There are misconceptions about operating online shopping experiences as a fitness facility. Many think they require too much management, whilst others raise concerns that fulfilling orders be it by post or customer collection is unneeded hassle.
However, these people are forgetting that by owning a gym you already have a captive market. That is to say, you already have access to a number of potential customers who have an interest in health and fitness in the form of your members. Why have these members shop for products through large corporations when they could be supporting the gym that they love so much!
3 Simple Reasons Why Your Club Needs An Online Store
Just in case you weren’t sold at this point, there are 3 really easy ways to justift an online store.
It’s a simple way to increase your revenue with additional upsells
It’s an additional source of income from cancelled members as you can advertise a new product to them
It provides your members with more reasons to stay through membership discounts and incentives
An online store gives you an incredibly powerful way to maximise the value from every single member you have; regardless if they’re a current member or one who hasn’t set foot in the gym for years.
After national lockdowns around the world, the gym industry is hurting for investment. You need to get your business back to where it was pre-COVID. And the sad fact is that for a while, you’re simply not going to attract the same number of members that you did previously, at least for a while.
People are still struggling for money and many are nervous about returning to public areas after such a long stint of isolation. Because of that, you don’t need to grow, you simply need to maximise every single member, so you can make more revenue from what you already have.
And the best part is, it takes no time at all to start.
How To Set Up A Simple Online Store
There are 2 very simple ways to host an online store…
Host your store on your current website
Build an external store
How To Host Your Store On Your Gym Website
Whether you run your own website or have a web developer handling it for you, you can add a simple store to most websites with very little fuss.
How you add a store depends entirely on what software you are using to run your website, but bear in mind, this option is the more complicated of the two, so make sure you have a few hours to spare to learn how it all works.
If you are hosting your site on a website builder like Wix or Squarespace, then these site builders both have pre-built online store templates. You simply need to purchase the online store additions for a small price and then you can create a no fuss online store all by yourself.
If you have built your website on a platform like WordPress, then you have a few more options when it comes to starting your store. Simply searching for an online store plugin will bring back hundreds of options, all with their own pros and cons, which can range from free to paid. Our personal recommendation would be the WooCommerce plugin, which is typically accepted as the best option, but you are free to choose when it comes to your own personal needs.
Of course, if you have a web developer, this entire process is made much simpler as you can just ask them to update your site for you.
How To Build An External Store
If you don’t have the technical know-how to build a store on your own site, then an alternative is just to create another site that is focused on just being an online store and linking over to it.
There’s loads of them out there, but one of our personal recommendations would be Shopify. It’s a website builder that is build around online stores, so everything from stock management to payments is already handled on the site.
It’s perfect for complete beginners to set up and is extremely straightforward for beginners to use.
At just a small fee every month to keep a basic Shopify store open, it’s so easy to get your store up and running, get some products on it and then simply add a link to your current gym website.
Discover What Your Members Want To Buy
Getting the store set up is the easy bit. It’s selecting a catalogue of products that appeals to YOUR members is the real challenge. Consider the type of facility you are. If you’re personal trainer focused for instance, then perhaps class gift packs will be popular.
Products that you already sell a lot of in-house might find a wider audience by having a spot on your online store. In theory you be opening up your range of supplements or merchandise to a national audience.
Do you offer bespoke nutrition plans or training programmes? An online store is a great way of managing such sales as the automatic confirmation email when a member purchases these items could contain a link to book the initial consultation. Saving you time, money and organisational headaches!
If your gym contains a real mix of member types, it might be worth putting out a survey to your members to better understand their purchase behaviours. We’ve even written a guide on how to create free and simple surveys for you to start using within minutes.
A Few Additional Online Store Ideas
Just in case you were really interested in having and online store, but need a few more points of inspiration before you get started, here’s a list of a few ideas that our clubs have tried in the past.
Surplus or Bulk Stock – If you have items in your stock cupboard that have sat for a while, adding them to you online store may help to shift them before that used by date creeps up on you. Alongside this, a lot of items that may be easy for you to get hold of, are not so easy for members to find. One idea is to order in additional stock of popular products and sell them at a wholesale price to your members for the entire pallet or box.
Christmas Presents – That time of year is on the horizon, so now is a great time to offer your members the opportunity to purchase Christmas presents for their loved ones. Why not bundle together some simple equipment or merchandise and a paid in full gym membership for the month of January.
Old Equipment – Why give eBay the fees, when you have a captive market of members who may be interested in purchasing your old or unneeded equipment? Your old kettlebell could find a fantastic home with one of your members!
Training & Nutrition Programmes – Producing a generic training or nutrition programme doesn’t necessarily cost you anything but could have value to a member. You could even allow your trainers to create their own generic programmes and see which proves the most popular amongst your members! Bespoke programmes can then be charged at a premium.
Let Ashbourne Help You Build Your Site
The team at Ashbourne are here to deliver the most complete club management in the world. After 25 years, we know that managing a club is more complex than just collecting your direct debits and calling it a day. We only work with clubs who are invested in growing and building themselves, and we’re ready to join you on that journey.
If you’re interested in taking your club to the next level, then we’re all in. And the best part is, we have services for every aspect of club management, including building and maintaining your club’s website and online store.
If you want to learn more about us and see what we can do for your fitness business, then book a free demo here and we’ll show you around our entire platform, no strings attached.
Virtual classes and online training and support, has come out as king during the year of lockdowns and virtual services.
While these has proven to be very successful as an incentive to keep members paying for their gym membership, and keeping many clubs relevant in the day-to-day lives of their members; this is still uncharted territory for so many clubs and gyms.
