The question that should be on every Fitness Club and Gym Owner’s mind, providing they aren’t already at full capacity.

How can I grow the membership numbers for my Gym or Fitness Club?

Well, we here at Ashbourne have put together some ideas and strategies to help bolster your Gym or Fitness Club’s membership numbers.

These ideas have been cultivated by members of our team with real, practical experience in running Gyms and Fitness Clubs. Each of these methods has been implemented in an actual club environment and seen results.

 

Stage 1: Marketing 

To the uninitiated or the uninterested, marketing (and especially digital marketing) can sound like a quagmire not worth wading into. However, with only a few simple concepts, you access and dominate this powerful front to really expand your membership base for your Gym or Fitness Club

• Understand your target demographics/market.
• Discover what that target audience wants/needs in a Gym or a Fitness Club
• Understand if your Gym or Fitness Club can sate these needs? If not, can you easily adapt to do so. If so, fantastic!
• Once you’ve got these customers, how are you keeping them? You have a captive audience, what message are you going to broadcast to them.

 

So as you can tell from those four points, marketing is about knowing your target audience, what they want to hear and having the product/services to give them what they want. 

Marketing will be essential for most businesses to stay afloat. Unless you are counting on an incredibly strong word of mouth spread from the members of your Gym or Fitness Club, you will need to help your message spread.

This isn’t a day of effort, marketing will be something that needs to be set up for every week, every month, every year. 

 

Understand how to market your Gym or Fitness Club inside and outside of your existing membership

1. Send out regular mailpieces

A mailpiece is an e-mail, a letter, or a leaflet that will serve as a push or a reminder about the services that your Gym or Fitness Club offers. A successful mail piece will.

a. Identify a need of your target audience

b. Show how your Gym or Fitness Club can fulfill that need.

• Branding is important throughout your business. This includes any mail pieces, you will need your logo and other distinctive branding elements on it so your existing and prospective customers know who it has come from. 
• Ensure that the service/product your offering is one you can provide, and is enticing enough to retain or attract members. 
• Your mail piece should tell them what to do next. This is typically called a Call To Action. Tell them to email you, subscribe to your social media, or sign up using a voucher. 
• Scarcity and FOMO (fear of missing out) are tried and tested tactics. Make your deal seem scarce, add a time limit, a limited amount of spaces. This will make sure that your prospective customers don’t file it away as something to do later.

 

2. Focus on the strengths of your fitness club or gym, what makes it different?

Perhaps the most basic and salient point in the list. Work out what makes your Gym or Fitness Club different and don’t stop talking about it. This is your USP, Unique Selling Point. 

You might have the largest Ladies-Only section in town, the biggest set of free-weights in the city, or you might just be the biggest gym in the metropolitan area. Whatever it is, make sure everyone knows about it.

 

3. Charity Work and Fundraising Events hosted by your Gym or Fitness Club

Whether it is a simple foot race, like the Movember Run or the Race for Life, or something more unorthodox like a Liftathon, a community fundraising event can really boost morale, engagement, and interest in your club.

All while raising money for important, life saving charities.

Alternatively, you can sponsor a team into existing events. Branded t-shirts, branded sweat-bands, a big team picture, a shared fancy dress.

Attract the Olympians who want to win and the fun-lovers who just want to raise money for charity all at once.

Cultivate your calendar and you will always have something to show off on social media, all while doing genuinely good work for your country or community. 

 

4. Spread the word on the High Street

We’ve been doing this one since ancient Rome, that is just how good it is! Get out there and just bloody talk to the people. Don’t just hand them a leaflet (though that can also work). Get your most passionate staff, the people who really speak the language of the gym-goers, and get them talking.

If you have particularly dedicated members of your gym, ask them if they’d like to get involved. That way your prospective members can hear about your club from your real members. 

 

5. Talk to local shop owners and understand if you can establish an advertising relationship between them and your Gym or Fitness Club

While you are out on the high street getting some fresh air, pop into your local shops. Now is the time to cultivate some beneficial relationships. A sports shop? A shoe shop? A clothing store? Anywhere you can imagine the average gym-goer going.

Ask these places to hold your leaflets and offer to take their propaganda back to your gym or fitness club. A classic ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’. Who knows, maybe you’ll even make some firm allies in the area.

 

6. Visit your local Weight Watchers meetings or set up a slimming club of your own within your Gym or Fitness Club

What better place to find people who might be in need of your services than a Weight Watchers or other branded slimming clubs. 

These are people who are looking to get in shape and you have just the service to offer them. 

Failing to find any decent slimming clubs in your area? Then you might’ve just discovered a niche, do the necessary research to set up your own and you’ll be providing yet another service to draw members to your gym or fitness club. 

 

7. Get Charities and Stores to advertise your services and sell your vouchers

Similar to the previous advice, allow your charity and store links that we have discussed cultivating in the last few points to sell your free trial memberships.

This will allow prospective members to naturalistically and effortlessly set up a membership using your casual or more formalised business partners. 

 

8. Welcome to the neighbourhood

Extend your hand to local estate agents and understand who has moved into the area. With their permission, this will enable you to send a welcome letter specifically for new arrivals. Offer them a 30-day free trial or a package crafted to their arrival.

These are a target audience who are unlikely to have a pre-existing gym or fitness club membership in your area.

 

9. Formalise your partnership with local businesses

To list all the ways you can partner up with local businesses would be its own extensive list, so here are just a few ideas:

• Informed endorsement mailing lists: Ask your partnered businesses for their mailing list (providing their mailing list has the appropriate consent to pass on the contacts to partnered businesses). It is important that the partnered business in question is at least partially relevant to Fitness. Your local hairdresser’s mailing list might not garner as many potential Gym members as say, the local Sports Shop. 
• A place on your Newsletter:Produce a Newsletter and offer your partnered businesses a space, either as an advert or an interest piece in one of the sections of the newsletter itself.
• Advertise yourself to local businesses and offer a specialised corporate rate. If you have offices of sedentary office workers in your area, these can be perfect targets for potential gym members, as they will not be getting exercise in their daily profession.
  
  This can offer a large pool of potential members and word of mouth can quickly spread around an office. 

