Selling Retention to New Members

Last month’s article was about using marketing tools for retention, now we look at how your sales processes can drive improved member retention.

Believe it or not, retention is one of the main problems that new members bring to your club. They want to maintain an exercise regime, and will feel good about keeping it up, but are looking for help to do so. Prospects that have been to a gym before will sometimes refer to this as the reason they are moving, and new users may mention ongoing motivation as a concern. Either way, they are presenting you with a problem that they want help solving.

A lot of the time, this problem is put aside by the sales person; the tour starts and the equipment, pool, and class timetable are ‘sold’ to the prospect in the hope that these will motivate them to exercise. This might work with a few people, but it is much better to sell your retention processes, systems and tools to show how you will help.

Tell the prospect how you can track them through their initial journey, with extra touch points to ensure new gym users feel comfortable. Let them know what their options are for regular ongoing reviews after the induction phase, and explain how this will help keep them coming back for more. And if they want it, tell them how you’ll give them a call or send an e-mail or text if they’ve not visited for a few weeks. In short, you’re saying “we have a number of member journeys, and will do everything in our power to keep you motivated and coming to the gym regularly.”

Of course, you’ll need to have the processes and measurement systems in place to track your members. If you want to take it to the extreme, share your retention figures with new members to demonstrate how your journey works. When they are offered a review in the near future, or get an ‘absent call’, they’ll recognise that your top priority is helping them to maintain their exercise regime, and will respond positively.

Handle the prospect’s motivation concerns at the start, offering support if they join. Member retention begins before the member signs up. So make the promises, and then make sure you deliver, and you will be successful.

This is an extract from Workout Magazine March 2011

Workout Magazine March 2011 - Selling Retention

London Love Run 2011

We had a great time at the London Love Run in Finsbury Park at the weekend. The event was organised by Action Duchenne, to raise money and awareness for this serious muscular dystrophy, with three races, held in London, Cardiff and Manchester.

There were over 1,000 runners present in Finsbury Park on Saturday morning, with around 700 taking part in the 10k category according to raceplus. Our team included Zoe, Carly, Leigh, Alistair, Richie and Guy, and everyone was pleased with their times, ranging from 53 minutes to just over the hour. A special shout goes out to Carly who ran 10k in under 1 hour for the first time! times here

Thanks to all who supported us, especially Jasmine and Amelie. Looking forward to the next 10k on our calendar, around the Olympic Park in Newham on 27 March 2011. Join us here

About Duchenne 
Duchenne muscular dystrophy (Duchenne) is a severe recessive X-linked form of muscular dystrophy characterized by rapid progression of muscle degeneration, eventually leading to paralysis and early death. This affects one in 3500 males, making it the most prevalent of muscular dystrophies. In general, only males are afflicted, though females can be carriers. The disorder is caused by a mutation in the dystrophin gene, located in humans on the X chromosome. The Dystrophin gene codes for the protein dystrophin, an important structural component within muscle tissue. Dystrophin provides structural stability to the dystroglycan complex (DGC), located on the cell membrane.

Social Media used in the travel industry to WOW customers

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Social Media for Member Retention - Strategy tip #1, Listening

Thanks for the e-mails, comments and re-tweets on the Social Media for Retention article here and in Workout Magazine. As mentioned, the golden rule of social media engagement is to plan before you start, rather than jumping in and making it up as you go along.

Since planning and strategy is where a lot of clubs struggle, we want to give you a few pointers, firstly with listening, and secondly on how to identify influencers.

Listening is an important starting point, because it will help to define your strategy, and to find out more about the channels you need to be active on. Most of the tools are free, but you will need to make time to listen. Either assign (or employ) someone to do this, or set some time aside in your work week to do this regularly.

Start with a list of key words, phrases, and brands that you want to listen for. Consider information that would be useful to you to share, comment on, or just hear about. Think about your business, your customers, your partners, suppliers and your competitors.

Now check out some of the tools that you can use to listen to the web. It’s no surprise that Google is a good place to start, particularly Google Reader and Google Alerts. Alerts can be sent to your e-mail, but we use Alerts to listen out for key phrases, and then forward to a feed on Reader which can be reviewed when we’re ready.

There is a plethora of other listening tools; we like howsociable, socialmention, and netvibes to name but a few.

Please comment below if you find this article helpful, or if you find other tools or techniques useful.

(How to use) Social Media for Member Retention

Social media channels like Facebook and Twitter are part of many clubs’ marketing strategy. The focus is often on getting more members. However sites like Facebook can also play a big part in member retention, or getting your existing members more active, more often.

