January rolls round again, and the gym campaigns start with banners, flyers, emails, and text messages. The airwaves are buzzing with the same old hackneyed offers of no join fee, join for £1, half price first month, first month free, all during the busiest month of the year. But could you make more money in the short and long term by breaking the mould and charging more?
Any other industry would double the joining/start-up fee in their busiest month - check out the handy “when’s school half-term” service from a well-known family holiday provider below. We’re not saying it’s morally right, but they know when people want to visit, and they make the most of it.
Here’s 3 reasons why January offers make no sense:
- Members don’t join in January because of the offer, they join to help New Year resolutions or make a new start.
- Smaller up-front fees mean shorter length of membership. All analysis we've run shows that reducing joining fees reduces the number of months that members stay.
- Members who don’t pay for their first month also don’t stick around as long. They either don’t value the membership or cancel before the first payment.
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Proinsight Sales Benchmarking
If you know us well, you'll know that we're not normally interested in membership sales at GGFit. However, there's a plethora of really useful knowledge in Proinsight's latest benchmark report.
Data capture and follow-up have improved significantly in the industry over the last 12 months, but there is still lots of room for improvement.
Read the full article on sales benchmarking here...
or watch the Proinsight mystery shop video here.
How to engage more with your swimmers - tips from SwimTag
Colin Scott from SwimTag previously worked at Westwoods Health Club in Edinburgh. He's written 3 great guest articles on the GGFit blog on how to engage with your swimmers.
