them that exercise is good for them.
What many of them need is support, encouragement and a nudge to do something about it.
That's where the opportunity starts.
Don't try to reach everyone. Identify the people who are ready.
The challenge for clubs isn't necessarily to persuade the entire population to become HealthSeekers. It's to identify the HealthSeekers that are already out there.And, importantly, to give them a reason to start thinking about their health.
That's the difference between marketing fitness and creating a health opportunity.
We want to move someone from: "I should probably do something about my health." to: "I'm curious. I wonder how I'm doing?"
And that is where a simple health interaction can be incredibly powerful.
Give people a reason to raise their hand
This is one of the things that the daily100 does particularly well. It's deliberately simple and non-intrusive. Someone doesn't have to visit a club, book an appointment or commit to a programme.They simply answer eight straightforward questions, receive a headline score and can see a breakdown of the areas contributing to it, along with practical feedback.
It gives them a little nudge, helps them understand their health a little better, and, perhaps most importantly, it gives them something to think about.
- "That's interesting."
- "I didn't realise that."
- "I could probably improve that."
And if they choose to come back and do it again tomorrow (the clue is in the name - daily100) they can start to see whether some of those small changes are making a difference.
That's useful for the individual… but it's also useful for the club.
Because the interaction can help identify people who are moving from simply being aware of their health to being ready to think about making a change.
The score isn't the point
It's tempting to focus on the measurement… The score. The data. The technology. The number. But the score isn't really the opportunity, the conversation is.A HealthSeeker might want to understand more about their hydration, or recovery, or another aspect of their health that a more detailed HealthCheck can explore.
That's where you can move them from:
daily100 → conversation → HealthCheck
But even the HealthCheck isn't the destination.A HealthCheck can provide more measurement and insight, but its real value comes from what happens around that measurement. The coach can ask questions, listen, build rapport, and help the person understand what the numbers might mean for them.
And rather than immediately prescribing an exercise programme, they can help that person decide what they want to work on. It might be sleeping better, drinking more water, improving their nutrition, perhaps eventually it’s becoming more active.
The important thing is that the HealthSeeker gets to choose.
Don't turn a HealthSeeker into a gym lead
This is where we must challenge our traditional thinking.Imagine you've identified someone who has just told you they want to be healthier. What's the next thing you offer them? A gym membership? An exercise class? A swim? A personal training session? Perhaps those things will eventually be right for them, but making them the immediate answer misses the point.
We've just identified someone who is interested in their health… Don't immediately turn them into a fitness lead.
Instead, identify them, coach them, nurture them, build a relationship.
The job isn't to tell everyone that exercise is the answer. It's to understand the person in front of you and help them find their next step. That might eventually lead to membership. It might not, but that's OK.
Identifying HealthSeekers is only the first challenge
Finding HealthSeekers in your community isn't easy, they aren't necessarily sitting in your CRM, following you on Instagram, and they certainly aren't all searching for "best gym near me". But they are there.The opportunity is to create simple ways for them to raise their hand, become more curious about their health and start a conversation.
daily100 is one way of doing that.
But identifying a HealthSeeker is only the beginning, because once you've found someone who wants to be healthier, the really interesting question is:
What happens next?
How do you turn a score into a conversation? How does that conversation become coaching? And how do you build a journey that helps someone make changes without assuming that the destination has to be a gym membership?That's where the second HealthSeeker challenge begins.
In the next article: You've Found a HealthSeeker. Now What?
We'll look at what happens after the HealthCheck, and why the measurement is only the start of the relationship.
