Author: Kathryn Dressler

Youth sports programs and leagues play a vital role in shaping the lives of young athletes by offering a platform for children to grow, learn, and have fun together. They also provide opportunities for physical activity, skill development, teamwork, and personal growth. However, to ensure the success of these programs, effective marketing and promotion are crucial.

In this blog post, we’ll explore key aspects of youth sports marketing. This includes understanding your value, addressing parents’ concerns, and catering to kids’ enjoyment. We’ll also discuss various strategies and techniques to help you effectively market and promote your youth sports programs and leagues.

Define Your Target Audience

To create an impactful marketing campaign, it’s crucial to identify your target audience. Consider the age group, interests, and demographics of the children you want to attract to your programs. This will help tailor your messaging and promotional efforts more effectively.

Develop a Strong Brand Identity

Crafting a compelling brand identity for your youth sports programs is essential. Create a logo, tagline, and consistent visual elements that reflect the values and mission of your organization. A strong brand identity will make your programs easily recognizable and memorable, increasing the chances of attracting participants and supporters.

Understanding Your Value

Before diving into marketing tactics, it’s essential to understand the value your youth sports programs offer. Consider the benefits your programs provide, such as skill development, physical fitness, character building, and social interaction. Highlight these aspects in your marketing materials to convey the value parents and children can gain from participating in your programs.

What Matters to Parents

Parents are often the decision-makers when it comes to enrolling their children in sports programs. Understand their concerns and address them effectively in your marketing efforts. Emphasise the safety measures you have in place, qualified coaching staff, positive learning environments, and the opportunities for personal growth. Highlight testimonials from satisfied parents to instil trust and confidence.

What Kids Enjoy About Youth Sports

To attract young athletes, it’s crucial to understand what they enjoy about youth sports. Emphasise the fun, camaraderie, and sense of achievement that kids experience while participating in your programs. Showcase photos and videos of happy children engaged in various sports activities to capture their interest.

Ways to Market Your Youth Sports Programs

Build an Easy-to-Use, Informative Website

Invest in a well-designed website that provides comprehensive information about your programs, leagues, and registration details. Make sure the website is easy to navigate, visually appealing, and mobile-friendly. Include FAQs, testimonials, and contact information to address common queries and facilitate communication.

Make it Easy to Register

Simplify the registration process for parents by offering online registration options. Ensure your website or registration platform is user-friendly, intuitive, and mobile-responsive. Clear instructions and easily accessible registration forms will encourage more families to enrol their children.

Email Marketing & Text Messaging

Maintain an active email list and send regular newsletters or updates to parents and interested individuals. Share important information about upcoming programs, registration deadlines, and events. Additionally, consider using text messaging services to send timely reminders or urgent updates.

Invest in Advertising

Allocate a portion of your marketing budget to targeted online advertising campaigns. Platforms like Google Ads and social media ads allow you to reach specific demographics, increasing the visibility of your programs. Consider running ads during peak registration periods or when introducing new programs.

Engage Your Community on Social Media

In today’s digital age, social media platforms are powerful tools for promoting youth sports programs. If you don’t already have them, create accounts on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Regularly share updates, photos, videos, and other interesting content to your social media pages–and remember to encourage parents, coaches, and players to tag your organisation in their posts to generate organic reach and boost engagement.

Utilise Influencers and Ambassadors

Identify local athletes, coaches, or sports personalities who align with your organisation’s values. Collaborate with them to become brand ambassadors or influencers for your programs. Their endorsement can have a significant impact on attracting participants and gaining credibility.

Invest in Advertising

Allocate a portion of your marketing budget to targeted online advertising campaigns. Platforms like Google Ads and social media ads allow you to reach specific demographics, increasing the visibility of your programs. Consider running ads during peak registration periods or when introducing new programs.

Partner with Local Schools & Clubs

Partnering with local schools and community organisations can significantly boost your marketing efforts, expand your reach, and establish credibility within the community by building mutually beneficial relationships. 

Attend school events, distribute flyers, and collaborate on joint initiatives. Additionally, offer after-school programs or clinics at these institutions to showcase your organisation directly to interested families.

Participate in Community Events

Active community involvement is a powerful way to promote your youth sports programs. Participate in local events, fairs, and festivals to showcase your organisation. Set up booths, organise mini-games, and distribute promotional materials. By actively engaging with the community, you raise awareness and build relationships that can lead to increased participation.

