Thursday 28 January 2016

How do you know if your new members this January will stay?

We hope you’re having the best January ever, getting lots of new (and returning) members into healthier and fitter lifestyles, and growing your membership base too. You’re hitting the numbers now, but can you get a barometer reading on how long your January joiners will stick around for? 


Of course, if you’re following all the retention advice, each and every new member will be having a welcome session (induction), at least 4 interactions in the first month, welcome messages and follow-ups, and attending a class. Everyone follows your member journey to the letter, right?

We hear some incredible member stats when running workshops and training sessions, with staff in clubs claiming that every single member who joins has an induction. Several of the clubs we’re currently working with have set targets for welcome sessions, ranging from 70-90% of new joiners.
The overall aim is to get most new members through a full first appointment, with the remainder taking a fast-track first appointment. This is a simple statistic, easily measured, that will translate to retention rate.

Initial reports for joiners in December are low, with only around 50% of joiners recording any kind of welcome session (full or fast track). This is unlikely to improve with the higher volume of joiners in January, but is a starting point that we will work on going forwards.


Another couple of simple metrics for your new members are First Month Visits, and welcome email open rate. Read more about engaging with new members here.


Ultimately, you want to ensure your new members are making one visit (it's unbelievable, but up to 10% of joiners make NO visits in their first month!), having some kind of welcome session, and then a follow-up.
This way, you can help us to buck the trend of half of these January joiners being long gone by the end of the year.

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