How a strong member app helps gyms and health clubs rock the New Year rush?
Introduction
For almost every health club or gym, January, February, and March are the busiest months of the year.
Because everyone has eaten themselves into a frenzy over Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year:)
We eat and drink, eat and drink, eat and drink, and party, stay at home, and then we get lazy!
By Jan 1st everybody’s making New Year’s resolutions and rushing to join the nearest club or gym.
By Feb and March, the tide is reversing. We repeat the same story year after year.
It is time to change this narrative and rewrite the story.
This article is about how the right member app prepares your club for new members:
- How to attract them?
- How to encourage them in their fitness journey?
- And how to keep them so they don’t give up midway and leave the club and abandon their fitness journey.
Technology can be an especially strong differentiator for clubs to attract Gen Z members. Let’s dive into the “HOW” and look at examples of our current customers doing just that!.
Design your onboarding to build a strong relationship with every new member
The first 4-6 weeks are crucial. A well-designed onboarding campaign ensures they’re engaged from Day 1. It’s an excellent opportunity for you to welcome new members, reassure them that they’ve made the right choice, and tell them what’s in store. It’s also the perfect way to educate them on your club app, its features, and how it will improve their experience. Maybe you want to introduce them to some of your trainers, let them know about relevant amenities/classes, or even offer them a free personal training session.
The Marketing Campaigns solution of the SHC club app helps you design onboarding campaigns using a combination of email and push notifications, and run these campaigns on autopilot. The more value you pack into the first few emails, the more likely are members likely to care about future emails from you.
In the words of our customer, Dylan Benett, Regional Marketing Director of Mesa Fitness, Colorado:
“Connecting with a new member in the first 2-3 weeks of their membership can help turn them from a temporary member to a long-term gym-goer. To attempt to accomplish this, we send push notifications and automated messages to communicate with our new members.
After their first week, we send messages such as “How was your first week? What can we do to help?”, and send them class suggestions with a “Hey, have you tried this out?” message on the SHC App.
By staying connected early, members are more likely to extend the term of their membership and we can even prompt them to try our higher-level amenities.”
Make entry to the club seamless and add value
Seamless entry into the club with bar codes is a low hanging fruit that provides immense value on a daily basis. Using the SHC health club software, you can:
- Automate member check-ins with the club app
- Ensure only registered members access your facility
- Members can view and manage their upcoming classes
- Clubs can show banners on the barcode page to promote events
Empower members to manage their diet and exercise routines
While you are a strong ally in their fitness journey, with technology you can set them up for success and help them keep their new year resolutions with Goals and Tracking
- Members can set their current weight and other data in the app
- They can define their exercise and nutrition goals
- They can enter their food and calorie intake for each day
- Instructor/coach can access this data for management
In addition, with the SHC member app, you can create Personalized Fitness Training plans for your members using templates and exercise libraries provided by SHC. Members will have access to over 2000 exercises. They can purchase and follow personalized exercise plans. Trainers can monitor and motivate clients.
Make your class schedules and classes/lessons easy to access and book
Your members need easy access to all manner of classes, be they Group Ex or Pilates or Yoga, particularly when they are new to your clubDon’t hide them. You can show those in the App, where they can browse by Date, by their favorite Instructor or by Type. So, they don’t forget the class they booked, add it to their Home Page and add a reminder/push notification/personal calendar. SHC also allows you to display them on a WebApp and your TV screens!!
No one today wants to wait in line to register for a Tennis Clinic or Swim Lessons. The SHC App automates and simplifies that. In the words of our customer Doug Mahlum, Montana Athletic Club,
“SHC has made our swim lesson member-facing experience great! Previously, we had members lining up at the Front Desk for lessons, causing all kinds of angst for everyone involved. Now, we just publish when lessons open up, people get on the SHC App and they fill up quite nicely! The Stripe payment method has worked out well.
We are just in the process of setting up the system to accept guest passes online, which will be another huge time saver!”
Feeds, Banners and Push Notifications solve your biggest challenge – Communication
A strong member app provides your club with a direct and easy channel to engage with your members. On the SHC club app, our customers send timely, targeted updates, offers and reminders to keep members informed and generate more sales using Feeds, Banners, and Push Notifications.
The Group Ex Director at Catalyst Athletic Club, Ellen Coleman regularly posts on the Club feed, such as:
- “Bring a friend for free.”
- “Any questions, comments, message me.”
- “A new Zumba class at x location on 15th September, 5 pm. Try it.”
She uses this to reach a lot of people at different club locations. And then after posting she checks the feed for the Likes and Comments and interacts with members on the Feed itself. Other members also respond, and it becomes a conversation!
