Whether you are an aspiring gym owner or looking to grow your existing fitness business, you must know how to price gym memberships appropriately. Creating a great membership model is the key to attracting prospective leads, signing on more trial members, driving conversions, boosting your revenue, and ultimately expanding your studio.
Of course, a question arises about how you would structure your gym membership to maximize its appeal. More importantly, you’ll need to consider how to manage your memberships without overcomplicating your business model or impeding your long-term growth.
In the following exploration of gym membership management, we’ll outline how you can find the ideal structure for your market and highlight how to sell gym memberships more effectively by leveraging the MyStudio fitness membership management software.
Creating a Winning Membership Model
According to Zippia, just 39% of American adults have a gym membership, which means that there are plenty of prospective clients out there that you can introduce to the fitness industry.
However, if you want to tap into this massive market and create a membership model that catches the eye of prospective customers, you must first accomplish the following:
Know Your Audience
The first step toward developing a winning membership model is knowing your audience. Determine your core customer base and whether your services are primarily tailored toward youth or adult clients. Once you have identified your target audience, begin hammering out details like pricing, operating hours, and marketing tactics toward potential customers.
During this phase of the planning process, you should also analyze your competition. Find out whether your market is saturated with similar fitness businesses; if so, you will need to differentiate yourself using more savvy marketing tactics.
Develop a Lead Generation Pipeline
Once you have defined your audience, it’s time to develop a reliable lead-generation pipeline. Many gyms rely on effective though incredibly costly methods, such as pay-per-click advertising. Though that approach will generate leads, it can easily eat into your marketing budget and erode your profit margins.
Fortunately, there is a better way. MyStudio’s gym class management software is an ideal tool for creating a stable lead-generation pipeline that you can use to generate leads by hosting custom events that leverage your existing network of members.
MyStudio’s co-founder and CEO, Tu Le, has used such an approach with resounding success. His team hosts three to four lead-generation events each month, one of which is a so-called “Parent’s Night Out.” Youth members can attend these events by paying a small admission fee, or they may attend for free by bringing a friend. The friend and their parents or guardians must provide contact information, which can be used in future marketing campaigns.
Stay Connected with Automated Marketing Tools
Hosting events that draw a large crowd is a great step in the right direction, but they won’t generate any meaningful revenue for your business unless you follow up on them. You may wonder how to do that, and once again, MyStudio has the answer.
With MyStudio, you can use the contact information you gathered during your outreach events in custom marketing campaigns. You can set up automated messages and connect with prospects via email or text, and following up on a positive interaction with your brand (such as free attendance to a youth event) with targeted marketing content can send your conversion rates through the roof.
When composing these automated marketing campaigns, you can include trial sign-up links directly in the body of the message. Recipients can then start a free trial or join your gym by clicking on the link and completing a few simple steps.
Offer Competitive, Tier-Based Pricing
While you don’t necessarily need to undercut your competitors to tap into this market, you do need to deliver value for your clients, and if your membership is going to be noticeably more expensive than its contemporaries, you had better demonstrate why.
Such a scenario is where the free trial comes into play. Offering customers a seven- or 14-day free trial allows them to immerse themselves in your gym. They will get to interact with staff, take in the environment, and try out any classes that catch their eye.
If your facility offers a diverse lineup of services, consider a tier-based membership program, which can make your membership more appealing to prospects that have a limited gym budget.
Let Prospects Sign Up on Their Terms
One of the most important aspects of your gym membership model is its sign-up process. Let’s face it — no one wants to fill out paper forms or be required to take a tour just to join a gym. Busy prospects want to be able to sign up on their terms, preferably using remote, self-service tools.
MyStudio’s gym class management software makes that happen by streamlining the enrollment process. With MyStudio, your leads can complete any required documents and sign up for a free trial, all through a single, user-friendly website or mobile app. MyStudio eliminates friction from the sign-up process and encourages more leads to take advantage of your trial offers.
The platform enables prospects to sign up for a standard membership as well. They can choose from your available subscription tiers and class offerings when enrolling, thereby taking pushy sales tactics out of the equation and putting your customers back in control of their purchasing journey.
How MyStudio’s Monthly Membership Software Can Fuel Your Growth
Following the simple steps outlined above, you will be well on your way to structuring a membership model that drives steady revenue for your business, but determining how you will manage all of these new memberships can be tricky. The solution is MyStudio gym membership management technology.
MyStudio’s membership management software allows you to remotely manage your trials, leads, and active members across multiple locations. You can even track revenue, set up marketing campaigns, and much more.
Schedule a no-obligation demo today if you’d like to experience all that MyStudio has to offer.
