Brandon Campbell, the acting director of the professional division of Mito Red Light, Inc., shares how to use proactive wellness services to get people back in your gym’s doors in a post-COVID world.
With the explosion in popularity of virtual fitness providers like Peloton over the past few years, it is essential health clubs create strategic ways to get people back in their doors in a post-COVID world. It is time for health clubs to get creative with the way they encourage people to step through their doors and then support them in experiencing something they simply can’t get at home.
In order to accomplish this, many health clubs have started offering new technologies and services in order to differentiate themselves and get people excited about unique offerings that compound the health benefits they are there for. Not only does this approach entice new members, but it also gets long-time members back off pause and into the club again.
This can clearly make a difference to the bottom line by increasing membership sales and promoting member retention, but that’s only the beginning. The most exciting component of these types of offerings is that many people are willing to invest more to have regular access to these powerful technologies and services.
In fact, people are investing in these services outside of health clubs for $35 to $250 per session or more.
The good news is there are many strategic ways these proactive wellness offerings can be monetized within a health club. Here are a few of the ways the most innovative health clubs are currently offering these proactive wellness services:
One-off Sessions
They are being sold as one-off, session-based services, in packages similar to personal training, and with a premium membership model. Here’s a real-world example of how this can be successfully implemented.
There’s a World Gym location currently offering these types of services, primarily with a premium membership model, and they have more than 100 members investing six times the standard membership to gain access to these services. Their programs have been so successful they are expanding their offerings and when they re-launch the premium membership, it will be at 10 times the standard membership.
That may seem like a lot, but it is still a tremendous value for their members because a membership for these types of services at an outside provider averages $200 to $300 per month or more, and doesn’t include any gym access, classes or amenities.
Be Deemed Essential
The other exciting component of a few of these strategic service offerings is that they were the reason certain businesses were deemed “essential” last year. As a result, these proactive wellness providers were allowed to stay open during lockdowns.
One of the businesses that took full advantage of this sold 241 new franchises in 2020 alone and more than doubled its retail footprint during a year when nearly all of its competitors were closed.
The health clubs that are the first to act on this growing trend will have a tremendous advantage and will be positioned to drive significant new revenue in a multitude of ways.