One of the biggest questions we constantly receive here, is not what service can I provide my members. Most gym owners are very aware that they need to offer an online service and training of some kind during lockdown. But the real issue has been:
How can we continue to deliver our members an online service, without a spending a fortune?
YOU CAN ALSO DOWNLOAD OUR ONLINE PLATFORM GUIDE
If you don’t have time to read the blog, then you can always download our online platform guide right now, and discover the power of direct debit collection for your club memberships in your own time.
The Best Platforms To Host Your Online Gym Classes
We’ve taken a look at the 4 biggest livestreaming platforms that you can use to host your online fitness classes and content.
Depending on your budget and your needs, each of these 4 platforms provides you with an amazing way to not only host your fitness classes online, but also help you grow your online prescence.
We’ll look through each of our 4 choices, to give you the pros and cons of each platform:
Using Youtube Livestreams For Your Online Fitness Classes
YouTube is the king of video sites and while YouTube has mainly been home to pre-recorded videos, in the last few years YouTube has started to expand into the world of live streaming.
Because of its widespread popularity and reputation for being incredibly stable, YouTube is on the face of it, a great place to stream your online fitness classes. But let’s take a deeper look…
YouTube Live – Pros & Cons
Pros
Completely free to use
Very stable
Ability to schedule livestreams
Great social media marketing opportunity
Instantly updates all your YouTube followers
Basic editing within the platform
Simple & easy video content for your YouTube channel
Cons
No built-in privacy features
Whether you can stream depends on your device
Lacking in unique customisable features outside of basic video streaming
YouTube Live – Cost & Features
Outside of YouTube’s premium service, everything on YouTube is free to use and livestreaming is no exception.
When it comes to livestreaming, it can be done at the click of a button. Instead of uploading a video, you’re given the option to livestream instead. From there you can start streaming right away, or schedule future streams.
When it comes to how you want to stream you can either stream from your webcam, which will directly stream whatever is caught by your webcam, or you can connect YouTube up to an external program, which allows you to add effects and music to your stream.
If you want to increase your streaming quality, you can always attach an external webcam or camera, which YouTube can use as your webcam in order to provide a higher quality stream and audio quality for your watchers.
YouTube Live – Interactivity
As a streaming site, YouTube only allows for you to send video to your audience.
While your audience are able to send messages to you in the chat, the interactivity you can have with your audience is limited to message chat.
Moderating your chat is very easy on YouTube, so if you do have any troublemakers in the chat, you can quickly ban them from commenting, but they will still be able to watch your stream.
YouTube Live – Membership Access
This is where YouTube Live has a flaw, although you can easily spin it into a positive.
YouTube Live doesn’t allow you to control who you livestream to. When you start a stream, you simply broadcast it to everyone on the platform. When it comes to moderating, as we mentioned earlier, you can also only moderate the chat. You can’t stop people from watching your stream, outside of stopping the stream entirely.
YouTube Live – Extra Benefits & Unique Features
One of the neatest features of YouTube livestreaming, is that any video you stream can be immediately uploaded on your YouTube channel, so you can keep your training content around for others to watch later.
You can even edit and change your content before it goes completely live on your account, to streamline it all to be watched later.
YouTube also allows you to collect donations through your livestreams, so it is possible that you could use this as an additional revenue stream outside of just your member’s payments.
YouTube Live – Final Thoughts
YouTube is a really simple and popular way to livestream, so it’s a no brainer for anyone who wants a no fuss way to livestream their classes.
The main downside of YouTube Live is that it restricts which devices you are able to livestream from, depending on how many subscribers you have on your account. If you have less than a 1,000 subscribers then you are unable to livestream from your mobile. While this isn’t the end of the world, it’s very likely that your mobile phone may be the best camera you have available, so be aware you’ll be restricted to your laptop and webcam when it comes to streaming.
There is also the issue that you won’t be able to livestream just to your members. This is great for your marketing, but your paying members might feel like they’re not getting an exclusive experience since it’s publicly available. This might require you to offer your paying customers a little extra to keep them happy.
However, outside of that issue, YouTube is a simple and quick way to stream – while also being a great way to produce video content for your YouTube channel and market yourself to your wider audience.
Using Facebook Live For Your Online Fitness Classes
Facebook Live – Pros & Cons
Pros:
Completely free to use
Packed with features to personalise your streams
Ability to schedule livestreams
Allows public / private livestreams
Great social media marketing opportunity
Instantly updates all your Facebook followers
Cons:
No built-in privacy features
Facebook Live – Cost & Features
As with Facebook itself, Facebook livestreams are completely free and can be set up in just a few clicks.
Facebook Live gives you lots more options to connect to different streaming services and use a wider array of camera types much easier. You can still use a webcam, but if you want to hook up a DSLR camera and additional sound equipment as part of your stream, Facebook Live makes that far easier, as you can easily stream through other platforms and connect them up to your Facebook Live.
Facebook has also added in all of the fun social media features like stickers and filters that you can already use on your Facebook posts, but within your livestreams.
And if you didn’t need any extra compliments of the system, you can also schedule your livestreams ahead of time and alert all of your Facebook followers when you go live.
Facebook Live – Interactivity
Much like YouTube, Facebook Live doesn’t allow for 2 way video interaction, but it has a fully featured chat system so your members can message you and each other during your class.
This chat feature comes complete with emojis and additional features which make the chat a lot more vibrant on Facebook Live than other livestreaming platforms.
You also have full control over moderating your chat, so you can quickly remove anyone who is causing trouble on your streams.
