Christina Rondeau, a consultant for Gym Rescue Marketing, shares tips on retaining your gym members and keeping them engaged.
You put in all the extra hours and time to market, train your staff, develop new programs, give tour after tour and sign-up new clients. It’s tireless and you probably lose sleep over it. Sound familiar?
All these new clients come in so enthusiastic to reach their health goals and work out at your facility. Some clients stay for the long haul, some fade out and some you lose as fast as they signed up. What if there was a way to keep them all clients for years? The value of one person already a member of your facility is huge. One person to a facility can be worth thousands of dollars. One person can refer endless people, spend money in your pro shop, schedule personal training and be sold other services you may offer. You did all the work to get them in your facility so let’s focus on keeping those members there as long as possible. Retention is key to survival, knowing your receivables and paying your bills.
The question is how do you keep that excitement flowing with new clients through the years and retain them long term.
When people join a gym, no matter what kind of club, gym, MMA, boxing, or martial arts studio you may have, people are joining to be a part of “something.” They aren’t even sure what, but they know they need to be there, and they want to have that sense of being part of “something.” Don’t get me wrong, some people just want to come in, work out and leave but a larger percentage of people do want to be part of something. It’s human nature to want to feel included and find your tribe.
We have been an expert at retention and our business is still thriving after 33 years. We have 10% of students that have literally been with me for all 33 years. That number speaks volumes. Communication between you, staff and your clients is super important. They want to feel cared for, heard and valued. So, we value them with fun, engaging contests and events to create that family, community, and tribe atmosphere. They have now found their “something.” It’s like a relationship: they need to be wined and dined and you can’t let that just fade away or the relationship falls apart. You must stay diligent and always make your clients feel valued.
Get creative and plan out events for your members months in advance. Let them know in person where they can find the events — online, flyers or event board — and tell them one-on-one you would love them to participate. It takes time to build events sometimes, so stay consistent and continue to hold them even if three people show up. They will build in time and your clients will love and appreciate your facility even more than they already do.
