These days, Club Management Software does so much more than help club owners manage their businesses. Today, they use it as a part of their marketing strategy, in order to maximize member total, retention and above all, profit.
Joshua Bailey, general manager for Anytime Fitness, would “without a doubt” recommend other club owners to use their CMS for marketing purposes.
“Before Club Hub, we were using Google Docs, something we came up with ourselves. It was like the ‘Stone Age’ in a way,” Bailey said. “Club Hub has done wonders for our facility, especially retention.”
Club Hub has been in effect at Anytime Fitness for about 9 to 10 months.
“Some clubs took to the process faster than others,” Bailey said.
So, how has Club Hub improved Anytime Fitness’ marketing strategies?
“Club Hub is synced to our website. So, whenever someone signs up for a 7-day pass, or a 14-day pass, it sends us an e-mail. That information can then be used to make notes about prospective members, or what we call a New Member Profile,” he said.
The New Member Profile is the club’s tool to understand why this potential member is visiting the gym.
“This [New Member Profile] will contain basic information as name, phone number, etc., but the most important aspect of the new member profile is that it acts as a structure to ask qualifying questions and to take down notes,” Bailey said.
These qualifying questions include, “what brings you to the club today?,” “how did you hear about us?,” “past workout experiences?,” “what is your motivation to work out?,” “what aspect of health and wellness do you need the most help in?”
Each of these questions is followed by “why?” to find out more about the member and create a relationship.
These profiles allow Anytime Fitness to keep in touch with their members.
The gyms also use Club Hub to maintain and keep track of a huge database of over 300 people who “had signed up at a bad time, or just didn’t like it,” and terminated their membership at the club.
This information helped Anytime Fitness maximize profit, as well as retention, during their big 3-Day Sale, advertising to non-members to “Join for $1, plus 1st Month Free!”
“The 3-day sale was a huge success. We used a combination of newsletter-type e-mails and made over 150 phone calls. Between our 5 clubs, we totaled 275 new members. I would say 70-80 percent of these new members were a result from Club Hub,” Bailey said. “Whether it was an old prospect, expired or cancelled member, or new leads from Facebook, website, or fliers, everyone is inputted into Club Hub. Follow-up calls and appointments are all set up within Club Hub. Our goal was to schedule as many appointments as possible before the 3-Day Sale began.”
There are many aspects of a Club Management System that are useful when it comes to marketing, but for Bailey and Anytime Fitness, the New Member Profile is their favorite feature.
“The notes on members are key,” Bailey said. “I can’t say it enough! We can always pop up info about a member, and these help with our 30-60-90 day follow-ups.”
Bailey also mentioned using Club Hub, or another CMS, allows Anytime Fitness, or any other club, to further “rely on internal marketing.”
