A young entrepreneur opens a small gym in his suburban neighborhood in an old warehouse. He spends a conservative amount of money on basic weight-training equipment, bikes and treadmills, and sets aside space for small group exercise classes. His family works the front desk, sells memberships, and helps run the business.
The first members consist of friends, neighbors and employees from local businesses. The gym hosts community meetings, sponsors charity events and offers childcare and kids camps throughout the year. In its first months, membership grows to 500, barely covering operating costs. As years go by, the gym realizes significant growth. Eventually, with over 3,000 members, a retention rate of 82 percent, and steady membership growth of five percent each year, the gym generates revenues of $5 million annually.
A Fortune 500 corporation constructs a huge multi-purpose fitness facility in the same area. The facility has stateof- the-art equipment, breathtaking architecture, sophisticated computers, highly-qualified fitness professionals, low membership fees, and offers every amenity imaginable. But, within a year of its grand opening, the new facility is purchased by a real estate company and turned into a retirement home.
While this example may seem farfetched, it’s not. Why is it that the smaller gym withstands the test of time and competition? The answer is simple…community.
Although the smaller gym may not have had the best location or equipment, it provided an atmosphere that fostered unique experiences for each member and promoted interaction among members and staff. The gym also provided services best-suited to the needs of the community and its members. It became more than just a fitness facility; it became a place to meet, interact and share experiences.
What Defines a Community?
A community is made up of a group of likeminded people with common interests, values and goals. It can be the place where you live, work, study, or your circle of friends. Among other things, the following traits make up a strong community:
• shared interests
• shared values
• feeling of belonging
• mutual support of members
• physical face-to-face interaction.
The key to community success is ensuring that all members have ample opportunities to interact, are wellinformed of opportunities, and have a safe, comfortable environment to share experiences. The strength and success of all relationships, and of a community, is dependent on effective communication. Effective communication should include information that:
• pertains to the recipient
• is beneficial to the recipient
• reaches the intended recipient in a timely manner
• generates a response (physical, mental. or emotional).
The most successful clubs have found ways to communicate effectively with their membership and promote interaction within their club in consistent, creative ways. By ensuring membership a greater awareness of their club community, these clubs are flourishing and seeing financial benefits of their efforts.
Unfortunately, the average fitness club has a ratio of staff-to-club members that is far from ideal. With the average health club employing the equivalent of 25 fulltime staff to service over 2,500 members, each employee is now responsible for providing positive experiences for over 100 members in addition to their primary roles within the club.
There is no secret to what clubs need to be successful but there is a more important question…How can clubs with limited resources and staff communicate more effectively with members?
Getting to Know Members
Long gone are sign-in sheets at the front desk and appointment books filled with pencil and ink. As membership populations increase in size and diversity, management is forced to adopt new technologies to better maintain the “small club” feel in a “big club” crowd. Today, powerful membership management software programs (either client-based or internet/web-based) help clubs get to know their members in an effective, efficient way. The programs streamline administrative processes to keep clubs in operation and provide beneficial tools to help clubs better understand their membership make-up.
From age and gender to frequency of club visits and classes most often attended, these programs provide an overall view of a club community. The information helps management determine habits of specific groups and trends within the membership. By determining needs of its membership, a club can tailor schedules, specialty programs and hours of operation to suit members.
Familiarizing Members with the Club
Knowing the membership make-up is only half the battle. A club may offer the right services, schedule classes to suit its members and stock the most popular brands of products, but if members are unaware of these efforts it makes no difference to the bottom line.
Member awareness is crucial to utilization of the club, services it provides, and products it sells. If members don’t take the time to familiarize themselves with the club and all it has to offer, they are less likely to participate in club activities. This then puts the onus on the club to keep members informed.
Traditional forms of club communication have included signs, posters, and newsletters. These collaterals take time and effort to produce but are viewed by only a small percentage of the membership on a regular basis. Some clubs include announcements in group classes to update members on timesensitive club information. However, only those attending the classes benefit. Information may be available, but often only a small portion of members take the time, or make the effort, to attend to it. These modes of communication offer only limited uptake by the membership.
Communicating Directly with Your Members
Although the ideal scenario to ensure the message is heard is either “face-to-face” or by phone this is an unrealistic task for any business, based on resources, time and money.
With vast improvements in the quality and functionality of hardware and software for message-delivery systems on the market, advanced technologies now make it possible to communicate with large groups of people in a short amount of time – personally, professionally and cost effectively.
When it comes to finding better ways to communicate effectively with club members, broadcast-messaging via telephone and email may be the answer. These systems can take data from existing membership-management software programs (name, phone, email address, appointments, etc.) and use that information to communicate directly with members and staff.
Broadcast Telephone Messaging
Telephone messaging systems have seen dramatic improvements. Long gone are the days of the mechanical voice. Today’s telephone messaging allows for users to record their own messages and manipulate the electronic voice for speed, volume and tone. Resulting messages become more fluid as the program inserts variables within each changing message.
As products have become more interactive, call recipients using a touchtone phone can participate in surveys, choose messages to listen to, leave voicemail messages, or transfer directly to a live person. By giving members the opportunity to interact within the call, they can respond to requests for information with minimal effort and distraction. Alleviating the need for numerous back-and-forth phone calls, this form of informationsharing also provides members with a non-threatening opportunity to communicate with the club, and provides the club with a powerful vehicle to gather information effectively and efficiently.
Broadcast Email Messaging
Although email messaging may be perceived as having less personal impact than “face-to-face” or “voice-to-voice” contact, it can play a significant role in communicating with members. As a mode of communication, email messaging is fast, efficient, and allows messages to be saved for future reference. With email messaging, clubs can broadcast large amounts of detailed information to each club member. Depending on the email messaging product used, information can be more visually appealing, include vast amounts of detail, direct the message recipient to information on the internet (e.g. club website), and can be viewed over-and-over again.
There are limitations to the use of broadcast email messaging, the greatest challenges being collection of current email addresses from each member and hurdles posed by today’s spam-filtering programs. Large portions of email messaging products are unable to avoid spam markers when sending out mass- or bulkemail messages. Spam markers block messages from being received even though recipients are expecting them. More complex email messaging products now available on the market have the ability to send messages to each individual recipient, one at a time, thereby avoiding the majority of spam filters. Depending on the type and amount of email messaging you intend to use, choose email messaging software wisely.
With an average of 35 percent of the North American population utilizing the internet on a regular basis, email messaging may not be the best mode of communication for most clubs. On the other hand, it is a great supplement to other communications efforts.
Whether you are a small studio or franchised health center, effective communication is vital to the success of your business. By offering members the products and services they want, your business is only addressing one piece of the puzzle. Increasing member awareness through modes of communication that “touch” your members can increase member interaction, member participation, and ultimately, member satisfaction.
Andrea Oh is the Sales and Marketing Director for Critical Motion Inc. She can be contacted at 866.785.5515, or by emailandrea@criticalmotion.ca, or visit www.criticalmotion.ca.
