Build trust, get customer details

We know that it’s vital to collect as many member email addresses and mobile numbers as possible, but does your club go about it the right way? A fish bowl card drop prize draw at reception looks like a marketing drive, and will probably collect the same cards as last month, with very few new email addresses.

em@ail by Sean McEntee

It's important to build trust with your members; sell the benefits

Reinforcing beliefs & surprising stats with TRP 10,000

It was great to attend the TRP 10,000^TM Senior Executive Event last week. Melvyn Hillsdon presented a lot of statistics taken from The Retention People’s ongoing research, focusing on member communications and members who do group exercise and gym versus gym only.

Some of the results were surprising, others reinforced our beliefs or ‘knowledge’, but all the findings were interesting, and everyone went away from the event with actions as well as thoughts as to how they could improve member retention at their clubs.

Radical New Programme to Transform Fitness Industry

A revolutionary new concept is here and it’s going to shake up the Fitness Industry. Dubbed HIIT, the programme sees gym staff approaching members in the gym and introducing themselves; 

“Hi, I’m an Instructor/Trainer”

Staff initially find the interaction quite intense, so will normally try out HIIT for short intervals, before returning to their normal day-to-day routine of checking their smart phones, chatting to each other, or trying to look cool but unapproachable.

Budget Gyms as disruptors

Business disruptors are always interesting, and often very successful. We've blogged about low-cost gym market disruptors here many times, covering staff turnover, member messaging, and lessons from budget gyms. 

The 3 rules for market disruption are as follows:

1. Constantly steer towards your objective
2. Don’t wildly exceed people’s needs
3. The most effortless experience wins

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.