Host Open Houses and Tryout Events

Organise open houses and try-out events to showcase your programs and facilities. Invite prospective participants and their families to experience firsthand what your organisation has to offer. Provide demonstrations, interactive activities, and opportunities for children to try out different sports. Make these events enjoyable and informative to create a positive impression.

Cross-Promote with Other Leagues

Collaborate with other local youth sports leagues to cross-promote your programs. Share information, flyers, and promotional materials with each other to reach a wider audience. This cooperative approach benefits all parties involved and can lead to increased participation.

Incentivise Referrals

Implement a referral program that rewards existing participants who refer new participants to your programs. This can be in the form of discounted fees, merchandise, or special recognition. Incentivising referrals encourages word-of-mouth promotion and helps expand your participant base.

Collaborate with Local Media

Reach out to local newspapers, radio stations, and television channels to share news and stories about your programs. Offer press releases, interviews, and feature articles to highlight the positive impact of youth sports and the unique aspects of your organisation. Media coverage can significantly enhance your visibility and attract attention from potential participants and sponsors.

Conclusion

Marketing and promoting youth sports programs and leagues are vital for their success and growth. 

Remember, marketing should be aligned with your program’s values and goals. It’s not just about promoting the program but also about genuinely connecting with the community, delivering a positive experience, and fostering a love for sports among young participants.

By defining your target audience, developing a strong brand identity, leveraging social media, collaborating with schools and community organisations, hosting events, utilising influencers, engaging in community outreach, offering referral incentives, and collaborating with local media, you can effectively promote your programs and attract enthusiastic participants.

Let EZFacility help you simplify and streamline your processes so you can effectively manage and grow your youth sports league. 

Click here to try EZFacility for free and schedule a personalised product demo. 

As with any business, before opening a sports facility business you’ll need to do ample research and planning to set yourself up for long-term success. 

Invest time upfront to gain a thorough understanding of the fitness industry and the challenges that come with starting a new sports facility. With this knowledge, you can put strategic plans in place to navigate foreseeable obstacles, mitigate risk, increase profitability, and keep things running smoothly.

In this blog, we’ll walk you through the basics of opening a sports facility business to help turn your dream into a reality!

A Beginner’s Guide to Opening a Sports Facility Business

Like any new business venture, opening a sports facility business will require significant preparation, planning, and investment. It’s absolutely critical to do your due diligence so you know what to expect and can prepare accordingly.

Below, we’ve put together a simple beginner’s guide to get you started. Following these steps will help make sure your new business venture is well-planned, properly registered, and legally compliant.

Name Your Sports Facility Business

Choosing a name for your sports complex may be one of the most fun decisions you’ll make as a new business owner; however, be aware it can be deceptively difficult to decide on a name that will be straightforward, intriguing, and one that will mature well with your business. Your business name will be around with you for a long time, so it’s important to carefully consider your options.

Once you’ve decided on a name for your sports facility business and confirmed its availability, it’s important to secure your domain name and social media handles as soon as possible—and before someone else does—so you can start building your online presence.

Define Your Target Market

If you want to attract and engage your target audience, you need to know who they are (i.e., local demographic data, including income levels, ages, population density, etc.), as well as what they like/dislike, and what their wants/needs are. 

Equipped with this thorough understanding of your customer base, you’ll be able to determine what sets your sports complex apart from competitors and tailor then your marketing materials accordingly to pique relevant interest and maximise engagement.

How to learn about your target audience:

Market research reports

You may want to consider purchasing market research reports to help you better understand the local community and its needs. This critical insight will help you decide how your sports complex can specifically fulfil those needs and add value to the community, which will largely impact your long-term viability and success. 

Competitor reviews 

Another way to learn about potential members is by reading online reviews about your direct competitors to see what customers have said. Pay close attention to what they like and what they don’t like about similar sports facilities—this will help you look for ways to potentially improve upon existing products or services, or identify opportunities to create and offer something new. 

Choose a Location

“Location. Location. Location.” It’s one of the most popular sayings in business for a pretty obvious reason—location matters. A lot. The physical location you choose for your sports facility business may very well be the difference between success and failure.

Your customer base will be heavily influenced by the location you choose. For example, if your facility is located near a school district or neighbourhoods with young families, you’ll attract a larger customer base than you would if your location is far removed from residents, is in an unsafe on undesirable location, is located near competing businesses, or is in an area where residents have little to no interest in the sport.

You’ll also need to decide whether you purchase or lease a property as this will impact your location options. Once you find a location you love that’s within your budget, you’ll need to check the local zoning requirements to make sure your businesses will be in compliance so you don’t run into any unexpected legal issues.