Facebook Live – Membership Access
One of Facebook’s strengths is that you can livestream into different parts of your Facebook account:
Business pages
Groups
Personal pages
Because of this, you can easily split up your streams to target different member types.
If you want to stream something to your wider audience, in order to keep your gym on their mind and get your marketing going, then you can livestream to your general business Facebook page.
Alternatively, if you wish to give some more exclusive content to your paying members, then simply open up a Facebook Group, make it private for just paying members and then livestream to them.
Facebook Live – Extra Benefits & Unique Features
One of the most unique aspects of Facebook is that your success and outreach with your livestreams can feed back into your Facebook advertising.
Facebook Live is a new feature for Facebook, and because of that, Facebook will alert more people to a livestream taking place than a simple post or video upload, as this is the best way for Facebook to promote new features.
If your livestream gets you more likes to your Facebook page, then that is even more Facebook users that you can target when you run your next Facebook Ads campaign. Facebook Live has far more long term bonuses to it, than just the stream itself.
Facebook Live – Final Thoughts
When it comes to livestreaming, Facebook has a lot of advantages in its corner that go far beyond just how easy its livestreaming service is.
From Facebook live being completely free, allowing you to livestream to different parts of your audience and also giving you the long term benefit of being able to to advertise back to any Facebook followers you pick up along the way – there really is a huge argument that going with Facebook is a terrific idea if your social media focus is Facebook to begin with.
Using Zoom For Your Online Fitness Classes
Zoom has become a household name throughout 2020, hosting nearly every single class, business meeting and social event throughout the global lockdowns. But Zoom has very quickly also become one of the most popular ways to livestream fitness classes and personal training sessions.
Zoom – Pros & Cons
Pros
Free options, but restrictive
Built in security features for private livestreams
Allows public / private livestreams
Option to stream to social media also
2 way member interaction
Lots of features and settings
Record all of your content
The addition of breakout rooms to host multiple sessions at once
Cons
Costs more to get the most from it, but can be well worth the investment
A steeper learning curve because of increased features
Restricted to just 100 attendees, even on the lower paid tiers
Zoom – Cost & Features
Zoom is notable for being the only service on this list which isn’t completely free. While you can use Zoom for free, there are certain limits in place, most notably that meetings can only last up to a maximum of 45 minutes if there are 3 or more attendees. You are also limited to the number of attendees you can have depending on your membership type.
Presuming you are hosting groups larger than 3, or keeping your classes very short, it’s more than likely that you’ll need to invest in at least a PRO account, which will allow you to host unlimited group meets that can last as long as you want.
Zoom allows you to easily broadcast yourself, while also sharing a screen and delivering music directly from your device, all without having to use any additional programs. When it comes to hosting a professional looking, high quality broadcast, Zoom has all of the in-built features to do all that.
Also, while Zoom costs money, you can always pay on a monthly basis, so whenever you want to cancel your subscription, you can do so without a huge financial investment to discover if Zoom is the right platform for your livestreams.
Zoom – Interactivity
Because Zoom has been built for business meetings, that means it allows for 2 way video and audio communication, along with a text chat feature.
If you want to livestream your classes or even a personal training consult for your members, then a Zoom meeting gives you more ways than ever to interact with your audience and actually see them perform live.
And of course, Zoom allows you to completely control who is present, so you are free to mute and block anyone who you don’t want interacting or viewing your content.
If you are uncomfortable with your audience being visible on video, you can also block anyone from appearing on camera at all, making it very easy to control your livestream environment.
Zoom – Membership Access
Every single Zoom meeting can be password protected as standard, meaning that you can easily share your livestreaming content with only the people that you want to share it with.
You are even able to make a list before the livestream, where you can make it so only certain Zoom accounts can login to watch your content, although this isn’t very practical as many of your members may never have used Zoom before and therefore won’t have an account to restrict them to.
Unlike the social media livestreaming options, your Zoom meeting can be made completely private, so if you only want to create livestream content and classes for your members, then you can be certain that only your members will receive it.
Zoom – Extra Benefits & Unique Features
One of Zoom’s greatest benefits is that you can also link it up to your social media and livestream across multiple platforms at once.
You can livestream to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Linkedin and Restream from a single Zoom account. If you want to go beyond your members and stream to literally everyone who has ever heard of your brand, then Zoom social media streaming is a really easy way around that. It also conveniently helps you get around their 100 attendee limit, as social media viewers aren’t counted towards the total.
The recent addition of breakout rooms to Zoom is also an amazing extra for anyone who wants to hold a more complex class. Breakout rooms allow you to split your attendees off into seperate Zoom meetings and then bring them back into a main larger group. This can be a great way to host multiple different workouts and classes at the same time, but all within the same meeting.
Zoom – Final Thoughts
It should come as no surprise to anyone that when it comes to livestreaming, Zoom has earned its title as one of the best.
If you want to invest some extra money into your livestreaming platform, then Zoom is one of the best value options out there. And because it’s been built to handle so many different kinds of live events – Zoom is incredibly flexible for any kind of live fitness session or class that you might want to host.
With the additional option to livestream over your social media as well, Zoom really does feel like the best of both worlds, with a small price tag attached.
Using Twitch For Your Online Fitness Classes
Twitch – Pros & Cons
Pros:
Completely free to use
Packed with features to personalise your streams
Simple editing within the platform
Very stable video quality
No upper limit to how many people can watch
Cons:
No built-in privacy features
A slightly higher learning curve than other free platforms
No connection to your social media outside of Twitch
Less known for fitness videos
Twitch – Cost & Features
Like all of the other social media livestreaming platforms we’ve mentioned, Twitch is completely free for you to start using and streaming with.
