Facilitate what your gym and health club members are already wanting to do during seasonal months with three summer engagement strategies.
Temperatures rise. Member usage drops. Add in a spring season where vaccine distribution keeps ramping up and more things are opening back up – you are in competition for the time and desire of your members. So how do you win the battle and keep your members engaged throughout the summer? Don’t overthink it.
Facilitate what your members are already wanting to do with these three summer engagement strategies:
Outdoor Workouts
When possible, take some of your group training workouts outside. Whether it be just in the parking lot of your facility or a local park. Giving your group training clients a taste of the outdoors can prevent them from bailing on “being stuck indoors” on a beautiful evening.
Hosting free outdoor workouts for the local community is also a great way to take advantage of the warmer weather. It will also generate some prospects who just show up to see what it is all about. Depending on the location and set up, you will also garner some attention from people passing by the area.
Switch It Up
The last section was about taking some of your existing offerings outdoors. This section is about switching it up and being more than just free weight, circuit, functional and cardio equipment to your members. If warmer weather means your members want to get outside to run, hike or bike, do it with them.
Taking these activities your members are already going to do, with or without you, and making them part of your member experience is an easy way to really become more than a gym to your members. Pick a time and place and invite your members. It really is that simple.
More than a Workout
The first two suggestions revolved around working out and being active. This one is really the icing on the cake to having an awesome culture at your facility and engaging your members on another level. As with the hiking and running, make your facility the catalyst for activities your members are already going to do anyway.
During the summer, your members are spending their time:
- Kayaking or rafting
- Sporting events
- Drive-in movies
- Concerts
- Waterparks
- Cookouts
Why not capitalize by organizing all of these things as club events and go as a group? You will be surprised when members who don’t usually engage with staff show up to non-workout events. Not only that, but members will be more likely to bring their friends and family to fun events than to drag them to a workout.
Not only are these summer engagement strategies going to help you keep your members engaged throughout the seasonal months, but they are also going to take your relationship with your members to another level. No longer will you just be the gym they go to – you will be a huge piece of their social life and family.
Deepening those relationships means they will be members for life and provide you with referrals. As a bonus, all of these outdoor happenings make for great social media posts for your facility, and at the end of the day, who doesn’t love a little fun in the sun?
If these sound like too much effort, then you will be left sounding like LFO in the fall: “I’d take (members) if I had one wish, but (they’ve) been gone since that summer, since that summer.”
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Ryan O'Toole is the regional manager for Anytime Fitness Cheswick, Leechburg and Kittanning, and the founder of Culture First Fitness. He can be reached at ryan@culturefirstfitness.com.