Create a Business Plan

If you want to open a sports facility business, the first step is to develop a comprehensive business plan. Creating a business plan will help you develop a greater understanding of your industry, competitors, target market, and help you identify ways to differentiate your facility so you can plan for long-term success. 

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a written document that defines company goals and objectives, and explains how the company plans to achieve those goals. The best way to set yourself up for future success is to start with a solid plan—and an effective business plan should guide you through the phases of starting, managing and growing your sports facility business.

Think of your business plan as the compass that will guide your sports facility and keep everyone moving in the right direction. Your business plan is the place to put all of your thoughts and plans in one place, so it’s important to take your time to ensure you cover all elements and aspects of your sports facility complex.

Having a strong business plan will help you:

• Assess your competitors
• Develop a greater understanding of your target market
• Serve as a guide to grow your business
• Help you reach milestones
• Help you secure funding

What should my business plan include?

Below is an overview of key areas to include when creating your sports facility business plan:

Cover Page

A small yet fundamental component of your business plan is the cover page, which should include the name of your business, location, and contact information.

Table of Contents

The table of contents is where you’ll provide an outline of what readers can expect to find in your business plan. It also helps readers quickly skim or skip to the areas of greatest interest.

Executive Summary

The executive summary is where you’ll summarise the contents of your business plan in a concise, detailed and compelling way. 

This section should be no longer than one page, and should answer key questions such as:

• What are your business goals and how will you achieve them?
• Who is your target market?
• What are your financial projections?
• What’s your competitive advantage?

Industry Background

In this section, you’ll provide past and current information about the size, trends and critical features of your industry. This section should answer questions such as:

Competitive Analysis

Your competitive analysis should provide key information about your major competitors, as well as an assessment of your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.

Market Analysis

Learning about your target market and their needs, preferences and demographic data is an integral part of any business plan. By identifying and understanding your target market, you’ll learn how—and where—to reach and connect with them. 

This section should also demonstrate that there is a real need or demand in the market that your new business will fulfil.

Sales and Marketing

In the sales and marketing section of your business plan, you’ll explain how you plan to allocate marketing resources to most effectively reach new customers and convert them into long term customers. Be sure to include specific marketing strategies and explain how they align with business goals and objectives.  

Cost Projections and Funding

The financial section is the foundation of any good business plan. It should provide current and future projections of your facility’s financial performance, and show how much money you need to generate in order to be profitable and poised for continued growth.

Cover the Legal Aspects

There are a number of legal requirements to opening a sports facility. In addition to registering your business name with the county clerk, you’ll also need to file articles of incorporation or articles of organisation with your state government and pay a filing fee. 

It’s also recommended to purchase a business owner’s insurance policy, which will provide liability and property protection for your sports facility business.

Purchase Equipment & Supplies

Now it’s time to shop!

Prepare a list of everything you’ll need before opening your doors—from desk pens to equipment and machinery so you can plug it into your budget. You’ll also need to create a floor plan with dimensions noted to ensure you have the space and a plan for where everything will go.

Leverage Technology to Maximise Efficiency

As a sports facility business owner, it’s crucial to stay aware of what new technology is on the horizon, how it may benefit your sports business, and how it will affect the larger industry landscape. Equally as important, you must be willing to adapt and invest in technology to streamline and improve your business operations and remain competitive.

Gym management software continues to grow in popularity given its ability to increase efficiency and productivity, reduce the risk of human error, save time and money, and enhance the member experience. On top of that, the low upfront cost structure of a cloud-based software solution makes it a financially attractive option for fitness businesses of all sizes.

From scheduling staff and fitness classes to overseeing equipment maintenance and inspections, the number of moving parts at any given time can be overwhelming. Without the right organisational tools, clear communication channels, and effective oversight, things can get out of hand pretty quickly and result in costly errors.

Turn your dream of starting a sports facility business into a reality!

Before opening a sports facility business, it’s vital to conduct thorough market research, create a comprehensive business plan, and actively promote the business.

Another way to contribute to the success of your new business venture is to start with a solid framework and management software system in place to help streamline administrative tasks, improve communication and collaboration, enhance membership management, simplify financials, and more—saving you valuable time and money.

EZFacility is here to help with tools to start and manage your business successfully—including facility management software, online registration, league management, and a mobile app for your members.  

Want to learn more? Schedule a free online demonstration and personalised product tour today.

