Branding For Health Clubs!
Your fitness branding is not built on logos, color schemes, or typography. These are part of the building blocks of your identity. Operationalizing your brand makes for an effective approach to managing and growing your Health Club Business.
Your gym’s culture, core operations, and customer experiences are all crucial customer touchpoints that give your members a sense of “who you are” beyond copy and flashy graphics. Most business owners fail to see the business value of their brand beyond an external, surface level.
Your Gym’s Branding is not what you say you are — It’s what you do!
Here are some questions you can answer to better understand what your brand should communicate!
#1 – Who Are You? A community? A space exclusively for women? A fitness brand?
#2 – Who Needs To Know? – Define your demographic? Who do you serve?
#3 – How Will They Find Out?- Define your touchpoints from acquisition to member experience.
#4 – Why Should They Care? – What do they care about? Why are they at your club? Reassure them that they’re at the right place!
Create a Sense Of Shared Values – Inside & Out!
Your Fitness Brand is designed for every person in your ecosystem to have a set of shared values, think of it as an umbrella under which a common intent is promoted and nurtured!
This means your gym’s front desk staff, admin, maintenance, trainers, coaches, and every member of your team has understood and internalized who you are and what you are trying to deliver to your members.
This also means your members, people in the community, competing, and complementary business have a consistent perception of your health club & what it represents.
Your clubs’ reputation, its culture, and the values your club aspires to will be the foundation on which you build trust in the community, grow your memberships, and extend your member loyalty.
Sell What You Are – Not Services!
You may have the best gym equipment, a stellar team of trainers, and facilities that are fit for a national sports team but can still be beaten by a niche studio simply because their branding appeals to members in a way yours failed to.
A health club must commit to developing authentic connections with their community rather than relying on facility superiority alone. Your members associate with your fitness brand based on the identity you help them experience or express.
Are you running programs for special needs kids? Is your club inclusive? How are you making a difference in the community? And most importantly –
‘How you are influencing your perception among your team and your club members?
Ignore What’s Hot – Focus On Culture!
Relevance is not built by hopping on to the latest trend and milking it for all its worth. It’s built by understanding the larger cultural changes in your community and focusing on internalizing the values that resonate with that culture shift.
This could mean inclusivity. This could mean accessibility. This could mean changing processes to accommodate a better experience. This could also mean leveraging your health club’s facilities to include programs for the differently-abled or terminally ill.
Some trends might not be tasteful, or may not connect with your demographic and may take attention away from what you’ve worked so hard to build. It pays to know your lane and make it the lane your members want to be in!
Related article you might want to read: How multi-location clubs and gyms can deliver a consistent member experience
What Is The Purpose Of Your Health Clubs Brand?
Be the Easy Choice – Help your members choose you as their premier health and wellness destination by differentiating your club from your competitors.
Reassure Them – Buyers’ remorse can kill your chances of retaining your members and can make them feel like they’re trapped in a bad relationship. Your Brand communicates the innate qualities of your health club and reassures members that they have made the right choice. By giving them a great experience throughout all touchpoints.
Engage Them – This is when you use your brand identity elements like imagery, cadence, and associations to encourage members to identify with your health club.
Let your members know they belong, remind them that you’re awesome, and build their confidence in you through operationalized branding that ensures every touchpoint related to your gym leads to positive associations for your members.
Finally, Please Stay ‘On Brand’!
‘Stay on message’ is the name of the Brand game. The best health club brands speak with one distinctive voice. On their blogs, in a tweet, in conversations with a member, in a class conducted by their instructor, the health club needs to cast the same resounding message. It must be unforgettable, recognizable, and centered on your members.
The best brands stand for — a greater purpose, a viewpoint, an established set of values, and a message that breaks through the noise.
Members should get the same brand experience when interacting with your digital properties like your website or your App.
At SHC, we’re committed to extending your fitness brand’s experience to your by giving your members unfettered access to your clubs’ services on their smartphones while increasing your cash flow. Today. And In the future.
We’ve worked with our clubs to ensure their Apps reflect their brand identity and create a unified experience for their members’ whether they’re sweating it out at the club or in their homes!