Twitch is used by tens of thousands of video game streamers a day, and while it is not commonly used for streams outside of this, its requirement to stream high quality video game footage means that it is designed to get people streaming with relative ease and in great quality.
Twitch – Interactivity
As Twitch is primarily designed for gaming streams, Twitch interactivity can be as basic or as complex as you want it to be.
Although it comes with a basic text chat feature for your members to get in touch with you (with the ability to moderate and ban users from the chat and your stream), there are multiple fun and interesting features that you can add into the chat, to liven things up a bit.
However, unlike Zoom, there is no 2 way video and audio communication, so while Twitch has a really fun and deep chat feature, that is as much as you’ll be able to interact with your members.
Twitch – Membership Access
While Twitch does provide you a way to stream to a private group, unfortunately this requires any viewers to pay you via Twitch in order to get exclusive content.
While this might not be an issue for some gyms who want to go all in on streaming, if your members are already paying you directly for their club membership, it might be an issue to also require them to pay for your Twitch exclusive content.
However, in terms of public livestreaming, Twitch is easy to set up in minutes and you can quickly share your stream on all of your social media channels.
Twitch – Final Thoughts
While Twitch is a very solid platform, it’s lack of popularity outside of the gaming community might scare off many of your members.
Twitch is one of the more complex livestreaming services, allowing you to integrate a lot of other platforms and features into your streams; at the cost of a slightly higher learning curve to get the most from it.
However, if you want a quick and easy set up, Twitch can provide that, although it doesn’t offer quite the same feedback into your social media that directly livestreaming from a platform like Facebook might allow.
And Our Personal Winner Goes To…
Zoom or Facebook Live!
When you break it all down, Zoom and Facebook Live cover all the bases that any gym or club would ever need.
Facebook Live is an amazingly simple service that a gym can use to start livestreaming fitness content completely free and instantly reach most of their members, as Facebook is used by almost everyone at this point. The ability to livestream to groups and pages seperately, also makes it a great way to hit different parts of your membership.
Zoom comes out top for a paid service, simply because it’s a very small investment for some huge benefits. When you combine its high quality streams, the ability to interact with your members via video, control your content’s privacy and also get the benefits of livestreaming to Facebook as well… Zoom is an amazing deal for a gym who wants to livestream on a budget.
Ashbourne Can Help With Every Aspect of Your Club
Unlike most club management services which just give you some basic software and collect your direct debits, the team at Ashbourne knows that there’s a lot more to managing a successful club than simply collecting payments.
From debt collection, to web design, marketing ideas and more – the entire team at Ashbourne Membership Management is at your disposal to help you succeed and master every single element of being a successful gym.
If you want to chat about what we offer, or simply run through how we can help your particular health club, then get in touch with us and our sales manager Grant will be back in touch to talk through everything.
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.
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
Direct Debit collection will significantly reduce your manual bookkeeping.
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
Allowing your members to join on a contract and set up a direct debit increases retention and sign ups significantly
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 memberswhich 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 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.
In this free webinar, we’ll show you a simple and low cost Facebook ads campaign that you can use to start advertising your club in your local area, and get members signing up to your gym, for as little as £1 a day.
Using up to date Facebook techniques, we’ll explain every step of setting up this £1 Facebook ads strategy, so you can follow along even if you’ve never used Facebooks ads before.
In this webinar, you’ll get:
A complete walkthrough of how to you can set up your own £1 a day Facebook ads strategy
An explanation of how the Facebook algorithm works
Free resources you can use to start making great looking videos and images for your Facebook ads
A free step-by-step written guide for the entire £1 Facebook ad which you can download below
Watch The Full Webinar Here: Run A Successful Facebook Ad Strategy For Just £1 A Day
Get Your Complete List of Free Resources
You can find all the free resources mentioned in the webinar to download below and start selling club memberships through Facebook right away.
We’ve got a step-by-step guide for how you can set up a £1 a day Facebook ad strategy to get your health club and gym growing.
This strategy allows you to target your entire local area and start selling more gym memberships for as little as £1 a day.
Ashbourne is focused on making it easier for health clubs to grow their business and keep delivering their members a better service.
Ashbourne can manage every single aspect of your fitness business, handling everything from your payments to your website, entry and booking systems.
This gives you more time and freedom to focus on your members, revitalise your marketing and have time to actually manage your club properly.
And of course, Ashbourne are here every step of the way with free resources and advice to help your club be the best it can be.
If you want to discuss the future of your club, then don’t hesitate to set up a chat with our sales manager Grant Harrison and he can introduce you to our club management solutions.
When clubs and gyms are reopened in the UK after lockdown restrictions lift, it’s no surprise that social distancing rules are going to drastically change the average gym session for both members and staff alike.
While social distancing is going to be an important change to gym life for the months to come, the question remains:
What does a successful socially distanced gym actually look like?
We’ve already seen lots of creative ideas thrown around, with certain gyms in the US actually sectioning off 2 metre workout areas draped in protective PPE covering. But for the average club owner, they need simple and effective methods to quickly make their gym safe and socially distanced, while keeping everything simple for their members and staff to quickly get into a routine and stay healthy.
So on the theme of keeping things simple, let’s run through what social distancing in a health club is actually going to look like on the day-to-day.
A Socially Distanced Club Means…
All Gym Equipment Will Be Spaced Out Across The Club
If you want to keep your members socially distanced during their workouts, that means you’re going to have to distance all of your workout equipment.
Overall, clubs are going to have to minimise the equipment available on the gym floor because every member is going to need to be able to exercise in an area that allows them to distance from other gym users.