 

10. Utilise Restaurants and specifically, Restaurant Menus

As well as a great place to leave your leaflets and associated advertising. Your collaboration with a local restaurant can go one further.

Ask them to put your gym on the back of the menu, or better yet, get them to sponsor the healthy eating section. The people looking at this section are the type of people who will be interested in a fitness club or gym, so it is a no-brainer. 

Furthermore you can capitalise on FOMO by putting a limited time off on the receipt at the restaurant. Offer an additional 30 days free membership or a similar discount and then they will have a voucher in their possession. A powerful incentive to try out your Gym or Fitness Club. 

 

11. Understand the opportunities in your local area/community

Whether it is a community message board, a community forum, a local seminar or a fair. Understand the opportunities in your area. Maybe this is something you or your staff are integrated into naturally through your place in the community.

Be sure to view any event as an opportunity to make your Gym or Fitness Club a pillar of the community. 

 

12. £5 Note Promotion

Generate a list of all members who have referred a friend over the past year – these are your referral champions. Go to the bank and get a supply of £5 notes and mail one to each of them. Tell them they will receive 10 more of these for each friend they refer during a particular month, with no earning limit. Maybe your headline on the letter is a big bold “May I send you 10 more of these?”

Enclose 5 postage-paid postcards with their picture on and write your member a letter explaining to them that it is an ethical bribe to get them to put the address of 5 friends or co-workers they feel would be interested in getting in better shape, writing a quick note, and dropping

the postcards in the mail. Since this is a bit more expensive, I would send only to those who have referred members in the past and to the members who spend more with you i.e. personal training clients, boot camp participants etc.

This is a customised, personalised letter sent out along with a customised gift card (with X amount of value) affixed to the letter with a glue dot. This has incredibly high perceived value. You will be targeting your marketing efforts to people who currently spend money with you or who have spent money with you in the past.

Reaction stands for the 4 “Re’s”: Renewal, Referral, Retention, Rejoin.

When you send this to existing members, they can use the gift card (let’s say the amount printed on it is £50) toward early renewal, toward personal training (retention) or if they have no interest in either of those, they can give the card to a friend. Similarly, when you send to your expired members, the £50 can be used toward “re-enrolment” and their first month dues. In the letter you get to specify what they can use the gift card for. People will throw away coupons every day, but it’s tough to throw away a credit card style gift card because of the perceived value of it. Think about it, if you already spend money with a company and they send you a £50 gift card, you’re going to want to use it.

 

13. Digitise your Referral Programme

As well as the above method, you can bring your referral programme online. If your Gym or Fitness Club has an existing online portal or account system, you can incorporate the referral bonuses directly into your online presence.

This can take the form of a link that they can send their friends for online sign-up, which in turn will allow you to quickly understand who is spreading the good word about your club

 

14. Inspiring Stories: Shout about the Paragons of your Club

A classic, and for good reason.

Take a member of your club who has undergone a real transformation and ask them if they’d be comfortable with their story being shared.

If so, obtain pictures of what they looked like before and now, and ask them to write out their story. If they aren’t comfortable doing so, then either write it out yourself or ask someone else to do so.

Then you can incorporate this into a physical mail piece or push it as part of your social media campaign.

An inspiring story put onto Instagram, Facebook and Twitter can make all the difference to a Fitness Club or Gym as such things can go viral in your area, greatly increasing exposure and prestige for your business.

 

15. Offer Health Checks to Businesses in the Local Area

Offer to visit businesses local to your area and perform health checks on their staff. This can include a complete BMI tests and blood pressure exams. You could also use your Fitness Club or Gym staff to hold lectures explaining the benefits of exercise and how your Gym or Fitness Club can specifically help them.

Top this all off by offering a free period of membership! 

 

16. Outside Lessons and Activities 

When the weather starts behaving, take your classes outside!

With a bit of planning and the consent of your class attendees, an outdoor class can really put your club in the mind of the locals.

If you really want to go all in, hand out branded club t-shirts beforehand and then watch as people stop and watch your uniformed army of club representatives. 

 

17. Contact your Local Paper as part of your Fitness Club or Gym’s continued role in the Community

Offer to use your collective expertise to write articles in the local Newspaper.

Keep it classy though, your articles shouldn’t be thinly veiled advertising but actually insightful commentary on fitness in your local area.

With that being said, of course ensure that the article cites the person who has written the article and their affiliation with your Fitness Club or Gym, just to make sure the message gets across for those really paying attention.

 

18. Advertise your Gym or Fitness Club on your Local Radio

Video might have killed the Radio Star, but local radio still has a prominent place to play in the advertising of your Fitness Club or Gym.

An ad personalised to your area or community will really help you stand out above other, more soulless gyms.

 

 

19. Sponsor Local Sports Teams

For a personal touch, sponsor a local team in your area. This will help feed into other strategies we have previously mentioned, such as charity events.

Obviously the size of the team you can sponsor will depend on the size of your Gym or Fitness Club, but even sponsoring a small but beloved local team, or a youth team, is better than nothing and a vital step to making your business feel like part of the community.

 

20. Get people hooked on your Club

Getting a member through the door is much harder than keeping them there.

This is where the Free Membership offers we have been talking about come into their own.

Once someone is in the doors and in your systems, they are much more likely to gravitate back to your Gym or Fitness Club. Especially if it has left a positive impression.

Again, this isn’t re-inventing the wheel, but it is important to state nonetheless. Utilise Guest Passes and other offers to break down the barriers between prospective customers and your Gym or Fitness Club.

 

And if you thought 20 ideas to get you started on attracting more members to your club was enough, then you’ll be delighted to hear that it really is just the start. Our team have collated an astounding 100 tried and tested strategies for you to experiment with. You can find all 100 ways to attract more members in bitesize chunks in our blog posts, or in our completely free downloadable PDF.

 

So what are you waiting for? Get started today!

 

As you might’ve gathered by our pointed use of quotation marks in the title, this is a topic with some nuance to it. What makes for good website design? The short answer would be, whatever design endears the person looking at the website to it. Working around this metric is, unsurprisingly, impossible. However, it is possible to know your audience in the broad strokes and this is why it is important to ensure that your website design is ‘good’ for the market you are operating in.