Dylan Benett, Regional Marketing Director of Mesa Fitness, Colorado puts it:
“Banners on the SHC App are a great way for us to make announcements about events and new classes at our clubs. The “Feeds” section is where we communicate between the two clubs to keep them up to date. Additionally, we use the Feeds feature to talk to our members – a Motivational Monday, trainer tips, educational seminars, and more.”
Break down the member-trainer barrier
Strong relationships between trainers and members benefit the club, the trainer and most importantly the member. People come to a class because they like the trainer.
It starts with getting to know the instructor. Dylan Benett, Regional Marketing Director of Mesa Fitness, Colorado puts it:
“Meet the Trainers” is an intimate way for members to gain familiarity with our training staff, which has been proven to be successful for many of our trainers! The SHC app also allows our Instructors/Personal Trainers to add detailed About Me pages with pictures, videos, and testimonials.”
Today it is so easy to use the SHC App to nurture this relationship. Encourage your trainers to form groups. For example, a Yoga instructor can form a private group with his students, share tips and relevant content, and of course simple motivating messages. Like
Instructors can use the SHC App to connect, build excitement and market themselves. Examples of how they do it at Catalyst Athletic club, Buffalo:
“Hey, we are doing a Hill Climb class tomorrow. Make sure you have 2 bottles of water.”
“We are doing Britney Spears vs Taylor Swift in Zumba today”.
As the Director of Catalyst, Ellen Coleman says, “It is a nice way to interact that we never had before. They go to the Class Booking page and send a message before the class starts to everyone booked for the class.”
Members can directly message their instructors, too. For example, they could say, I wasn’t comfortable with this or I loved this about the class today. Again, the instructors can respond on their own time. This helps because sometimes members do not want to speak up in class in front of everyone.
Members become friends and interact in Facebook-like groups
If there is one thing that can keep members in a long forever – it is friends and community. Thankfully technology today makes this easy. You can create a Facebook or Reddit like group for BARRE, another for Goat Yoga and one for all Tennis students being trained by your star Pro called Rocky on the SHC member app. Include your members in the right groups from Day 1 and nurture these communities actively.
The SHC app also lets your members become friends just like in Facebook, and message each other albeit with some privacy norms.
Virtual class options and on-demand workouts
The modern fitness landscape is evolving, with an increasing demand for flexibility and convenience. A robust member app can cater to this trend by allowing you to offer virtual workout options and on-demand content.
Reach your members wherever they are and whenever they want with a perfect Netflix-like experience. Have high-quality video delivered to your phone, tablet, TV, or computer. Provide a superior single-click member experience. Automatically convert Live streamed videos to On Demand. All of the content can be protected behind a paywall. There is a differential pricing for members and non-members. SHC also has an integration with billing software like ABC Fitness, Jonas, etc.
Have a live-streamed class with your favorite instructor. Instructors can stream from any phone, webcam, live streaming, or IP camera on the SHC App. You can receive member attendance reports to understand which classes are popular and have more attendees.
Easy Smoothie ordering with SmoothieNow
Today you have to offer the Starbucks experience at your Smoothie Bar or cafe. If you go to starbucks today, you see very few customers at the counter waiting to get their drink. Because most of them have ordered it on the app.
Your members should be able to order a smoothie the way they want it, with the kind of protein they want in it, with the kind of additives they want in it, the kind of milk they want in it, pay for it, and say, “ I’ll pick it up in an hour and 20 minutes or in 15 minutes.”
The SHC health club software lets you do just that. With SmoothieNow, an industry-first smoothie ordering solution, members pre-order with a few clicks on the App and almost zero wait time.
One of our customers, Robert Creech, Owner, Desoto Athletic Club says:
“With SHC we have been able to reduce lines and wait times at the Juice Bar delivering a better member experience while seeing an increase in bar revenues.”
How can you use your club App to attract new members?
You certainly have a great marketing team and you run great campaigns to convert non-members. But, do you talk about your club app and the health club software you use.
You can use your health club software to attract new members by talking about it in your advertisements and promotions. For example:
- “Do everything on the club app. Book classes, spots and courts with one tap.”
- “Pre-order your favorite smoothies on the club app.”
- “Missed your favorite Group Ex class? Access the recording class on the App.”
Conclusion
A strong member app can be a game-changer for health clubs during the influx of new members in the New Year. It can help clubs attract new members, especially Gen Z. It can also reduce churn and keep members coming back even after the new year rush is over. It is time to change this narrative and uphold those resolutions.
We have a lot of stories to share about clubs who are changing this narrative. Let’s get on a call and start a conversation. We have a special New Year offer we are running. Grab this limited time offer now.
