As more people are turning to gyms or yoga studios to get fit, it is now more than important to work on engaging them. As much as people want to get fit, they won’t renew their membership at a gym if they don’t see results or they don’t find engagement there.
To run a successful business, you need your customers to retain their membership and that you can only achieve with engagement. Most gymming studios are slowly but steadily making changes to their marketing strategy to try and focus more on nurturing human relationships. The key to your business flourishing is engagement, why? It is because:
When you commit to interacting with your customer one on one and make them feel valuable, they are less likely to stop coming to your gym.
Engagement helps build you a community, and if you want to retain customers, building a community is crucial.
Engagement for a gym or a fitness center should focus on how you are communicating with the people who are paying you. How you motivate them to remain fit and keep working out. What amenities can you provide them which keeps them engaged with your studio? It can involve interpersonal relationships like getting a personal trainer, a diet chart, making them feel like a family, and so on.
All this is great, but how do you make sure that your studio is doing enough to keep your customers engaged? Well, the following pointers can help.
1. Focus on group exercise programs
Make sure you have certain group exercise programs for your customers. It will help people who are like-minded connect. When people who are especially trying to lose weight find a friendly atmosphere or a community where they can blend in, they are likely to retain their membership in the gym.
You can have a Zumba session for women or a cardio exercise session for men looking to get fit, and so on.
Since, the gym is mostly about one-on-one training, having group programs can help people part of an extended family.
2. Learn the names of the people who come to your gym
One of the essential things for any business looking for a successful run is customer satisfaction and relationship. The best way to create a relationship with your customers is to connect with them. Thus, knowing their first name and using it to interact with them is important.
It helps you make them feel a part of a community, makes them feel that they are valuable, and not just a customer. Even a little thing like this can lead to having more customers retaining their membership.
3. Keep in touch with your customers out of the studio as well
Communicating with your customers outside the studio is important as well. Keeping in touch with a website doesn’t count as your regular consumers won’t check it. So, have a group on social media or a text chain.
You can use it to communicate offers, discounts, and so on with your customers. You can even use it to keep track of a customer who has not been coming for their training session for a while. Letting them know that the gym misses them or asking the reason for not coming, and providing help can all work for you.
For a commercial gym, it is important to invest in some management systems. Also, come up with seasonal and festival offers as it aids in bringing in new customers.
4. Have a fitness challenge
A creative way to keep your client engaged with your gym and fitness is to start a fitness challenge of your own. It can be a simple thing like losing 2 pounds in a week or completing certain miles on the treadmill, and so on.
It can motivate your client, and if you help them achieve their goal and reward them, it can help you retain your customers too.
5. Focus on your website and content
A website is important for your fitness center or gym because it is the identity of your brand. Also, old and potential customers will use your website to get information about certain deals or trainers and so on. If it is not updated, you don’t have a chance to engage your audience.
So, make sure your website has:
- Quality, appealing, and easy to use design.
- Have a strong but user-friendly navigation
- Update information regularly
- Use images or videos to show the success stories of customers. You can use Canva to edit images of customers for inspiring new customers.
- Work on the site’s SEO
- Have a blog as it can get more traffic to your website.
6. Keep it fresh by going outdoors
No one wants a mundane routine, so work on keeping your session fresh. You can keep your gym class outside in the park or somewhere else. It will bring freshness to the class and increase the engagement of the customer as well.
7. Work to keep your old members engaged
When you are trying to get new customers or engage clients who just joined the gym, don’t neglect your loyal and old clients. It is important to focus on them as well, and I don’t mean just during the sessions.
Give them discounts or offers on their membership, and so on. You can start a referral program which gives them a discount when they bring a new member, while the new member gets to try a demo class for free.
Keep it simple, so that both targets are completed, and everyone is happy.
8. Work on your staff and employees
Your staff and employees are the people who will be interacting with the clients on a regular basis. It is their job to make a relationship with them, and help retain memberships for the gym. If they are not satisfied with the work culture or you keep having employee turnover, it can get difficult.
Clients become used to a specific employee or staff, and if you can’t retain that employee, it will become impossible for the client to find their footing. So, keeping your employees happy and motivated is crucial too.
Gyms or fitness centers are the need of the hour as everyone is becoming aware of the benefits of being fit. If you follow these tips, your engagement rate will increase, and you will be able to retain more customers.