For the purposes of this article, we will be looking at Fitness Club, Gym and Personal Trainer website design. 

For starters, here is a quick checklist/summary, detailing some of what we will be covering today. 

 

1. Logo: Ensuring that the branding of your business is correct and prominent. That your logo and other branding elements are striking and not overpowering
2. Structure: The sleekest website in the world isn’t worth a dime if your members or potential members can’t navigate to where they need to be. It cannot be overstated that a vital part of design is usability. Don’t put style before substance.
3. Interaction: Make sure there is something they can click or engage with on the page. Something as simple as a ‘Find Out More’ button is a surefire way to increase engagement and will be a useful indicator as to whether your design is effective.
   
   
4. Description: Ensuring that the descriptive aspects of your website are well presented and well written. Ensuring that the prose is precise and evocative, to best communicate your brand and it’s message. Think about what your potential customers want to read to hook them in, and then make sure that prose is formatted in a style that will draw their eyes.
5. Imagery: Prose is vital but if your website looks like it comes straight out of 1995 then it isn’t likely to win awards. Striking, relevant imagery will capture your audience. Think what your potential club members want to see. Is it your workout equipment? Your facilities? Your sauna?

 

The Fundamentals of Effective Website Design

Notice that we’ve used a better word? We will be switching back but it is to reinforce a point. What we classify as ‘good’ is what is effective. At its core, you want your Website Design to be intuitive. Ideally, the only thought you want them having is ‘This is a well designed site’, but it is also a victory if it catches their eye and allows them to understand your business and the services it provides. 

Use Website Design to make your Product Understandable

What is the purpose of your website? How can you communicate that purpose as succinctly as possible?

These are big questions, but they are the questions you need to be asking. Once you understand the purpose. Think about the target audience. Dream scenario, what type of people do you want to be landing on your website.  What do you want them to understand about your product? How best to communicate to those different types.

This is where planning is invaluable. Make a list of different archetypes. For fitness clubs, these archetypes are, luckily for us, fairly well defined. Once you’ve listed these, work out elements of popular web design that are likely to appeal. 

It is important to note that none of these need to be permanent. One advantage of modern website design is adaptability and versatility. If you find your business aims shifting, or even come up with a new service, or just a new perspective. It can be incorporated into this system. 

Ensuring that your product is understood will be one of the key metrics we use to measure ‘good’ (Effective) website design. 

Use Website Design to emphasis why your product is useful 

We might be going back to business 101 here but we did say it was the fundamentals and this is a mistake we see too many websites making.

In an attempt to catch the eye, they forget to sell us the product or service.

A product or service needs to be wanted and to be wanted it needs to be useful, your potential customer needs to understand why it is going to make their life better.

When applying this to Gyms and Fitness Clubs, you need them to understand why your club is better for them than another club, or pursuing their fitness goals at home. This is where glowing reviews about your classes and high definition pictures of your gym equipment in use will help carry the day and convince them you have a business they want to be a part of.

 

Aesthetics and Website Design for your Gym or Fitness Club 

Aesthetic is a word thrown around a lot these days. It has become a catch-all term for pinterest boards and thrift shops everywhere. But it has a place in our website design fundamentals. 

Purpose and functionality are the bedrock of your site. Aesthetic is where you really get to show off. Thankfully when it comes to the topic of fitness clubs and gym website design, we are spoiled for choice. Gym-goers have a natural aesthetic beauty to them, our nature sensibilities lead us to find the young, the muscular and the athletic intuitively aesthetic. 

Especially if they are mid-way through using some of your striking and top of the line gym equipment. By either hiring a professional photographer for a day or using existing photographs taken by you or your members, you can easily get some great source material to incorporate into your website’s aesthetic.

This philosophy needn’t terminate at muscles and heavy weights though. If your club or gym has striking features, say a sauna, a swimming pool, or even a particular nice facade outside. Capture it and incorporate it into the design of your website. 

 

Website Design Specifics for Gyms and Fitness Clubs

Okay, so now we have the broad fundamentals down. Let’s get specific. In this latter section we will be covering three distinct areas.
 

1. Your Home Page/Landing Page

      2. The Rest of your Content

      3. Your Overall Display (including continuity between the two). 

 

Each of these areas present their own challenges and opportunities. We will be exploring each in turn with specific focus on how they can relate to a Gym’s website design or a Fitness Club’s website design. 

This will allow us to explore the specifics of each key part of a website and how it all blends together. 

Okay, now we have the fundamentals down and our mission statement. Let us get started on the basics of website design for Gyms and Fitness Clubs 

 

Your Checklist: Five things your home page or landing page can’t be without.

This list isn’t comprehensive but it is designed to take you through five of the most important things you should be considering for your home page or landing page.

 

Your Branding Element

As discussed earlier in our section on the principles of ‘Good’ website design for a fitness club or gym, your branding on your landing page is of utmost importance.

Think of a website you use frequently. Google, Amazon, Netflix. You’d instantly recognise if you went onto Google and everything was Purple and Black. The importance of a unifying and professional look for your site cannot be overstated and you begin forging this brand identity on the first page that your potential customers and consumers see initially.

In most cases you’ll want the logo in the top left or the top centre. Everyone has a set of expectations and rules they expect to see a website, even if they aren’t aware. The visual language and etiquette that someone responds to is deeply ingrained.

As such, you need to be both striking and familiar. They need to effortlessly navigate to your logo and understand the website they are in, essentially without thinking. By making your website’s colour scheme the same as your logo, you will be further ingraining that pattern of thought within your consumer from the first minute of their visit onwards.

A Good Description

A good logo isn’t the be all and end all though, without clear description it will exist in a void. What does your specific logo mean to someone who has never seen it before? Most likely, nothing. This is where your Logo and Branding Elements for your gym or fitness club will be supported by well written prose in an eye-catching style.

Ideally next to your logo should be a stylised version of your Gym, Fitness Club or overall brand identity. If the name doesn’t give a clear indication of your business/service, then add the necessary words underneath your brand name in a separate, but equally striking font.