This will take some planning and a lot of heavy lifting in order to best use your space efficiently in order to have as wide of a variety of equipment available in your club, while also adequately spacing out your equipment around your facility.
All of this could account for you needing to cut your equipment down by at least 50%.
However, this is also an opportunity to maximise your space. If you have areas that you would usually use for classes, you could potentially use these as part of your main gym floor in order to keep as much of your equipment available for your members to use.
Increased Signage & One Way Systems Throught The Club
In light of your entire gym layout changing, this will require some new signage in order to help your members learn the new rules and guide themselves around the facility.
All of your efforts will be for nil if your members aren’t following the protocols to keep themselves and your club safe and healthy. And with minimal staff on the floor, you can’t have confused members asking for help from your already busy staff members.
Clear and simple to understand signage should decorate your club and you should be ready to update and change signage based on your member’s feedback or confusion.
One way systems may also be required for some clubs, depending on their layout, which will require further markings on the floor in order to clearly create a path for your members to work their way around your facility.
Cleaning Equipment & Sanitisers On Every Machine
Club members should be no stranger to wiping down equipment after a workout (well…most of them anyway). That process is going to continue, but is going to be enforced far more strictly.
Hand sanitiser should be found at the following locations:
1 – Every entrance and exit to the gym
2 – Next to every single piece of equipment, to be used before and after use
3 – Outside any locker or toilet facilities
Along with hand sanitiser, equipment should also have a complete cleaning facility, including paper towels and anti bacterial spray, which members should be requested to clean the equipment with after use…without fail!
Overall, your team should be visibly cleaning the facility throughout the day, which is partly for cleanliness and partly to demonstrate that you’re taking the situation seriously and keeping your members feeling comfortable and safe.
Limited or Zero Access To Showers / Saunas / Steam Rooms
Because of this, it is likely that clubs are going to have to completely close, or largely restrict access to certain areas of thier facility, such as showers, saunas, steam rooms and changing rooms.
In surveys that we’ve conducted with our gym Prime Fitness Redditch, we asked our own members their opinions on limiting access to locker rooms and our shower facilities. The good news is that a majority of our members were completely fine with this given the circumstances, although several mentioned they would not like this on a long term basis.
Regardless of your members’ response, it’s clear that in order to keep your members safe and make sure your gym is not a source of contamination, that you will likely have to close your changing facilities and saunas where you cannot guarantee social distancing.
However, the best practice with this is to use surveys in order to keep your members updatedand get their feedback so that you can quickly respond and relieve any confusion or frustrations that your members may have.
Gym Sessions Booked By Appointment
Restricting the actual numer of members who can enter your facility at any one time is a major part of social distancing.
Afterall, it would be self defeating to half the equipment in your gym, only for a packed gym full of members to be impatiently waiting to use the limited equipment.
Having a system in place for your members to book appointments in order to use the gym is the best way to do this. If you have a class booking system in place, this will be best retrofitted to take bookings for the gym in general.
Ashbourne customers already have access to a specially built gym sessions booking system, as well as an automated system that creates a reservation list and gives members the ability to come to the gym earlier if there is a cancellation – all done automatically without the need for staff to keep track of it.
Once again, clear communication with your members is key here, so they understand how the process works, but also understand why the process is in place in order to ease the transition into a socially distanced club environment.
A Continuing Focus On Online Classes & Online Only Memberships
Based on our own findings, we’ve discovered that members over 50 are far more likely to be concerned about returning to gyms immediately after they reopen.
Why do we mention this?
Because the data shows that all members aren’t the same.
Club owners are going to have to be highly aware of the demographics of their gym and fit their reopen plan to them.
As a business, you’re also need to find a way to give a valuable service to your members who are inevitably going to become impatient with the fact that they can’t enter the gym whenever they want, with social distancing and session booking in place.
Between the issue of members potentially not wanting to return to the club straight away, and the restrictions place on those that are returning, there needs to be a huge focus on providing online classes, workouts and support to keep your members engaged with your gym.
But this isn’t a cause for concern, this can be a huge opportunity to deliver a wider service:
Any classes you run, you can now livestream.
You can create extra revenue by providing an online only membership.
Today’s obstacles can evolve into a better service for your members, if you plan your relaunch correctly.
The current restrictions can provide the inspiration to you to come up with smarter ways to increase your revenue.
A successful post-COVID club needs to implement social distancing changes quickly, while also using the new setup to maximise their revenue and demonstrate to their members that they care and are listening.
The socially distanced club is a strange new frontier, but if we pull together and plan ahead, we can leave lockdown with an industry that has greater reach to our customers, reaching far into the future when social distancing is a thing of the past.
When it comes to health clubs and coronavirus, there are so many questions coming from all sides. Many members are cautious about returning to their gym due to the numerous unknowns that COVID-19 is causing.
And on the other side, gym owners are also uncertain about many key COVID-19 facts, such as how easily it can spread in a gym and what is the best way to keep your club clean and free from the virus.
To help answer the most frequently asked questions, we’ve put together our very own Coronavirus FAQ For Clubs & Gyms, which we are giving away as blank template for you to download, rebrand with your own gym’s logo and then send out to your members to answer their questions and put their minds at ease about coronavirus.
We’ve answered all of the most common questions below, so feel free to download your free unbranded Coronavirus FAQ template here, so you can out your member’s minds at ease and get them back into your club and using your facility when indoor clubs open later in the year.
How Can We Keep The Gym Clean?
