How to Sell More Gym Memberships

Motivation guides our behavior. Gym owners know this, as they see gym memberships rates fluctuate, partly due to changes in their clients’ motivation levels. One classic example of this is session and sign-up numbers during first week of January numbers, versus the last week of February.

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Successful managers who implement effective gym marketing ideas know how important marketing is for maintaining a healthy flow to sell gym memberships—at the front desk or online. So how do you spur motivation through your marketing plans? Here are some things to think about, in order to help your fitness business do just that.

What is Motivation?

According to Merriam-Webster, motivation is “the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.” If the “reason” isn’t compelling enough, it’ll be tough to bring about the individual behavior.

We can break down motivation into a few categories. Intrinsic motivation is fuelled by internal rewards. For example, someone who enjoys jogging because of the foreseeable benefits towards their well-being and the feeling they get after a run is fed by intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is fuelled by external rewards such as money, awards or impressing people. While both are important, researchers have found that extrinsic rewards can sometimes reduce intrinsic motivation, especially when the rewards are expected, given for completing a particular task, or doing minimal work. The distinction between the two is very important, when it comes to motivating your gym members the right way.

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The best way to generate a positive energy in your health club is to create a culture of motivation throughout. Start by discussing with your instructors and seniors the best ways to motivate your members. Teach them the balance of praising members, the importance of expecting a high-level of performance, how to generate excitement, tracking improvement, and other key areas.

Goal setting is very beneficial and finding effective ways to set them with your members can be a huge boost to motivate members. Keep in mind that not everyone is motivated by the same things so what works in one class may not be the deciding factor for another.

Whether you run a small boutique gym or a large fitness center, our cloud-based fitness and gym software management helps you take your business from good to great. Connecting with your members while overseeing gym management has never been easier.

Create a Culture

Every fitness business has its culture. On the surface level, some gyms might cater to bodybuilders, while others target fitness class fans. On a deeper, more complicated level, gyms have a subtle but noticeable culture that begins with the ownership and management team. To create the culture you want, you’ll need to pay attention to interactions between your staff, trainers, and your clients. It’s important to remember to greet guests personally, on a genuine, personal level. Make sure your gym memberships management software helps you remember their birthdays and other important notes about them, to give yourself a helpful advantage.

Inspiring your clients is also a key factor in fitness membership sales. Whether that’s encouraging a lifter on their last set or participating in classes yourself, it’s always important to lead by example. What’s your company’s mission statement? Do you aim to boost well-being/fitness, prepare athletes for college, build strength and speed, or provide a fun place for seniors to get some physical activity in their lives? Once you have a positive fitness culture at your gym—and you know what your specific purpose is—you can synchronize your marketing plan with this outlook.

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Having a good support system can help, when a members starts to lose their drive. This can be accomplished through creating a community or family-like culture at your health club. Make sure a good number of your seniors and instructors are very personable and friendly. Members are paying you to be there but, at the end of the day, they want to feel like you care about them as individuals and not just another payment.

Hosting events on a regular basis can help build bonds between members who may not have the chance to during classes. Events such as workshops, movie nights, fight viewings, parties, and camping trips are all great ways to get your students together. If a student still decides it’s time to go, make sure you accept cancellations graciously; this is key to keeping your community healthy and vibrant, while also increasing the chances of past members returning and becoming new members once again.

Manage all your gym member information from a central location with our cloud-based fitness management software. Handle schedules, duplicates, family members, course levels, activities, financial information, and documents for each contact.

Fitness Inspiration

It can be hard for all of us to stay motivated at all times, to meet our fitness and well-being goals. Everyone hits a wall at some point and whether you keep going or give up separates the fitness warriors from the casual exercisers. Whether your fitness business' membership sales process cater to spontaneous gym goers or training fanatics, role models and leaders can be a great source for inspiration to help convince you to skip the fast food meal and push yourself at the gym, the trails or courts.

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Fitness inspiration (or “fitspo”) is very popular online, especially on social media networks like Tumblr and Instagram. If you want a useful gym marketing idea, look at social media as a great platform for spreading positive messages and motivation that will, in turn, help to market your health club. For example, if you post very captivating and high-quality motivational pictures and videos through your Instagram account, you may receive a global audience. A higher following leads to your brand looking more credible, as well as causing more local people to know about the accomplishments and lifestyle associated with your fitness facility.

Whether you are personal training or instructing a class, connecting with your gym members is easier than ever with Xplor Recreation. Our easy-to-use powerful fitness management software streamlines your business, allows simple payment processing, engages yours members, and maximizes revenue without overwhelming you.

Promoting Well-being

At the end of the day, we believe great gym marketing ideas should focus on boosting intrinsic motivation, This should be accomplished by framing your marketing towards improving the well-being of new members, drop-ins and the larger community. That doesn’t mean you can’t have elements of extrinsic motivators within your marketing activities but the focus should be on fostering intrinsic motivation, to encourage long-term gym memberships and to help boost wellness, as much as possible.

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Clear, high-quality and attractive images make your products seem more tangible to your potential customer, while acting as a powerful sales tool. Getting high quality images can be rather expensive, however. If you have someone in-house with studio shooting skills or have a pool of passionate volunteers, you might be able to get this done without breaking the bank. Using community created images on your social media platforms can be a great way to drive engagement, as long as you watch out for the license of your images and always remember to credit the creators.

Use Xplor Recreation to generate more leads and reduce drop-outs at your gym with our email and marketing automation tools that regularly nurture your prospects and members. Create, track and measure all of your gym's marketing campaigns in one place.

Sell More Gym Memberships

Looking to sell gym memberships at a higher rate? Check out our breakdown of free gym trial gym memberships vs discounting. Xplor Recreation offers easy-to-use member management software that does all the heavy lifting for you.