Hitting the Target

Joeri Nanov shares key tips on growing your fi tness business

Joeri Nanov. Credit: Virtuagym.

The fitness industry has been transformed over the last 12 months. Digital technology and software has taken centre stage to help fitness businesses survive, and in many cases thrive, through one of the most challenging periods the industry has ever experienced.

Due to this digitisation, the confines of physical gyms are no more. Fitness providers can now connect with their clients at any time, in any place. Those wanting to stay healthy now have more flexibility in tailoring plans to their needs, from the wealth of options available at their digital fingertips.

And if the nature of fitness businesses has changed, so have the ways in which owners can grow them. After the past year, you might assume that growing a fitness enterprise has become a more daunting prospect. However, fitness technology and the changing attitudes and desires of consumers have created opportunities to help operators engage and appeal to clients and open-up new revenue streams.

Here are some of the key ways to help take your fitness business to the next level.

Embrace a hybrid offering The silver lining to be found from the closures of the past year is that both fitness enterprises and customers realised the range of digital content that they can respectively provide and consume. And, even as gyms finally reopen for good, many of the latter will be looking for those diverse and flexible experiences as part of their gym membership.

It is therefore important for those building a fitness business to understand that the pivot to hybrid fitness offering, combining the physical and the digital, is not temporary. It is here to stay.

To appeal to new members and retain existing ones, owners should look to show that their brand offers more than just a space with fitness equipment. Through a hybrid offer, you can provide members with a place to work on their mental strength, the opportunity to try out new workouts, a means to track training and nutrition and a way to be connected within a wider gym community. For example, at Virtuagym we have launched PRO+, a digital membership that offers more than 1,000 workout videos as well as features such as a library of audio meditations. The use of fitness technology is now a longterm investment for your business.

Choose the right gym management software If you have a checklist of things to do for your growing fitness business, then ensuring you have the right gym management technology should be right near the top. Having good back-end business processes, from payments to scheduling, coaching and member management, enables your enterprise to be more time and cost efficient and contributes towards delivering a stronger front-end client experience.

The gym management software now available makes handling many spinning plates a whole lot easier. For example, member and check-in management software offers clients greater flexibility and is another crucial communication touchpoint as you look to keep them engaged. The right management software also contributes towards the active community building that is imperative for the modern-day gym, such as by using a customer-facing mobile app to share news, challenges and promotions, offer times for classes, answer questions and start conversations.

Use your data As a gym owner, digitising your offering is also wise as it provides the opportunity to securely collect data from your clients. This can be utilised to understand their behaviour and preferences and therefore provide the tailored, personalised fitness experience that end-users are seeking. It further helps with informing the means and timing of your communication strategies, including possible digital promotions.

In a time of such uncertainty, being able to be flexible with your business strategy is an invaluable position to be in. Having the right front and back-end technology in place means you can keep an eye on your data insights to judge what is driving results and what needs to be improved. You only have to look at some of the brands currently thriving in our industry to also appreciate the benefits of embracing wearable technology too. Fitness consumers are enjoying fitness tracking, group competition and a sense of community more than ever before - wearables give you that, plus even more useful data insight.

Think retention, not just extension With so many ways to connect with potential customers it is easy to become focused purely on bringing in new members and business. Yet to sustainably grow revenue do not lose sight of those you already have - the digital democratisation of the fitness industry can work both ways, with users happy to look elsewhere if they do not feel engaged.

Building brand loyalty is not a walk in the park but can be aided by software solutions such as retention planners, which allow owners to spot those members at risk of churn before it’s too late and therefore connect with them through suitable personal outreach. Investing in a customer-facing app also isn’t simply about expanding your offering but a key means to interact with your customers. To keep your brand at the forefront of their minds when they think about their fitness and health and to engender a sense of belonging to a club. The building blocks for this should be laid from the very start via a strong onboarding process.

Define your unique selling propositions Finally, defining your monetisable online and offline offerings early on will help you hone in on how you can best demonstrate value to your clients while making money. With the rise of digital, we may find more and more fitness operators trying and struggling to offer everything to everyone - a jack of all trades but a master of none. The more advisable approach is to work out what your key areas are and who they are targeted for. For example, if you want to tap in to the group exercise market then emphasise your outdoor boot camps or virtual livestream classes, or if you are a small studio it could be your personalised 1-to-1 training services and workout equipment.

As well as being clear on what members can pay for, it’s also useful to be transparent about how they can actually pay. Having a clear, simple and flexible payment structure is not only appealing for potential clients in a convoluted market but ideal for gym owners looking to upsell and cross-sell packages to existing ones. Turning to payment management software again ensures that this can be done more efficiently and effectively. Your ability to define, build, market and then sell your offerings will ultimately determine your success. Joeri Nanov is Vice-President Marketing at cloudbased membership management and coaching platform Virtuagym.