All gyms will need to be deep cleaned overnight and regularly throughout the day, using high-grade disinfectants that will kill the virus. It is impossible to keep any environment 100% clean, however it is possible to make environments ‘safe’ by undertaking appropriate cleaning measures. COVID-19 is easy to kill with most readily available cleaning products and with thorough hand washing with soap for 20 seconds or more.
Can You Catch COVID-19 From Sweat?
No, COVID-19 cannot be transmitted through sweat. However, don’t forget that wiping sweat from your face could lead to the virus being passed from your hands to your face. So it is important to regularly use hand sanitisers which are 60% alcohol or more and avoid touching your face as much as possible. Make sure there are hand sanitising stations throughout the gym, so they are easily accessible to your members.
Can Physical Activity Help Against COVID-19?
Being physically fit has a number of health benefits, including being highly protective against a range of illnesses. People with underlying health conditions, diabetes etc and those who are overweight are more at risk to being affected by COVID-19, so given that the virus is now considered to be ‘endemic’ within the community, it is more important than ever to maintain your fitness – which in turn will boost your immune system.
Are Gyms Higher Risk Than Other Enclosed Spaces?
Not at all. There is the same chance of getting COVID-19 in all indoor areas. What is important is that people follow social distancing, cleanliness and aerosolisation guidelines. The COVID-19 R rate (the rate the infection is spread by one person) is much higher indoors, including shops, households and workplaces. Although gyms fall into this same category, this can be mitigated through special measures and guidelines put in place.
Should I Wear A Mask To The Gym?
No, wearing a mask is not a requirement when attending the gym, unless it makes you or your members feel more comfortable. A mask protects people from droplet spread from an infected peron to another person, it does not protect the wearer and following social distancing is of greater importance.
Should I Wear Gloves To The Gym?
No, you do not need to wear gloves at the gym. Gloves should be reserved for those responsible for certain tasks such as caring for the sick, working in a hospital environment or by cleaning staff. Gloves can harbour a high viral load and could contaminate surfaces. Washing your hands is far more important.
Can I Get COVID-19 From The Air?
COVID-19 survives in droplets or possibly aerosols (very fine particles) and can be transmitted person to person via close contact. There is no evidence to suggest that COVID-19 can be transmitted through the air. Maintaining social distancing greatly reduces risk of spreading as the majority of droplets fall to the ground at this distance.
How Can I Help Reduce The Spread of Infection?
If you have any concerns that you may have contracted, or been in contact with anyone infected with COVID-19 – stay home. When you are in the gym, follow the simple guidelines, keep your distance, wash your hands and clean equipment before and after use. When speaking, stand beside one another and make sure to cough/sneeze into the inside of your elbow.
Is Using The Club Showers Safe?
Clothes are considered a low-risk source of infection from COVID-19 and washing at 60 degrees celcius or above kills the virus. However, they can become contaminated so should be handled with care and being sure to wash your hands thoroughly after touching. Do not hand wash clothes and be sure to change immediately after reaching home.
There is currently no evidence to support the suggestion that COVID-19 can be spread to humans through the use of showers, hot tubs, pools or spas. It is, therefore, safe to shower but once again ensuring that social distancing is followed. For the time being, members should be encouraged to arrived and leave in gym kit wherever possible.
It’s always been important to shape your club around the demands of your members. But with the complications caused by the COVID lockdown and the upcoming restrictions that social distancing will cause when your club reopens, it’s never been more important to keep open clear channels of communication with your members.
With the numerous changes coming your way, you need to be sure that your members are going to be on board with your social distancing measures and connecting with the message you’re putting out.
Using a member’s survey is the quickest and most straight forward way to get an accurate read on who is using your club and what they want from your facility.
The complete survey covers every aspect of your re-opening process:
Get detailed information on your members’ weekly gym usage
Gauge your members’ opinions on social distancing procedures
Get an accurate breakdown of your members’ demographics to help you target with the right message
Provide them with a special reward as an incentive for completing the survey
Everything is built with Google Forms, a completely free and simple way to build high quality and professional surveys.
You can send out a single form to your entire facility and store all of their responses in one single dashboard, with the ability to look at individual member’s responses, or compare the feedback of your entire member base.
You can find our template here, complete with our entire list of questions, pre-written copy to explain everything to your members and a special gift idea to get members clicking into your survey and completing it in the first place.
How To Use Google Forms
Like most Google products, Google forms is designed to be user friendly, look sleek and most importantly, be incredibly reliable.
Here are your simple 3 steps to creating your own member survey using our template…
Step 1: Login to Google Forms & Create A Blank Form
Simply click this link to be taken straight to Google Forms. You might have to log in if you don’t already have a Google account.
You should then be taken to the “Template Gallery”. Select the “blank” template so you can have a blank canvas to start with.
Step 2: Copy The Questions & Layout From Our Template
All you need to do is simply copy and paste our questions, answers and introductions to each section of the survey over into your blank template. You’ll quickly learn how Google Forms works and how simple it is to create complex and engaging forms in just minutes.
All of our questions will provide your health club with a great basis to get a well rounded sense of what your members want from your club and of course, you can edit and change as you go to suit your style and needs.
Step 3: Keep An Eye On Your Responses & Adapt Accordingly
As your responses are filled in, Google Forms will automatically pull all the information together into easy to read graphs and charts.
At a glance, you’ll quickly be able to see how your members feel about every issue or change facing your club.
And by adding in a few quality of life questions, you can even find out a few things that aren’t related to lockdown or COVID-19, which can greatly streamline how you run your club.