During these opening stages of a customer journey, it is of paramount importance that every piece of vital information is accessible with the least frustration possible. That means that it must be visually pleasing, easily identifiable and prominently displayed. 

If your visitor struggles to understand what the company that runs this website is, or even worse if they sense that it is lazily or unprofessionally laid out, this is a psychological blow that may make them navigate away. 

 

Engagement: How to grab your visitors with a call to action.

Everything you do in business has a purpose. And your website’s landing page or home page is no different. 

What is the purpose of your landing page or home page?

To make your new visitor want to see more. 

A tried and tested way for achieving this is the call to action. Challenge your visitor. Ask them a question or make a powerful statement that’ll grab their attention and have them clicking on the button beneath to see more

For an example of a grabbing question you could have:

Are you ready to take your fitness to the next level with our top of the line equipment?

 

If you want them to read a specific blog, thinkpiece or eBook, then here is an example:

Available now, our latest blog on returning to the Gym post Covid-19 

Or

Grab our eBook of workout techniques and post-workout recovery tips, crafted especially for the equipment and facilities at our Gym. Available for free, now!

If your aim is to get them to sign up to a mailing list or a newsletter, consider 

Do you want the latest tips and tricks from our experts straight to your MailBox, sign up to our free Newsletter today right here!

Or it could be as simple as:

Why wait, click here to get in touch today.

These are just a few examples to get you thinking along the right lines. Each of these questions would have a corresponding button either built into the question itself, or beneath it with text that represents a positive answer to the question. 

Moving forward we hope to make a blog and a guide dedicated to helping Gyms and Fitness Clubs up their copy game to make it more eye-catching, engaging and impactful.

 

Sensible and Obvious Website Navigation

This point has actually pervaded the entire article, making it all the more important to highlight it in it’s own section. All of our effort so far and below will be for nothing if your visitors do not know where to go. 

The reason the challenging question above is so effective is because it gives the visitor not only something to think about, but a very obvious path to take next. If they are engaged with the question, they will click the associated button.

But it doesn’t end there.

Again, going back to our discussion on visual language and etiquette. Visitors expect to see a top bar of categories that will help them swiftly navigate your gym or fitness club website.

These categories could be as broad as ‘facilities’ or as niche as ‘Our History’, to help them get to know the story of your gym or club.

Sensible navigation becomes less important as your visitor scrolls down your page. At that point your prose should be doing the work! 

With that being said, you will still want the occasional  link if it seems intuitive.

Once y

our visitor has hit the bottom of your article/landing page/home page, you want to give them as many navigational tools as they had at the top.

If a visitor gets to the bottom of your website and there is nothing to entice them further, chances are that that is the end of your visitors’ vi

sit to your website. Now they aren’t a visitor, they are a goner.

With simple prompts at the bottom of your page you can increase engagement dramatically. 

The good news is that if a visitor has gotten to the end of your landing page for your Gym or Fitness Club, their engagement level is likely to be, on average higher than that of the average visitor at the top of your page.

This should make capturing their attention further with buttons and navigational tools all the easier. 

An Eye-Catching Visual Element

This section is extrapolated from our principles of effective website design for a Gym or Fitness Club. As you’ll hopefully remember, we focused on pictures and visual imagery. This is important on your landing page as the photographs your visitor is immediately exposed to will set the tone moving forward. Here are some pertinent examples:

1. An image, photograph or infographic that represents your Gym, your Fitness Club or your core messages and values. 
2. A photograph or series of photographs that show the service you provide, people utilising that service and the positive effect it is having on them. 
3. A photograph or set of photographs that show the more personal side of your Gym or Fitness Club. Tell a story in a few pictures that make your club more than just another name.

If you take one thing away from this section on Landing Pages and Home Pages for Gyms and Fitness Clubs, it is that first impressions really do count. As such, make sure that the pictures you display on your website are of the highest quality you can muster. Smartphone pictures might not make the cut! 

The Rest of Your Content

So you’ve got a striking Home page and/or Landing Pages. This is their entry into your site. Now we need to work on the rest of the website for your Gym or Fitness Club. 

The good news is that if you’ve got this far, the visitor to your site is probably engaged. Now you need to decide what the rest of your site is going to look like. 

One rising school of thought has started to get rid of additional content all together. This is known as the One-Page website and it essentially boils down to all of the information being presented on one long, well formatted, scrolling web-page.

This has advantages and disadvantages, as you can imagine. One clear advantage is the lack of disconnect between information. One challenge we discussed earlier is that when the page runs out, this is a danger zone for your visitors attention span. This doesn’t happen one a one-page website but that doesn’t mean it lacks issues.

It’s important to consider the amount of information that you feel a reader can absorb. If you are confident that you can fit this information into a few bite-sized chunks or concise sentences, you can certainly go ahead and put it all on one page.

But our principle regarding navigation might suffer. Navigation tools help direct your visitors to the information they want to see. If they have to scroll endlessly to locate and even revisit certain points, this is a level of tedium that might prove too much. 

With that out in the open, here are some of the sections you’ll want to have in your website, whether it is on one page or multiple pages.

Your About Us/Our History Page

We mentioned this earlier but an About Us page or a page that goes into ‘the Story’ of your Gym or Fitness Club is really a must. This is somewhere visitors have been proven to seek out. What better way to get an overview of the institution you might be joining than to know when they started, why they started and who started them.

This is a chance for your gym or fitness club to become a relatable, personal institution to them for the first time. Do you have a funny founding story? Some lovely photos of the first days setting up the Gym? Some characters that really made an impact? Here is where to put them in an environment where receptive visitors will find them.

Your Reviews, Testimonies and associated ‘Buzz’ Page

This page needs no introduction. Whenever we receive a positive review, our first instinct should be to put it up in lights along with all the other ones. This page will allow you to collect these heartfelt and genuine reviews and experiences.

If you are undertaking a project, ask your existing members for their experiences in your gym or fitness club. They are bound to have some stories to tell!

Your Contact Us Page

Another page that will be conspicuous if missing. A generic Contact Us page will be necessary for sealing the deal on many visitors who might be turning into members. Remember to include a map so that they can quickly ascertain whether your Gym or Fitness Club is in the right location. 