The golden rule of social media engagement is to plan before you start. You should educate, encourage and acknowledge your members on the channels that they use.

Educating is relatively simple; let members know about classes, challenges, events and the like. To get the most from social media and extend your reach you need to identify the influencers and amplifiers among your members. These are the ones who forward invites onto their contacts; both existing members and prospects. Then reward these influencers – a thank you is a good start, and for some members will be all the reward they need to continue spreading the word.

Encouraging members towards their goals and congratulating them on reaching a goal is another great use of social media for retention. While all goals are individual, achieving a goal is something every member can do. Whether it’s visiting once a week for 2 months, running 20k a month, or bench pressing 10 x 100kg, a Tweet or Facebook message saying “well done” goes a long way, especially if 10 more of the members friends ‘like’ it.

Publishing members’ photos when they achieve something (as individuals or as a team) can have a really positive effect. This can serve as a reminder of their achievement, particularly with ‘before and after’ photos. When you ask for a testimonial, ask to take a quick video as well. This reminds the member of the value they’re getting, and strengthens their bond with your club.

Location-based services like Foursquare are a great way of identifying and rewarding members who shout about your club. There’s more to it than the Gym Rat badge (awarded if you visit a gym more than 10 times in 30 days). Acknowledge or reward your ‘mayor’ (user who checks-in the most), and give specials to members based on number or frequency of check-ins.

These are just a few ideas of how to use social media for member retention. Many tools are free (check out Socialoomph, Cotweet, Howsociable), but they take time and resource to manage. Find out more, get some examples, or add your own thoughts as comments below. Most importantly, ask your members which channels they use and what interactions they would like.

This is an extract from Workout Magazine - February 2011

Workout Magazine Feb 2011 - Social Media for Retention

Open publication - Free publishing - More weights

Member Journey - video

a quick 2 minute video in case you don't want to read the 400 word article

Member Journey - how to keep your members on track

A member journey is for life, not just for the induction. Research shows that the induction is a major factor in retention, but the ongoing journey is also critical.

Many consider the journey to be the induction process, or first 6-12 weeks after joining. When considering your member journey, you should start from the day a prospect first makes contact and plan right through to what happens after the member leaves. If you like, split it into stages, but take in the whole membership lifetime.

Have a few standard new member journeys, for example based on previous workout experience; ‘brand new gym user’, ‘new experienced member’, and ‘returning member’. Each journey should have a number of contact points or milestones to check the member’s progress. Check the member is coming as many times a week as they pledged to and support them with their goals. Think from your members’ viewpoint when planning your member journeys.

It’s more important to ask your member what kind of journey they would like as they join or renew their membership. Building a bespoke journey around the member (or adapting one of your standard journeys) will help their buy-in and show your commitment to helping them toward their fitness goals. Some new members won’t know what they want; ask if they want to choose the standard journey, and they will generally be happy.

Your ongoing journey may also differ for different members, based on membership type, for instance. A common milestone for ongoing members is the exercise programme review. The standard 8-12 week programme review does not work for everyone, but is a good contact point, and you should adjust the timeframe for your average member. Rather than an exercise programme review, try a general review, and again, ask each member when they would next like to check their progress, review their goals, and perhaps modify their exercise programme. Getting their buy-in to the process and tailoring it to them will help them agree to the review, and help to motivate them.

Finally, know where members can drop out of the journey, and plan to catch them, or get them back on track. At any point in time you should be able to say where the majority of your members are on the journey; if you can’t, then you need to redefine the journey. Start with your new and returning members, and then move on to those members who are due a review.

This is an extract from Workout Magazine - January 2011

Be Happy and Successful in 2011

2010 is nearly over; a good time to reflect on the year that passed.
Unfortunately, lots of people look back and think about everything that went wrong. The things they should have done. The goals they should have reached. The progress that didn’t come.

You will learn much more if you turn this on its head. Here’s a suggestion for a new-year’s exercise in happiness and success. The best way to be happy and successful at work in 2011 is to find out what worked for you in 2010 and do more of that.


Think back on your 2010 working life and answer the following 10 questions. It’s important that you write down your answers - it helps you to reflect more deeply about the questions.

1. What went really well for you at work in 2010?
2. What did you do that you’re proud of?
3. Who have you helped out?
4. How have you grown and developed professionally?
5. How have you grown and developed personally at work?
6. Who has really appreciated your work?
7. Who has helped you out and been there for you?
8. Who have you admired at work in 2010?
9. What have been some fun moments at work in 2010?
10. Which 5 things from 2010 would you like more of in 2011?

Thanks to Alexander Kjerulf, The Chief Happiness Officer – www.positivesharing.com