In December of 2012, Crunch Fitness decided to make a change to the website it had designed three years previously. “A lot of things had changed in our business model and in technology in that time,” explained Christina DeGuardi, the SVP of marketing, branding and communications for Crunch Fitness. Looking to add new features and capabilities, Crunch Fitness revamped its website’s design and functionality.
One result was an increase in site traffic. “Our website traffic has increased significantly,” said DeGuardi. “From the launch in mid December to today, our overall visits are up 138 percent and our unique visits are up 65 percent.”
Additionally, Crunch Fitness saw an increase in member-site interaction. “We also have an increase in the number of members using our member management system, iCrunch, of about 150 percent,” continued DeGuardi.
DeGuardi explained that your website is an important part of your club’s brand, and something you should consider keeping optimized. “It’s very important that your site reflects its brand properly,” she said.
Based on Crunch Fitness’ website redesign, DeGuardi shared strategies behind the redesign process. According to DeGuardi, before making any definitive decisions, Crunch Fitness first worked with Ideawork Studios, a full-service branding, advertising and graphic design firm, to get down to the nuts and bolts of exactly what the business was looking for in a website. “We wanted to add a few features our previous site didn’t have,” she explained. Those added features included class reservation capabilities, a member portal and more.
An important feature the Crunch Fitness team decided was a necessity, was the ability to give members and prospects a different web experience. Now, when you visit Crunch.com, you’re asked to either log in as a member, or are directed to a specific club location as a prospect. “We wanted our current members to have a different experience than our prospects’ experience,” said DeGuardi. “We wanted to be able to market to prospects, and then communicate with members information that is relevant to them.”
About half of Crunch.com’s visitors are members, and the other half are prospects. Members can now manage their member profiles, class reservations, favorite classes and more. In addition, prospects have the opportunity to purchase a membership directly from Crunch.com. “We streamlined the membership purchase process,” said. DeGuardi. “Now, a membership can be purchased on one page. Online membership purchases make up about 12-15 percent of our business.” According to DeGuardi, Crunch Fitness has sold 103 percent more online memberships than it did last year.
Before a redesign is launched, DeGuardi advised on the importance of communicating changes to your members. “We put fliers up in our clubs about a week before the website changed, informing them about what was to come,” she explained. “We then further communicated with our members via Facebook and e-blasts.”
Once the transition was made, communication with members continued. “We made sure to listen to our members’ feedback,” said DeGuardi. “There were a few things we ended up changing based off of what our members said. Of course, there is an adjustment period.”
However, DeGuardi said the website changes were well worth the time and effort. “It took some time for people to get used to the new site, but now that they’re using it, I think it’s been much better,” she said.
Based on Crunch Fitness’ redesign success, consider what redesigning your website could do for your club and your members. Here are some additional tips from DeGuardi on web redesign:
• “Use high-quality photos and video content to bring the brand experience to life. Media should be informative and entertaining.”
• “Ensure you have enough dedicated content so that members and prospects are driven to visit and use your site.”
• “Make sure your audience feels they are being understood and spoken to directly.”
• “E-commerce can definitely have a positive impact on your overall business. People are more comfortable with online purchases than ever before.”
• “Create an experience that is device specific (people use their phones or tablets differently than they do their computers).”
• “Ensure that you are tracking your website’s performance and set goals for improvement.”
By Rachel Zabonick