Your Equipment, Facilities and Resources

Your Fitness Club or Gym has to make a difference to your customer’s life, and this is where you really get to flex how you can help them transform their existing routines, workouts and bodies. 

A Space for Blogs, Think-Pieces and Articles

This space, properly cultivated, can be a big draw to your Gym or Fitness Club. This is a place to put all of your experience, expertise and knowledge. Through the medium of a blog, you are able to refine difficult concepts into easily digestible reads for your customers. Impart advice, give your staff and customers a voice and create valuable content to help guide any visitors that stumble across your website.

 

Bringing It All Together

So, now we have spilt a lot of digital ink on the subject of Good Web Design and Content for your Gym or Fitness Club?

Have you noticed any underlying patterns?

Good web design is about minimising the time between a potential client or customer clicking on your page and them receiving and understanding the message you want to deliver.

Every aspect of Website Design we have covered here goes into this in one way or another.

If your website design is effective, the only time your customer will notice it will be when they are marvelling at how well put together your website is. The rest will just allow for seamless and naturalistic navigation to the information that they care about. 

 

We Can Help You

Now you are equipped with the principles of good (or effective) website design and many examples of how to implement these.

But this guide is only the beginning, and website design is only one piece of the whole that is running a successful Gym or Fitness Club.

There are many things you need to have under control, marketing, software systems, payment, collection, retention strategy. The list can seem daunting, especially when you’ve got to run BAU.

Well, Ashbourne Membership Management might have the solution.

Get in touch for a full demo of our software, our principles on website design or to simply have a conversation about how we can help you and your gym achieve its full potential. 

Your health club lives or dies on you being able to generate members for your club.

With so much competition in the health and fitness industry, it’s tougher than ever to stand out from the crowd as a unique health club and reliably appeal to customers in your local area.

But let that worry you no more, as over our 25 years working in the fitness industry, we’ve compiled our 21 golden rules that have proven time and time again to reliably increase memberships for fitness businesses all over the UK.

And now those same rules can have the same success and increase gym sales at your club.

 

21 Proven Ways To Increase Gym Memberships For Your Club

 

1) Shout (Loudly) About What Makes You Different

This is marketing at its most basic – find out what makes you different from another club and shout about it.
Emphasise your unique selling points (USPS) – whether you have the largest free weight section, Power Plates,
ladies only zone. free personal training etc. What makes you different and why should someonejoin you and hot
the other gym in t0wn.

2) Build A Great Website

Your marketing activity can either prosper or fail miserably because of your website. Your website is at the heart
of your online presence and, in 2019, it’s a digital extension of your Club (whether you like it or not) that has a huge impact on people’s view of you as a business. Having a great website for your club is no longer a choice — it’s a necessity. It’s directly responsible for prospectsI impressions of you as a brand and it’s ultimately
responsible for the number of enquiries coming into your club and the number of new members which you sign up each month. A website which looks poor and which is difficult to use doesn’t build the type of relationships you want. It paints a negative image of you as a club and it’ll drive people away from your site. And, guess what? That’s only great for your competitors.

 

3) Facebook Advertising & Social Media Advertising

If you’re not currently using Facebook Advertising to promote your club, you’re missing out on a big opportunity.
An opportunity to stand out from your competition and consistently generate new enquiries and sign—ups.

We live in a world where social media platforms are becoming ever more powerful and prominent. In the UK, we
spend almost 25% of our mobile ihternet usage time using Facebook. The sheer volume of people using
Facebook each and every day means that it’s a complete nosbrainer to use the platform as part of your overall
marketing strategy. It‘s where your prospects are ‘hanging out’ and, therefore, it’s most definitely where you
should be advertising.

And it’s not just the vast number of users that makes the social media platform an essential Channel to include as
part of your strategy to attract new members. What makes Facebook Advertising so effective is the vast range of
targeting options available to businesses. These targeting options mean that you can be extremely focused and
precise with what audiences you target with your ads and what messages you use to engage with them. It’s these
targeting options which put Facebook Advertising up there as one of the most advanced and powerful platforms
for advertising your gym or club.

You can find out more about the benefits of Facebook Advertising for your club on our website.

 

4) Remarketing

Remarketing is a technique which allows you to show adverts to people who have already visited your website
but who didn’t convert into an enquiry or become a new member (companies like Amazon and A505, for
example, use remarketing really effectively and you’ll have no doubt seen this happen many times before — you
look at a product on their site and you’ll see ads for that product and other similar products across other sites
online once you leave their site. This isn’t by chance, this is remarketing in action). Implemented in the right way,
remarketing is a very effective method of generating more enquiries and bringing new members into your club.
New members who may well have ended up joining a different club.

More than 95% of users who Visit your website leave without taking any form of action‘ They don’t get in touch
with you, sign up or leave their contact details. More often than not. once they leave your site, they don’t come
back — you won’t ever see them again. Remarketing – which can be done through Facebook or Google – is a great
way to continue to engage with potential members and drive them back to your website and into your club.

 

5) Encourage Member Testimonials

Member testimonials are a big deal and their testimonials should never be underestimated. A huge proportion of
your potential members will use member reviews and testimonials as part of their research process when looking
for a new club and they are a great way to stand out from your competition The more you can get, the better!

 

6) Invite Feedback

Most club owners feel that they have the greatest club in town but it’s your members who really have the final
say in that respect. If you don’t listen to your members you won’t know if there are areas in need of
improvement. Create a lockable feedback box that only the gym owner has access to and allow your members to
post their comments anonymously. This box should be positioned in an area away from reception so that
members can post comments without the glare from staff (who they might be commenting about). If the member
has left their contact details, follow up immediately by thanking them for their feedback and stating that you will give the matter your immediate attention. And then ensure that you do!

 

7) Allow For Online Gym Sign Ups

You‘ve created a great looking website and attracted plenty of visitors but now what? Make sure you attach an
onlinejoining facility so that prospects can turn into members at the touch of a button. Ensure you are able to
take an immediate payment and then set up a rolling payment option. Ensure this page is professionally produced
and is a seCure page for taking payments. Ashbourne’s Online Joining Module allows you to do exactly that – you
can find out more about it by visiting our website.