We all know there are gyms and fitness facilities all over the place–and at their core, they all offer essentially the same thing: a place to work out and improve physical health.

With so much variety among competitors, it can be challenging to figure out how to attract potential clients and retain existing ones. To remain competitive in this environment, it’s important to stand out rather than to fit in.

So, what can you do to help your gym to stand out from competitors?

Create a Winning Membership Sales Strategy

Getting new members to join your gym is only half the battle. Once new members join—how do keep them engaged to keep retention rates high, while simultaneously attracting new members?

 Here are five ways to create a winning gym membership sales strategy:

1. Know your audience 

Fitness business owners should understand that gym members’ expectations have changed dramatically since the pandemic hit.

With more fitness options than ever before including in-person workouts, online classes, and hybrid options—you need to determine your gym’s competitive advantage. From there it’s crucial to hone in and highlight that in your marketing materials to attract new gym members, keep current members engaged, and improve member retention rates.

2. Sell solutions, not products or services 

The COVID-19 pandemic completely disrupted the fitness industry, especially businesses that were largely reliant on brick-and-mortar fitness operations. With the global focus on health increasing with demand for online and at-home health and wellness routines rising simultaneously, the industry responded to the global crisis by introducing the hybrid fitness model.

With a hybrid gym model, your digital offerings are meant to complement your brick-and-mortar operations. A hybrid gym offers the best of both worlds and includes a combination of in-person and online workout options. For example, your gym may offer in-person exercise classes that are also live-streamed and available on-demand for members who want to continue with home workouts.

The hybrid model is a great example of how the fitness industry has shifted gears to focus on developing and selling a solution—that is, offering online and digital fitness options to meet high demand during the lockdown, rather than focusing on “just” selling individual products or services.

3. Identify & manage growth

Have you ever wondered where in the online buying and registration process clients are dropping off? If you utilize gym management software like EZFacility, you can finally find out the answer (and more!) using our Google Analytics connector.

Whether you use EZFacility or another service provider in today’s digital landscape, it’s imperative to use gym management software to operate a gym efficiently, and to set the stage for business growth.

To assess success and identify growth opportunities, you need to have access to and a constant pulse on all of your financials at any given time. This simply isn’t possible without a secure software solution in place.

EZFacility’s comprehensive dashboard and reporting suite gives you an in-depth look under the hood of your gym at any time including financial, point-of-sale, marketing, payroll, membership, and more. As you continue to grow and open additional locations, you can rest assured that EZFacility is by your side and ready to grow with you.

4. Streamline & simplify

For a gym owner to be successful in today’s business climate, it’s imperative to get on board with the shift to digitization and to invest in a gym management system that can accommodate changing business needs, in addition to the needs of staff and customers.

If you want to operate a gym efficiently, you’ll need to find gym management software that streamlines every part of your business. Without a secure and centralized platform in place, you’ll waste countless hours of valuable time trying to track everything manually, which also greatly increases the likelihood of costly mistakes and human error.

Gym management software—also sometimes referred to as membership management software, a facility management system, or a gym software solution—is a platform of tools that will centralize and streamline your facility’s operations. The software makes it easy for gym owners to assign tasks to employees, manage inventory, improve the payments process, and more—all from one secure location.

5. Document & track everything

From membership management to payroll reports—to successfully run a gym, you need to document and track everything—and there’s a lot of everything. Simplify your life and business by streamlining your entire gym’s operations by utilizing facility management software like EZFacility.

With EZFacility, specifically, you can enjoy the following tools and benefits: 

Membership Management

EZFacility’s membership management tools make it easy to create custom membership plans, manage relationships, sell services online, assign plastic or RFID member cards, track payments, and automate text and email reminders to reduce client delinquencies.

 POS & Inventory Management

Our POS and inventory management features allow you to manage point-of-sale products from a desktop or mobile device, monitor product levels, automate reorder alerts, manage online or in-house coupon codes, and report on product profitability

Extensive Report Suite

EZFacility’s extensive report suite offers an in-depth look under the hood of your business. This includes quick and easy access to financial, point-of-sale, marketing, payroll, membership, training reports, and more. Export reports in a variety of file types, including .csv, .pdf, and .xlsx.

 QuickBooks Online Integration

Easily connect with tools that you already use—like QuickBooks Online. Save time and stay organized by syncing EZFacility financials directly into the QuickBooks Online platform. 

Marketing Strategies to Increase Gym Membership Sales

Gym owners should understand that consumers’ expectations have changed dramatically since the pandemic hit.