At a glance, you get clear information that can drastically improve the way you communicate with your members
Why Member Surveys Are So Important
Many clubs are absolutely terrified of asking their members for feedback. On the face of it, it can seem like a bad idea, as many club owners fear that it creates an impression that they’re unsure of what they’re doing. An even more prominent myth is that contacting your members can actually drive them away, as they are more likely to become aware of their monthly spending with your facility if you remind them that they have a membership with you.
These couldn’t be further from the truth.
Members use your service because they like it and one of the most rewarding things you can do for your members is to look like you’re trying to make your fitness business suit their needs.
That has never been more important than now, when your members are going to be greatly affected by the social distancing rules you will have to bring into place for the second half of 2020.
This is just a short list of ways that our survey helped our own gym at Prime Fitness:
We discovered how quickly our members will be returning to the club
We discovered a majority of our members will be returning on the first day
We discovered people in higher age brackets were more cautious of returning to the gym
We discovered that most of our members were happy with temporary limits to their gym usage
We discovered how often our members actually use the gym per week
We discovered that we could close the changing rooms without upsetting most members
Our offer of a free 6 months membership to one lucky survey user increased our social media activity
And the most important thing we learned from the survey…
Every change we made from now on, we could quote the stats that our members are happy with the changes.
It makes it a lot easier to defend your actions, if your members have already agreed with them.
We hope you find the member survey template helpful and that it continues to give you the ability and freedom to truly get a sense of what your members want from your club, so you can be the club that your members never want to leave, through lockdown and beyond.
In this free webinar, gym owner and manager, Grant Harrison will show you the steps you need to take in order to successfully relaunch your club after lockdown ends.
Using a tried and tested strategy employed by his own club, Prime Fitness Redditch, Grant and the team will walk you through their extensive checklist of things you need to be doing in order to successfully reopen your club after the COVID-19 lockdown. If your gym has been affected by the Coronavirus lockdowns, then you’ll learn how to:
Keep up your lead generation until you actually reopen, to keep attracting new members.
Conquer your relaunch marketing and let your network aware that you’re reopening.
Make sure your gym is prepared for social distancing so that your members feel comfortable enough to return sooner.
How to demonstrate all of this to your members through marketing and be seen as the club that cares.
Watch The Full Webinar Here: How To Relaunch Your Club After Lockdown
Get Your Complete List of Free Resources
In the webinar, we want to give you as many resources as possible to get through lockdown and successfully relaunch your club once the COVID-19 situation has passed.
Let’s not soften the blow, nothing about your club’s reopening will be simple. There will be challenges with getting your members back through the doors, or possibly even the possibility of a second lockdown.
However, we’re here to give you as much advice as possible to help your fitness business thrive and grow by taking action now and getting ready for the clubs and gyms reopening across the UK in July.
All of the techniques and systems we’ve mentioned in this webinar are possible to do by yourself.
However, they will take a lot of time, investment and manpower to manage and pull off.
The strength in Ashbourne Membership Management is that we have the infrastructure and help in place to get you started from today. We have a team to communicate with your members on your behalf, and our own proprietary software that can handle everything else: From controlling access to your club, to instantly creating promotions to share with your members.
Ashbourne Membership Management is here to help you every step of the way, so don’t hesitate to set up a chat if you want to make your club a success before it’s time to relaunch.
It’s no secret that members continue to demand more from their clubs. The cold hard truth is that this demand for improvement is here to stay. And, as technology and your competition continue to evolve, your customers’ expectations are only going to become even higher.
If you’re going to prosper next year and beyond, you have to ensure that you always stay one step ahead of consumers’ expectations. This, naturally, raises the question; how can you keep up with the constant demand for better services & efficiencies?
Staying Ahead Of The Curve
Part of your success as a club comes down to your ability to give your members what they need before they know what they need. With the pace that technology is evolving and the fierce competition in the industry, it’s the clubs who can do this that will reap the rewards in the long run.
At Ashbourne, we have two main areas of focus as a business: improving the user experience of our software package and giving members and prospects an evolving solution to their problems.
2020 & Beyond The ongoing development & evolution of our software here at Ashbourne is critical to ensure that we give our customers (you) everything you need to thrive as a business It’s of paramount importance in ensuring that our platform continues to lead the way in this industry.
Ashbourne’s 24/7 Smart Chat Bot is nearing the final stages of completion. The bot has been developed to provide your members with real-time updates on their membership, engage with those who have cancelled and even help fill classes within your club. The Smart Chat Bot is unique in the fact it is not just a tool for maintaining high standards of customer service. Intelligent messaging allows the bot to reach out to members who have displayed certain characteristics and can effectively automate simple marketing processes. For example, a member who has failed to book their favourite class will receive an SMS prompt and will be booked on to the class through a simple reply. A multi-lingual tool, the Ashbourne 24/7 Smart Chat Bot will be available across Europe in 2020.
Prospect Marketing
Adaptable prospect marketing is another huge area of growth for Ashbourne. Using preselected promotions, it’s becoming easier than ever to deliver the offers & information that your potential customers want to see across email and social media marketing. Instead of guessing what your customer wants, you can use automation, A/B testing and social algorithms to deliver a seamless sales process which ultimately allows you to sign up new members in a more effective & efficient way.
Our Fitness App
And finally, we’re making vast improvements to our Fitness App. Members are using their mobile phones more & more to govern and implement their healthy lifestyles. We’re developing our app to reflect that, providing more ways for members to store their own health data and plan their gym time whilst on the go, all from one reliable, powerful and simple-to-use application.
These advancements in design & functionality are designed to drive improvements in user experience and of course deliver value to your members which is key to helping you maximise retention and increase your profitability as a club.
To find out more about our software developments get in touch by phone on 01564 741 837 or send an email to [email protected].