 

8) Build A Great Blog

Daily exercise tips, diet and nutrition tips, wellness, weightlifting, sports – comment regularly online about ANYTHINGl A blog/newsfeed update keeps people up-to-date with what’s going on at your club. But more importantly, it builds a community link between your members and your staff and trainers. This develops further your customer loyalty. Spread the writing of material amongst your team. Get your personal trainers to write about their particular areas of knowledge and expertise plus their case study success stories in relation to results gained by particular members. All this is likely to lead to more training enrolments. Encourage PTs to send out this into by email, even on twitter and Facebook. This will lead to more referrals, which all leads to more
business.

 

9) Produce A Great Club Newsletter

Produce a newsletter to communicate with your members about latest developments in and out of the club +
info about the members such as success stories, charity initiatives, notable birthdays etc. People always like to
see their name published and again this increases retention.

 

 

10) Set A Competitive Price (Keep an eye on your competitors)

Don’t ignore what your competitors are doing price-wise. Your pricing decisions should be based on real market
analysis, so keep an eye on what they’re charging for various membership types.

 

11) Implement A Referral Programme

The best source of new leads for your club is your existing members. Getting your current members to sell your facility to their friends means that the hard work of selling is done for you and best of all, it’s cheap! Referral programmes get you new members AND your current members now have training partners and a sense of
ownership, therefore increasing retention.

Of course, members are more likely to make a referral if there is something in it for them. You can find out more
about implementing an effective referral campaign on the Ashbourne Membership Management blog.

 

12) Aim For Professionalism & Excellence In Customer Service

This will significantly increase your customer loyalty. Members are demanding more from their health clubs
today. They expect to be able to talk to qualified individuals that are willing to listen and help. Customers are
most satisfied when they interact with self—aware people who have the ability to show empathy and optimism.
Most members will appreciate a gym that offers staff that listens to complaints instead of a gym that offers 100
treadmills.

 

13) Google Display Advertising

Google Display Advertising works on the EGoogle Display Network’ which although sounds technical= is actually
something that most internet users see on a daily basis. The Google Display Network is made up of millions of
websites where advertisers can place adverts in many different formats. These ads can be targeted to very
specific audiences based on segments such as location, age and browsing interests.

According to Google the Display Network covers over 90% of all the internet’s users! so it’s a fantastic way to get in front of people on a large scale. Obviously, getting in front of someone is one thing, but for your marketing to make a good return on investment, you need to be talking to the right people, and that‘s where the Display
Network really comes into its own.

The list of targeting features that are available to be segmented and filtered are only riyalled by that of Facebook Ads. There are a variety of ways that you can target potential members who have expressed an interest in a new
club or gym and who have interests in what you have to offer.

 

14) Stay In Touch

Undoubtedly, there will be members who fall off the wagon a little bit. Do your best to try and capture these
members early on. If you track attendance, it’s easy to run a report of last visits and call the members you havent
seen in a while. Monthly newsletters, e-mail campaigns, postcards, and regular Facebook or blog posts are other
ways that you can keep your gym fresh in members” minds and even recapture those you may have lost.

 

15) Lead Magnets

A Lead Magnet is simply a piece of content or an item of value that’s used strategically on your website to get
peoplels contact information. Its an item that offers value to website visitors, something that they are going to be
willing to exchange their details for (their first name and email address, and possibly their phone number).

An effective Lead Magnet might be a brochure. a fitness or diet guide or it might be a download which
highlights the core reasons to choose your club over anyone else. As long as it has enough perceived value that
someone is willing to give their details, it really doesn’t matter. but it will help if the information really hits the
spot with your prospects’ problem/need. Once you have a prospect’s details. you can follow up via email or on
the phone to help nurture them into paying members.

 

16) Email

Email is crucial to the marketing efforts of your business (and always will be). Various studies have shown that
over 70% of people would rather receive marketing and promotional material via email than from any other
source of communication. In an industry where consumerjourneys can be long and properly thought out, and
where competition is growing all the time, email provides a platform to continuously engage with members and
potential members alike in order to ensure that they receive personalised content which strengthens
relationships; educates and which inspires.

We‘d recommend using email for three main purposes; nurturing prospects, building relationships and engaging
with your current members and, thirdly, as a way to communicate and encourage lost members to come back to
your club.

 

17) Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search Engine Optimisation (SEQ) is the strategy of increasing a website’s visibility within search engines (Le.
Google, Bing, Yahoo). An SEO Strategy is designed to increase the volume and quality of organic traffic (not to be
confused with paid activity) a website receives by achieving higher Search Engine Result Page (SERP) rankings.
The implementation of an SEO strategy is crucial to the visibility of the your club online and ensuring that
potential members are finding you through relevant searches.

When it comes to SEO, it’s important to ensure that you are carrying out ongoing technical, on—site and oftsite
SEC) tasks. Your business is unique and your SEO plan needs to reflect that. Your SEO strategy should ultimately
be built around keyword research and what it is that your prospects are actually searching for. There are lots of
great blogs online which will help you to better understand what you need to do to help increase your website’s
visibility in search engines which will all help to ensure more people are finding you.

 

18) Give Your Staff An Incentive

Most club owners just expect their trainers to sell memberships and carry out sales tours as
part of their job description. This is fine up to a point. If you want your staff to go the extra
mile, the simplest way to get them selling in a more professional manner is to give them a
commission on every membership they sell. You will notice that the number of conversions
from prospect to member increases dramatically. Structure your sales commission to reward
trainers for selling the highest grossing membership.

 

19) Create A Loyalty Programme / Premium Product

Looking after your current members is of course just as important as finding new ones. A loyalty programme is more important than any other marketing programme you have. If you treat the top 10% of your customer’s right. they will take care of most of your other marketing for you. Keep the people who love you in love with you. Come up with loyalty programmes to make them feel appreciated…

0 Free Gold Member t—shirts for members that have been with you for an extended period.

0 If you have extra services at your club like massage therapists, supplements or a juice bar, give them a coupon
for one of them.

