Are Apps the Answer?

Like wearables (last post), apps are everywhere, and “There’s an app for that®” has become everyday parlance (although you need to note that it’s an Apple Registered Slogan when writing it, apparently). But can apps, and specifically, bespoke club apps, help improve member retention?

Wearables - the panacea for member retention, or another placebo?

In 2014, it looks like the whole world is going wearable. From Google Glass, to Apple’s iWatch, we will be more connected than ever before. As a tech fan, this is really exciting, but don’t be fooled into thinking that this is going make significant in-roads into member retention at your club.

Stay or Leave - Letter to Health Club Management March 2014

What a great article (Stay or Leave) by Mike Hill in HCM Jan 14 (p62), looking at why members leave health clubs. If operators act on this kind of research, we might be able to get somewhere with the seemingly eternal retention ‘battle’.

The two key experience areas for me in Mike’s research were members’ first few visits, and the time after leaving.

Have you been bitten by the Zombie Zumba bug yet?

Following the rise in popularity of fitness motivation apps like Zombie Run, facebook app zombie wars, and films such as Shaun of the Dead and Dawn of the Dead, we bring you Zombie Zumba.

Zumba* is the hugely successful fitness craze that has swept the world since 2001, with over 14 million people per week taking part in dance and aerobic moves. Various different offshoots have sought to get more people involved, and help even more people to get active.  And so Zombie Zumba was born.

Image courtesy of Alisha Adkins

First things first - listen to your new members!

We know that the first few visits are key to retaining new gym members, and of those visits, the very first visit is the most vital. Whether the member has already joined, or is on a guest pass, their experience and feelings of their first visit will shape the route their journey takes.

There is an abundance of advice and recommendations on how the experience should be, from building rapport to setting goals, exercise programme libraries to recommended minimum visits, and when the next review should be. You’re better off keeping it simple.

The 80:20 principle of gyms

The Pareto Principle, or 80:20 rule, can be applied to a lot of life and business situations, and it's a great lens through which to look at health clubs…

The principle is most easily explained with a few examples. You wear around 20% of your clothes around 80% of the time. You spend 80% of your social time with 20% of your friends. And in business, 80% of your revenue often comes from 20% of your clients. The split is not always 80:20, it can be 70:30, but is sometimes 90:10 or more extreme. For this post, we’ll stick to the 80:20 split for simplicity.

A Different Class for new beginners?

It's widely acknowledged that classes and group exercise help to engage members more and therefore improve member retention. But how many extra classes do you put on in the busy new member periods of January/February or September?

Hopefully, you know how many of your new members are completely new to exercise, and can adjust or balance the class timetable accordingly. Classes like Spin, HIIT, Tabata, or ViPR are all very exciting for the industry, and for the experienced gym bunny. But

New Fitness Class to take UK by storm

New Year’s resolutioners are flocking to gyms as usual this January, but in 2014 there’s a new class designed to motivate more members to lose weight.

The “Twerkout” is a full body exercise class, based around moves made popular at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. It’s a great class for beginners and experienced exercisers and focuses on bums, legs and core strength.

Retention Focus - Do we need people?

The LFX event in Ireland last month was a great success, with some really good audience interaction and debate around member retention. There were many good questions, one of which we’d like to expand on here – please let us know your thoughts in the comments below?

“Should we focus more on staff coaching or member messaging… surely staff are more effective at interacting with members and improving retention than sending messages.”

The Perfect Health Club

In an infinite universe, where everything's possible, there's a gym somewhere that has reached its member capacity. All the equipment is being utilised all the time, and the layout is such that members can switch between exercises with minimum waiting and fuss. The only time that new members can join is when existing members move out of the area (which they rarely do, as the club is so good), or die (which they hardly ever do, as they're all so fit!)

Of course, there are plans to expand