Email should be one of the key pillars in any club’s marketing strategy. It’s vital in driving new member sign-ups, maximising the value of your current members and increasing retention.
Despite it’s undeniable importance, there are a lot of clubs out there who aren’t using the channel effectively (or at all) to help maximise their revenue and profitability. Now, there’s an old saying – ‘it’s not what you do but the way that you do it’ – and it’s never been more applicable than when it comes to the use of email for clubs like yours.
We work with a lot of gym & clubs here at Ashbourne who are using email and they’re having great success. It’s making a real difference to their new member sign-ups and, ultimately, their bottom line. And it can do the same for any club if it’s implemented in the right way!
The clubs who are making it work have refined their tactics and are using email in a smarter way and it’s something that’s working really, really well.
We’ve created this blog to share a couple of strategies that you can use to grow the conversion rates of your prospects into new sign-ups and to help increase member retention.
GDPR
Firstly, we’ll begin by addressing GDPR.
GDPR came into affect last year as a regulation in EU law to help help protect the data and privacy of European citizens. It certainly had an effect on the amount of email marketing which clubs were carrying out.
Now, we won’t go into the specific rules and regulations on GDPR because there’s enough good information online for you already, but the long and short of it is that…
1| You need your privacy policy to be updated and water tight.
2| If you’re using cookies on your site (anything to do with analytics or remarketing) you need a pop up to ask for your visitors’ consent.
3| You need to be able to prove that anyone you’re emailing has opted in to receive marketing communications (this is easily done by adding privacy statements to forms on your website and when you ask for people’s details at your club stating that the person is happy for you to send marketing emails to them – this is standard protocol now for all companies, not just in our industry).
If you’re doing these things, you’ll be absolutely fine and won’t have any issues with emailing people.
Using Email Marketing To Convert Prospects Into Paying Members
A lead comes into your club and you or a member of your team follows it up with a phone call or an email. Some of these leads will request information about prices & facilities etc., some will come and visit you and some of them will just have questions they want answered. Eventually, some of these leads become members which, of course, is fantastic!
The reality is though, like in any business, a large proportion of these prospects don’t become members. Not so fantastic.
But, what’s most baffling, is that there’s lack of activity that a lot of gyms and clubs have in place to convert more of their leads into customersin the longer term.
You see, what you have to understand is that just because someone is ready to enquire or visit for a trial, it doesn’t mean that they’re ready to sign up and become a paying a member. A significant percentage of people aren’t ready to commit to that and haven’t reached that stage.
The industry in which we operate is one with well-thought out and researched customer journeys and your marketing needs to adapt to that reality. On top of that, the industry is highly competitive and the need to stand out and build better relationships with your prospects is key.
So, how do you convert more prospects into members?
Some prospects go dark. That’s life. You or your sales team marks a prospect as ‘dead’. But, if you think that there’s no benefit in communicating with that person from that point on, you’re wrong. Really wrong.
Deciding to join a new club or change from your current club is something people give a lot of thought to. These decisions are well thought-out and well researched. Your prospect has almost certainly looked at least a couple of other clubs and possibly visited them too.
The gyms and clubs that adopt a longer-term strategy to the conversion of their prospects into members can win big. The most effective way to do this: email!
Emailing prospects in the weeks and months after they initially become an enquiry will increase your conversion rates and will help increase new member sign-ups. That’s a fact.
Continuing to send personal and valuable content will help build relationships with these people and drive ongoing engagement with your club. Whether it’s current promotions, client testimonials which build trust, details of your facilities, it doesn’t matter. As long as the content is relevant, personal and valuable, it will help your conversion rates.
It will also help you to stand out from your competition as a club which that puts its members first and it will bring in sales to your club which would have otherwise been lost. What’s more is that it will barely cost your business a penny and will deliver a colossal ROI.
Increase Retention & Member Lifetime Value
There are three core ways to grow any gym or club….
…increase the number of members you have, increase retention or increase the average lifetime value of your members.
It’s the second and third ways which we’re going to look at now. You see, keeping members and getting them to spend more is generally much easier and cost-effective than signing up new members. Email serves as a beautifully simple and inexpensive way to frequently engage with your current members, build stronger relationships with them and ensure that they feel valued and more than just another customer who pays you money every month.
What you include in these emails is of course up to you but they may just be updates on events at your club, information about new facilities & classes or free passes for their friends and family (which is a great way to generate additional enquiries). It may even include an email once in a while which lets you know how much you value them or which asks for feedback on ways to improve your services. Emailing your current members is also a great way to promote offers and bring additional revenue into your business.
Sending regular emails to your members requires very little investment both in terms of time and financially and is guaranteed increase retention. If you aren’t doing it at the moment, you need to start. It’s an absolute no-brainer!
So there you have it. Two simple but highly effective ways to better utilise email for your club which will help increase your conversion rates and improve retention.
If you’d like to know more about email marketing and good email marketing platforms, simply get in touch with us today and a member of our team will be happy to help.
Let Us Help Drive Your Business Forward...
Book your free demo slot and let us show you how we can help take your gym to the next level.
Let’s start at the basics, 
Many gyms will forgo all the issues that cash and cheque bring, and instead take card payments for their membership collection.
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.
Overall, clubs are going to have to minimise the equipment available on the gym floor because every member is going to need to be able to exercise in an area that allows them to distance from other gym users.
Because of this, it is likely that clubs are going to have to completely close, or largely restrict access to certain areas of thier facility, such as showers, saunas, steam rooms and changing rooms.
Based on our own findings, we’ve discovered that members over 50 are far more likely to be concerned about returning to gyms immediately after they reopen.