0 Small touches can make them feel special , reward your members with free tea and coffee/ protein shakes etc.
“I’ll get this protein shake for you John as a thanks for being such a loyal member.”

 

20) Offer Free Passes / Varied Promotions

Otfering free passes to your current members is a great way to make them teel more valued and to generate new
enquiries in a very cost-eftective way. Your valued member gets the chance to bring a friend to use your club’s
facilities completely free of charge and you get a new prospect who gets to experience your facilities and who
you can nurture and build a relationship with over the coming weeks and months with the objective of
converting them into a paying member.

 

21) Maintain A High Google Review

Member testimonials are a big deal and their testimonials should never be underestimated. A huge proportion of
your potential members will use member reviews and testimonials as part of their research process when looking
for a new club and they are a great way to stand out from your competition The more you can get, the better!

Tens of thousands of gyms, health clubs, leisure centres and even personal trainers already use direct debit to collect their memberships every month.

And yet, there are thousands more who are discovering why Direct Debit might just be the simplest solution they’ve been looking for when it comes to reliably collecting their monthly memberships without having to keep an eye on it constantly.

There are so many elements to Direct Debit that we’ll start basic and work our way up, but feel free to scroll down and skip to a particular subject or question to get the information that you need.

 

You Can Also Download Our Direct Debit Guide

If you don’t have time to read the blog, then you can always download our complete direct debit guide right now, and discover the power of direct debit collection for your club memberships in your own time.

 

 

What Makes Direct Debit Unique?

Let’s start at the basics, what actually is Direct Debit and how is it different to other forms of payment collection.

Direct Debit is a realiable way to transfer funds electronically between UK banks. It is an instruction from your bank which authorises someone to collect payments fro your account on a specific due date.

To set up a Direct Debit, the account holder must sign a Direct Debit Mandate form with the company they wish to pay. The form will confirm how much money will be taken from the individuals account and when. If the organisation taking the payments at any time wishes to change the amount or date of a collection, they are required to tell the account holder first. This means individuals don’t have to worry about missing payments and business owners don’t have to worry about chasing them.

In short, Direct Debit is a payment system which uses the bank as a middle man. Everything has to be signed off and agreed to, meaning that no one is ever taken by surprise. Both parties will find out if there’s been a change such as a change of payment or a cancelled payment – and can then respond right away.

 

 

Just How Popular Is Direct Debit?

In the UK, over 80% of people have at least one Direct Debit, with the average consumer having a whopping six! But just because it is well used, it doesn’t mean people understand what Direct Debit is or when is the best time to use it.

It’s likely you have a direct debit, most likely for household bills or insurance – but many gym owners aren’t sure how to utilise it in their own business.

Most people will be familiar with using the payment method as a comsumer, maybe you use it to pay your energy bills or car insurance. but do you, as a business owner, know when to utilise it?

Direct Debit collection ensures that the correct amount will leave your account on the correct day, greatly simplifying managing your personal cashflow and budget. Not only does this give an individual reassurance, but as a business owner it makes sense to replicate that ease and financial peace of mind in your professional life.

Using Direct Debit can transform how you run your business, bringing benefits to customers, your staff and your bottom line.

 

 

Direct Debit vs. Other Methods

If you’re not currently using Direct Debit, then in all likelihood you’re using one of the following methods below.

In our experience, the biggest obstacle to club owners not wanting to switch payment methods is that they’re comfortable with what they have. We’re not denying that is the case, but when you take a step outside of your daily routine, you might be surprised by just how much extra time and effort you’re spending just to collect your monthly memberships.

Overall, Direct Debit can save a huge percentage of time. So let’s take a look at a few other payment methods and see

 

Direct Debt vs Cash

Cash can be extremely convenient for your customers, allowing them to pay in person at their own convenience, without having to use any technology in the process.

However, the issues that cash causes are cause much more trouble than their worth.

Firstly, handling large amounts of cash within a business poses a big security risk from burglary, but it also makes it far more likely for money to go missing or be misplaced, affecting your club’s revenue stream.

Secondly, when it comes to your collections, the amount of time that cash adds into the mix is staggering. Your team have to manually keep an eye on who has and hasn’t paid, and unless your members are very regular when it comes to their payments, you’re likely going to have to spend a lot of time tracking your money down.

Overall, cash adds a lot of admin time to your club payment collection and completely derails any regular cashflow as your payments come in whenever your members remember to pay you, or whenever you manage to catch them.

 

Direct Debt vs Cheques

When it comes to cheques, you get all of the same problems as cash, but with the antiquated complications that cheques throw into the mix.

All of the cons of cash, with the added issue of also needing to cash in your cheques at the bank, as well as the added surprise of them potentially bouncing.

There’s a reason why most businesses don’t accept cheques anymore, so it’d save your club and team members a world of hassle by dropping them ASAP if you still use them.

 

Direct Debt vs Debit & Credit Card Payments

Many gyms will forgo all the issues that cash and cheque bring, and instead take card payments for their membership collection.

Compared to cash, credit and debit card payments have a lot of benefits and take a lot of work off your admin team. By taking card payments, you know that all of your revenue is instantly available in your business bank account, with no extra trips to the bank or keeping an eye on cash.

However, when it comes to your club membership collection, the fact that card payments are still a manual process puts a lot of added pressure on your team and also makes your cashflow unreliable. Since your team still have to keep track of when members need to pay, your team are still responsible for tracking down members and having repeat discussions with members about their membership.

And of course, with members paying at completely irregular dates, your cashflow is severely affected by always having to chase the next payment. In the long run, this can make budgeting and planning upgrades to the club extremely difficult if you’re always at the mercy of when the next instalments are coming in.

 

 

Direct Debit vs. Standing Order

Hopefully by this point we’ve established that the key strength of direct debit is that it not only takes admin work away from your staff, but it greatly increases the security of your business when it comes to both your cashflow and not having physical cash on-site.

However, many gyms also use Standing Order as an alternative to Direct Debit. But while they might seem very similar on paper, Standing Order collection is slightly different to Direct Debit in some very significant ways.

 

What Is Standing Order?