And with more fitness options than ever before—in-person workouts, online classes, and hybrid options—you need to determine your gym’s competitive advantage, and really hone in and highlight that in your marketing materials to attract new gym members, keep current members engaged, and improve member retention rates.

Here are five strategies to help you increase gym membership sales:

Perfect the member experience

The experience you provide is what makes your gym unique, and it’s what attracts people to your gym over competitors. Providing a great member experience gives you a competitive edge, and it’s critical to creating a positive association with your brand and building a community of loyal, engaged members. It also helps improve customer satisfaction and retention rates.

The member experience begins at the first point of contact with customers and encompasses all the touch points throughout the customer journey. It’s important to remember, though, that the member experience extends beyond just the sign-up process—it needs to be consistently emulated across multiple platforms and touchpoints.

To ensure you’re providing a positive member experience, you need to continuously offer exceptional customer support, anticipate customers’ needs and expectations, and make your members feel like your gym offers something they can’t get anywhere else.

Remember—you’re selling a long-term relationship with a continuous service, so it’s imperative that you build a strong team of engaged employees, solicit customer feedback, and continue to monitor digital trends in the fitness space to make sure you’re keeping up with the shifting landscape.

Testimonial marketing

Testimonial marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to market your gym, build a positive reputation, and make your fitness facility look more favourable to potential customers.

If you haven’t already done so, it’s time to create a testimonial marketing plan because you can almost guarantee potential customers will take to the internet to look for online ratings and customer reviews before they make any purchase decisions.

In fact, 97% of consumers confirm the customer reviews they read influence their purchasing decisions, and 92% of consumers say they’ll hesitate to buy a product if there are no reviews left by customers.

Customer reviews, video testimonials, star ratings, and the like also heavily influence purchasing decisions and lead conversion, so it’s important to constantly monitor and respond to your gym reviews to keep your reputation favourable and your business growing.

The great news is—72% of customers say they’ll provide reviews and testimonials simply if a local business asks them to! With the right marketing efforts in place, you can easily beef up your online presence by garnering more online reviews and customer testimonials.

Email marketing

Email marketing is an extremely valuable and widely used marketing method in the fitness industry because it helps businesses and consumers connect, build and manage strong and ongoing communication.

With the global shift to digitization, the use and effectiveness of email marketing have skyrocketed over the past few years. It’s become a routine part of our daily lives as professionals, individuals, and consumers.

In fact, research shows that email marketing offers the highest ROI of any marketing channel.

• You can anticipate an average return of £32.85 for every £.78 you spend on email marketing.
• Email marketing is 40x more effective at acquiring customers than Facebook and Twitter combined
•  50% of people buy from marketing emails at least once per month
• Nearly 22% of all email campaigns are opened within the first hour of sending
• 59% of respondents say that marketing emails have influenced their purchases

So, what does this data tell us?

It means there’s a great opportunity for fitness businesses of all sizes to reach their target market, no matter what their audience looks like.

SMS Marketing

Given the increasingly competitive digital landscape, some gyms are going “old school” and reverting back to a much simpler, highly effective, yet often underappreciated marketing tool—the good ole’ text message and push notifications.

SMS marketing—also referred to as text message marketing—is when businesses send text messages to promote their products and services to consumers, provide important updates, and to maintain ongoing communication with their target audience to keep their fitness business top-of-mind.

Below are four key advantages of SMS marketing, and how it can help you grow your fitness business:

Cost-effective

While text message marketing campaigns can sometimes be more expensive than email marketing campaigns (depending on your service provider)—they’re typically less expensive than many paid ad options, especially on popular social media platforms. And because SMS messaging campaigns offer such a high ROI, they’re considered cost-effective.

Attract new customers

You can use text message marketing to attract new members to your fitness facility by offering a free day at the gym, or some free swag if they sign up to receive texts. If you’re currently using a gym management software that offers text message automation, you can easily schedule follow-up texts to be sent to those who didn’t fully complete the online sign up form.

Upsell current customers

It’s often much easier to upsell existing members than it is to attract new ones. Because you want your members to get the most out of your gym, you need to make sure they’re aware of everything your facility has to offer. Use SMS messaging to inform existing customers of the benefits and added value of upgrading their memberships.

Increase conversion rates

The average text message conversion rate is 30%—whereas the average email marketing conversion rate is 3.26%. Even more impressive, text message marketing’s conversion rates rose 102% YoY in 2020.

