Article image

Tips For Improving Gym Membership Retention

23 Jan 20234 min read

While it’s common for people to join the gym at the start of a new year, it’s less common for gym members to stick to their new routine.

In fact, a study found that out of individuals that had set fitness new year resolutions, ‘73 percent gave up before meeting their goal’, emphasising how gym owners need proper solutions in place to help membership retention.

Tips for improving gym membership retention include, but are not limited to:

  1. Keeping the gym clean
  2. Gaining feedback and reviews
  3. Keeping it personal
  4. Placing an emphasis on community 

1. Keeping The Gym Clean

The first tip to improve gym membership retention is to keep the gym clean. 

It’s essential to keep your gym as clean as possible with regular hygiene schedules to help keep germs at bay, especially when you consider that ‘each piece of gym equipment has more than 1 million germs per square inch’.

Failure to carry out thorough sanitisation in your gym will likely result in people becoming sick, causing members to take time off exercising at the gym to recover. When people are no longer in the routine of going to the gym due to sickness, the risk of them cancelling their membership can increase.

Alongside ensuring a regular cleaning schedule is followed throughout the day, be sure to keep bottles of disinfectant and clean wash cloths accessible to gym-goers. 

This will encourage customers to clean each machine after use and will provide others with the peace of mind that you have good hygiene practices in place.

2. Gaining Feedback & Reviews 

The next tip to improve gym membership retention is to gain feedback and reviews from your customers.

Gaining feedback from your customers on a regular basis helps you to determine what is going well at your gym and what could be improved in order to prioritise the customer experience.

Not only does this help you to gather valuable information on your customers and how you can prioritise their needs, but also allows you to make any necessary changes as and when they’re required to keep your customers happy. 

In addition to this, asking your customers to leave reviews on your Google My Business page will also help to build your online presence, in turn helping you to become a bigger authority amongst the other gyms in your area.

Client reviews and testimonials can also be posted on your Instagram page and other social media accounts to generate more interest.

3. Keeping It Personal

You will also want to keep the experience personal for your customers to help improve gym membership retention. 

Your customers want to know that you care about their health and wellbeing, and that you see them more than just another conversion. 

That said, you will want to make the effort to gather information from members and use it to engage and communicate with them in order to provide them with a more personalised experience. 

This could include something as simple as sending your customers a message on their birthday. Adding this personalised touch will not only help you to build a relationship with your customers and show them that you care, but will also help to set you apart from competitors.

By going the extra mile, then, you might even encourage them to upgrade their membership or refer a friend. 

4. Placing An Emphasis On Community

Last, but not least, a great way to improve gym membership retention is to place an emphasis on community.

Considering that 22% of women aged 18-34 don’t attend fitness classes due to a lack of confidence, building a community can significantly help to make your customers feel a part of something bigger and help combat a lack of confidence. 

There are many ways to build a community, such as running various competitions, offering group classes where people can meet like minded individuals, or create monthly challenges. 

This will help your customers to see that your gym is more than just a place to work out, and is somewhere that they can grow in confidence on their fitness journey.

Building a community in your gym, then, will mean your customers are more likely to feel supported as part of something and will thus keep them coming back.

YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN..

Article image
The number of gyms and fitness centres is increasing in the UK, with the number rising to 3,720 in 2022 from 3,060 in 2021, highlighting the opportunity to set up a fitness studio.
08 Mar 20234 min read
Article image
The number of gyms and fitness centres is increasing in the UK, with the number rising to 3,720 in 2022 from 3,060 in 2021, highlighting the opportunity to set up a fitness studio.
20 Feb 20234 min read
Article image
While it’s common for people to join the gym at the start of a new year, it’s less common for gym members to stick to their new routine. In fact, a study found that out of individuals that had set fitness new year resolutions, ‘73 percent gave up before meeting their goal’, emphasising how gym owners need proper solutions in place to help membership retention.
23 Jan 20234 min read
Article image
Although January is a common month for people to join the gym, the enthusiasm soon wears off. In fact, it has been found that ‘more than 90% of [new members] will quit after three months of going to the gym’, emphasising how important it is for gym owners to find long-term solutions to attracting new members. So, how do you attract new members to a gym as a gym owner?
16 Jan 20235 min read
Article image
Fitness
When you’re first getting into fitness, the gym and exercise as a whole can feel overwhelming, especially with the volume of advice floating around the industry. 
22 Dec 20225 min read