Secrets to a Successful Gym: How to Keep Your Gym Members Coming Back for More

If you've poked around our blog, you know that retaining your clients is critical to your fitness business' success.

We've got some inexpensive strategies to improve your retention, but first, let's do a quick refresher on why retention is so important.

The longer you keep your clients as members, the more cumulative revenue you can bring in to support the health of your business.

• If you're charging $56/month (the industry average membership rate) and your client attrition (loss) rate is 2.5%, you can expect to earn a cumulative revenue of $2,240 during the lifetime of an average business relationship with each client. 
  
  
• If you lower that attrition rate just a tiny bit, from 2.5% to 1.5%, you can increase your average cumulative revenue $3,733 during the lifetime of an average business relationship with each client.
  
  
• That's a 67% increase in revenue per customer, proving that it really pays to retain your clients!
  
  

Now let's look at some easy, inexpensive ways to keep your clients happy so they'll stick around for a long time.

Take Care of Your Facility

• This one is obvious, but also critical: keep your facility clean.

• Create community: host events, have parties, bring people together regularly. 

• Offer workshops hosted by trainers. As a bonus, it helps trainers pick up more clients. 

• Train your staff. They should understand how to leverage tech tools to add a personal touch. 

Add a Personal Touch

• Another no-brainer: make sure your staff knows your clients names.

• Document client goals, help clients create fitness plans that support their goals, and hold them accountable for making regular progress.

• Remember, we're in the service industry, so love your clients up! 

Use Technology Tools

• Collect and record client data, starting with regular body composition reports.

• Use the data to nurture each client. Provide accountability reports, and talk to clients when they're not sticking to their plans.

• Celebrate your clients! Send birthday messages. Recognize milestone, like a 20 pound weight loss or a first workout at your gym.

• Take roll call. Recognize your regulars, and call the people who don't come in. They like your attention too.

Let's Get Specific

Here are 6 hands-on ideas that you can implement in your business TODAY to improve retention and increase your cumulative revenue.

• "Track Your Progress Day:" Have a day where your trainers are available to take free body composition reports. Document the data, and follow up regularly so you can celebrate progress and nurture personal training relationships for members who aren't reaching their goals.
  
• "Check-in Challenge:" Have a monthly check-in challenge where members who check-in the most times win a prize. 

•  "Bring a Friend Day:" Have a designated day each month where members can bring a friend for free to nurture your community and make it grow.

•  "Member Appreciation Day:" Host a day each month where you offer free snacks, discounts on personal training sessions, or even just hand out simple thank you notes. 

•  "Workout of the Month:" Each month, create a fun and challenging workout for members to try. It keeps things interesting for regular members and attracts new ones. 

•  "Social Media Shoutout:" Make members feel extra special by recognizing birthdays and milestones with a shoutout on your gym's social media page. As a bonus, it encourages others to work towards the same recognition.