Standing Order is a recurring payment method where the customer puts in a request to their bank to pay your gym a set amount each month.

But that’s the most important aspect of Standing Order…. The customer is in control.

The customer can cancel or change it at any time they like without informing you.

Standing Orders may be free to set up, but you will still need to devote time into checking your accounts and making sure your payments are coming in, since the bank will not inform you if a standing order has been changed. The communication is all between the customer and their bank, with you simply being the receiver of any payments.

This will still lead to your accounts team having to chase non-payments, sending reminders and manual checking your club’s bank statements to guarantee your payments are coming through.

 

How Direct Debit Is Different To Standing Order

With a Direct Debit, you get the benefits of Standing Order’s regular and automatic payments, but with all the control on your end.

By getting your member to sign a Direct Debit mandate in the club at sign up, you can guarantee that everything will be set up. You don’t have to rely on your member going to their gym and setting up a Standing Order on your behalf.

A Direct Debit Guarantee allows you to adapt the payment to suit your business needs. The bank will then inform the member of any changes to the payment and their account.

This keeps you in the loop when it comes to your member and their bank account. You’ll always be updated with any missed payments or changes, so you don’t have to manually keep an eye on any payments.

 

 

Using Direct Debit For Gym Memberships

Introducing Direct Debit collection for your gym memberships might be the single best decision you make for your business. No matter what your club size, collecting for your business via direct debit has 3 key benefits.

 

• Improves member retention by reducing payment defaults and taking your member’s attention away from their payments.
• Allows you to increase fees and add extra service costs when you need to.
• Reduces membership and payment admin by always keeping you in the loop automatically.

 

Allowing your members to sign up via Direct Debit is quick, easy and hasssle-free. You can even offer instant online sign up for your members which gives you the tools to manage your gym easily and efficiently.

Direct Debit simply makes collecting recurring and one-off payments an automatic and seamless process, removing dozens of hours of admin and member chasing every month. You will be amazed by how much time you save with Direct Debit collection.

 

Ashbourne Membership Management Can Handle It All

Ashbourne Membership Management has been growing over 25 years to handle every single aspect of club management. From direct debits to website maintenance and handling your energy bar sales – Ashbourne handles it all.

When it comes to Direct Debits, we can drastically reduce your admin and free up your staff in 5 simple steps:

 

• We provide you our software to track all your members
• We provide you with direct debit guarantees and set them up
• We set up your direct debits
• We handle all contact between your members and their payments
• We handle all debt collection for any defaulted payments

 

If you want to take a look at what your club could be with Direct Debit collection, then we can give you a completely free demo and consultation, simply to run through the process, our systems and answer any questions you might have.

Simply book a free demo with us and let us show you the future of your gym.

How Can Gyms Generate Additional Revenue?

Generating extra revenue is something that many gyms and fitness clubs pass up due to the extra work that can sometimes be required to do so. This is understandable, but there are numerous ways that your club can generate extra revenue with little effort. This post hopes to provide some ideas for boosting profits.

Extra revenue makes all the difference. Take, for example, having a coffee shop or coffee bar in your gym. If a pre-workout caffeine fix is sold at just £2, and a member who attends your gym 3 times a week purchases one before every workout, this would amount to a total of £288 a year. If you have 50 members doing this, it will generate an extra £14,400 annually. If you have 100 gym members, that amounts to an extra £28,800 a year!

 

Coffee Shop

 

The reason so many coffee shops have opened is because there are great profits to be made. Coffee is cheap to buy and make, and it can be sold for a good price. What is great about having a coffee shop in your gym is that you won’t be directly competing with the coffee giants. Instead, you will be providing coffee as a caffeine supplement.

 

Supplement Bar

 

Supplementation is another way of generating revenue in your gym. Having a bar that stocks a full range of supplements will boost revenue from all types of members. Coffee and caffeine will give energy, while protein shakes and bars will provide a much-needed protein intake. Alternative ideas are high protein brownies and flapjacks, fruit, beef biltong, natural smoothies, shakes and electrolyte drinks that replace the salts lost through sweat.

 

Developing Relationships

 

Having a full nutritional kitchen onsite would be great. However, understandably, this is not realistic for most fitness clubs. Therefore, working with external companies to offer food services is a great idea. Take, for example Athlete Kitchen. They create personalised diet plans and deliver them to homes, workplaces and gyms.

Generating a relationship like this will mean that you could add this service to a gym membership. Again, if this isn’t a realistic option, the more compact Nutrivend might be. Nutrivend provide and fill vending machines with healthy supplements.

Developing relationships will attract new clients through recommendations and website links, which will also help your marketing by boosting your website’s SEO.

 

Selling Products

 

Selling products is simply income, and water bottles are a gym essential. Gym branded water bottles will not only generate extra revenue, but one will also advertise your gym where ever it is taken. The same can be said for workout clothing, however this is more difficult and costlier to produce. So, once again, teaming up with other companies to produce these is a great idea. With Ashbourne’s Club Software, you can even sell these items through your own branded app.

To make the process of selling products in your gym even easier, companies like PT Protein have an ambassador programme that enables sports clubs and other certified health, wellness and fitness professionals to supply their range of protein shakes. However, as well as enabling health clubs and professions to sell their products, PT Protein will also take care of the stock management for you, so there’s no wasted product!

 

Organise Events

 

This is a creative example that will not necessarily bring you direct income, but will generate awareness, thus leading to income. Charity events are a superb way of helping others, alongside generating a real presence for you club. Alternatively, if you can organise an expo, fitness meet or fitness event this can bring direct revenue as well as awareness.

 

Offer Extras

 

This will depend entirely on the size of your gym, the facilities that you have and the man power that you can deploy.

Fitness bootcamps and training courses are great extras that are easy to pull off and don’t take additional training. Essential the employees running the courses will be doing what they do every day, just in a more intense environment.

Childcare will be dependent entirely on your facilities, however it is certainly something that would draw parents to your club.

Massage therapies and sport spa treatments are extras that may require employing specialists. However, the return can be substantial. This service could be added to an advanced membership or purchased when needed.

 

Adding extras to your gym is a great way of boosting revenue. For further information please take a read of our blog.