Marketing Your Fitness Studio For Increased Profits
Maintaining customer loyalty in your Fitness Studio maybe very tough but, mostly, that is due to competitive nature of the industry. It is not uncommon for members to start missing classes after a few sessions. Many people start out with good intentions but other commitments starts to impinge on their daily routines and they begin to find reasons not to attend classes. On top of that your competitors maybe offering promotions and deals so the temptation to jump ship and save money is always a strong motivator.
You may not be aware but research has shown that, generally, in the Fitness Industry to acquire a new member is 9 times more expensive than retaining an existing member. The same research also suggest profits can be increased between 25% to 95% simply by increasing the retention rate by 5%. Furthermore, just a 2% increase in membership rention is the same effect as reducing your cost by 10%. From those figures it is clear that retaining members should be your goal in your Fitness Studio business.
The are may steps Fitness Studio owners can take to retain members and at the same time recruit new members through effective marketing, below we have listed just a few ideas that are relatively easy to setup but could reap big dividends when done properly.
Marketing to your existing members – Most of the time members will only leave if their expectation are not being met. If you are losing members then you should be asking why, and the best person to give you those answers you are the members themselves. Simply ask them why they are leaving or have left. Once you understand what members expectation are you can put in place marketing efforts to inform all existing members.
Implement a “Refer-a-Friend” program – This could be of the most successful fitness marketing ideas that a Studio can use to increase membership. Your current m members are your best sales people. They’ve been coming to your facility for weeks, months, if not years. Why not leverage their happiness and results into new members and increased revenue?
Varying the classes on offer – this could be the easiest way how to improve your fitness business. At some Fitness Centers they have cardio kickboxing class, yoga, hot yoga, pilates, hot pilates, a Zumba-like dance class, a body-weight-only bootcamp, TRX and an abdominal class. Starting a fitness bootcamp is by far the easiest class to start having at your fitness center. All you need to do is sit down with your trainers and come up with an ass-kicking 45 minute cardio routine. Choreograph the routine to some music, put up some flyers around your locality and you’re good to go.
Form partnerships with local businesses – Doing some outreach promotion to local businesses is a great marketing technique to increase membership and market share.
Offering corporate memberships – A guaranteed way to increase your membership base is by giving large businesses rates to corporate clients. Sell a fitness studio membership to corporate businesses can be a bit of work, but the results are immense.
Use Social Media Marketingg – When use correctly social media can be an effective channel for recruiting new members, but you should employ the service of someone who fully understand how to get the best from these marketing channels
Keeping youy current members happy whilst attracting new members is a fine balancing act but it is necesarry for any Fitness studio business looking to expand and become profitable over many years. Effective marketing is key to achieving results on both counts.