Customer Retention Strategies for Fitness Centers and Gyms

There’s golden eggs in your marketing nest egg. Your current customers. While this post is focused on customer retention strategies for fitness centers and gyms, it applies to any industry. Take the ideas below and put them into action to retain the customers you already have.

Many fitness centers and gyms use daily deal marketing to get customers in the door. That’s a strategy that I can attest to working as it took my business from $500K in debt to a 7-figure profitable business. You’ve worked hard to get that new member to your fitness center or gym. That’s just the beginning of your marketing workout. The real payoff is in keeping that new member active and engaged.

If you neglect your loyalty marketing and gym member retention efforts, you’re probably losing valuable business from those potential repeat customers. For example, the customer who has a gym membership but never uses it won’t be buying drinks at your juice bar or training sessions with your personal trainers.

Many fitness businesses make the mistake of focusing all of their marketing efforts on bringing in new customers without thinking about loyalty marketing and gym member retention strategies. Repeat customers can be an important part of a business’s revenue and shouldn’t be left out of your marketing plan. Fitness loyalty marketing is a great way to keep customers coming back and it is easy to find a loyalty program that fits in with your business.

Here are some loyalty marketing ideas and gym member retention strategies that you can implement to keep your customers coming back:

Points for Frequent Customers

A points-based loyalty program is probably what most people think of when they think of loyalty marketing. This is a buy-two-get-one-free incentive. Customize the program for your business and what you most want your customers to purchase. If you’re a personal trainer, you could offer a free hour of training after a certain number of paid hours. If you own a fitness studio, offering a free class or free private session after a certain number of paid classes will keep members coming back for more.

Tiered Loyalty Rewards

Keep your customers engaged with your loyalty program by offering different rewards for different levels of participation. The first tier might be one free group class for every five personal training sessions purchased within a month. The second tier might be one free personal training session after five sessions were purchased in two consecutive months. A third tier could be a month of free personal training if five sessions are purchased each month for a full year. By ramping up the rewards for repeat purchases, you’ll get your customers into the habit of using your business on a regular basis.

Incentives for New Business

Make your loyalty marketing do double-duty. Offer your current customers an incentive for referring new customers. The incentive could be points based — bring in five new customers, get one month free. Alternatively, the incentive could be tiered. For example, if a customer refers five new customers, they get one free class. If they refer ten new customers, they get one free personal training session. Ultimately, if they refer twenty-five new customers, they get one month free.

Make it a Game

Channel your customers’ competitive spirits with a friendly game that pits them against one another. Keep it simple and offer a reward for the member who uses your facility the most in one month. Make the challenge more involved by assigning points to different services that you offer and providing a reward to the customer who gains the most points.

Focusing only on new memberships puts your business at a disadvantage by leaving a portion of the customers’ lifetime value on the table. Try these loyalty marketing ideas and gym member retention strategies to get more value on top of every membership you sell. And don’t forget to let me know how they work for you in the comments below!

NOTE: If you want to know all of the secrets to doing a daily deal the right way – the secrets that took my business from $500K in debt to a 7-figure profitable business then check out the Daily Deals for Massive Profits Training Program:

About Stacey Riska

Stacey Riska, aka “Small Business Stacey” is a serial entrepreneur who is passionate about saving small business and rebuilding Main Street. She helps small and local business owners become a #SmallBizMarketingWiz by teaching them marketing strategies that get MORE: MORE leads, MORE customers/clients, MORE sales, and MORE money. Stacey is the founder of Small Biz Marketing Specialist, THE go-to place for marketing tips, techniques and strategies that get results. Stacey is also the creator of the Daily Deals for Massive Profits Training Program, an online video training program that teaches small and local business owners how to use daily deal sites like Groupon to skyrocket their business growth and get massive profits. In this program she teaches from experience, as it was the key strategy that transformed her coffee and smoothie business from being $500K in debt to a 7-figure profitable business. When not saving the small business world, she enjoys sipping red wine, eating chocolate (who doesn’t!) and spending time with her amazing husband.