How to get former members back to your gym

While gyms are slowly reopening across states, members’ attitudes towards exercising in a gym are still constantly changing. Considering during the lock-down, many members had terminated their membership, targeting marketing campaigns to attract this audience would definitely be beneficial to gym business.

However getting people into the gym is not an easy task. Getting them back after the lock-down, is downright outrageous. Luckily, there are some strategies that you can use to accomplish this, that are proven by researchers. I went through and read multiple studies on the fitness industry in order to give you the information that will help your gym.

One of the most important ways to market your gym or fitness studio is by reaching out to people who used to be members.

Covid-19 impact on the fitness industry

The fitness industry has an entirely new phenomenon to be reckoned with. It’s called covid-19 and it is really impacting the industry as a whole, from the professional world to the private person who wants to get fit, and thus stay healthy and energetic all day long.

While the entire covid and lock down situation has seen a huge impact of losing members at the gym, not many members are comfortable returning as usual to the gym either. The pandemic and social distancing norms are making members uncomfortable to be regular at the gyms again. In this situation what can the fitness industry do to ensure you have your former members reached out and create conducive environment to help them workout again.

Address the hurdle

You need to start with making your former members feel comfortable again. To start with provide good deals and easy options for your former members to re-join the gym. Provide trail periods so they can come in the gym floor and witness for themselves first handle that the experience of workouts is not as difficult as projected and assumed.

Ensure that in this period you provide the highest standards of hygiene and safety for your members so that they are confident that their health is not compromised at any point. However they realize that workouts is what will boost both their physical and mental health. Inform and educate them on the protocols and procedures you carry out at your gym to sanitize, monitor and enforce social distancing.

Flexibility and adaptability is the key

While you want to welcome your former members to the gym floor back again, being flexible and adaptive to their needs is of the utmost importance. With the speculation and uncertainty of the third wave you need to ease your internal norms and processes to ensure that your members are comfortable. Provide options like one day pass, flexible membership options so that your members do not feel they are stuck in unprecedented times with monthly, annual or recurring memberships.

Emphasize on the digital services

As a fitness center during the lock down while you have adapted to various digital mediums ensure that you educate and make known the same to your members. Inform them about the new options about online live streaming, online workout videos or simply the digital methods of renewing online memberships or opting for online slot bookings to avoid on floor crowding.

Takeaway: In the fitness industry, retention is everything