With 98% of adults in the U.K. now owning some type of mobile phone—and approximately 85% of mobile phone users having smart phones—SMS marketing makes a lot of sense with everyone being more connected, and constantly connected, than ever before.

Social Media Marketing

A social media marketing strategy is a detailed plan of everything you hope to achieve from your social media efforts, including specific tactics of how you plan to communicate your message across each social media platform.

Social media is not only a great way to promote your business, but it is also a place to create a strong brand image for your fitness businesses. Each social media platform has a different set of norms with varying user demographics.

Another unique thing about social media is that it can be paid, owned, or earned media, depending on how you utilise it.

• Paid media refers to posts or special placements on social media supported by advertising budgets versus organic or free content.
• Owned media is content you create and control, like your website and social media platforms.
• Earned media is content others create about your fitness brand–for example, user reviews, media placements, or social media users sharing your content or posting about your brand on their personal pages.

The social media marketing landscape is constantly changing while competition continues to grow, so it’s important to keep your finger on the pulse, pay close attention to emerging trends, and always be on the lookout for ways to incorporate that into your social media marketing strategy to create timely, relevant and engaging content.

Take your gym membership sales to the next level

The best way to get the word out about your gym is to use a combination of the marketing strategies outlined above.

It will take some time and trial-and-error to determine which are the most effective for your gym—but, keep in mind—the more touch points you create with members and potential customers, the more likely you are to stay top-of-mind and to distinguish your gym from its competitors.

EZFacility’s gym management software offers a full suite of marketing tools and an extensive report suite to help you take membership sales to the next level.

Want to learn more? Try EZFacility for free by scheduling a free, no-commitment demo and product tour.

Workout challenges are a fun and effective way to keep members engaged and working toward their fitness goals. They help your members set challenging yet realistic goals within a time-specified timeframe—and when participants start to see the physical results, they’ll also start to associate your fitness facility with success and be more motivated to keep coming back.

From a fitness business standpoint, workout challenges are also a great way to generate new leads, increase referrals, and assist in building long-term relationships with clients.

There’s just something about a little friendly competition. Maybe it’s the feeling of victory or the bragging rights. Maybe it’s the prizes or maybe it’s all of the above.

What we do know is that workout challenges are a proven way to motivate your gym members to increase engagement, improve retention, and reduce member churn.

Plus—workout challenges are fun to plan and host!

Why Should You Host a Workout Challenge?

Fitness challenges are one of the best ways to boost member engagement and motivate customers to reach their goals.

Workout challenges also help generate new leads, encourage referrals, and maximise customer loyalty.

Before you launch your fitness challenges, you must first decide on the duration, how you’re going to track results, whether it will be an individual or competitive challenge, and what you’ll offer to the winners.

Key Considerations When Designing Workout Challenges 

When it comes to workout challenges, the opportunities are limitless!

You can choose to structure them any way you’d like, and it’s a great way to keep your online and offline customers engaged.

Regardless of which workout challenges you choose, they should all have a few things in common: they should be easy to join, they should be enjoyable for a range of ages and fitness levels, and they should be compatible with fitness trackers and other wearable teach so everyone can track and measure success.

Here are some other key considerations to keep in mind:

•  Once you set your duration for each challenge, be sure it’s communicated clearly to participants so they know what to expect.
• Promote your workout challenges on your social media pages to generate buzz and encourage more sign-ups.
•  Results can be tracked using a mobile app, gym software or your staff can create a leaderboard and manually enter results. Participants can take pictures of their results if need be.
• An individual challenge has members working toward a set goal, such as running 100 within a certain time frame. Rewards are typically smaller with individual challenges since every participant could be a winner.
•  A competitive challenge has members competing against each other. Since awards are usually tiered and given in the order in which participants finish, rewards are usually larger.
• Once you determine how many people will be rewarded for participating in your workout challenges, you must decide what the reward(s) will be. Popular rewards include free swag, a personal training session, or a membership discount.

For your workout challenge to be a success, it needs to be built on a strong foundation.

Five qualities of a great workout challenge:

1. SMART goals

To succeed at a challenge, you must start with an end goal in mind.

Remember to set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely) goals so you can set your members up for success.

2. End date

Every gym challenge needs to have an end date—whether it’s one month, eight weeks, or another specific duration of time, which will vary based on the type of challenge.

3. Tools

Give your gym members all the tools they need to succeed. Consider providing nutrition tips based on their goals, fitness advice, workout best practices, videos that show them how to perform each challenge, or podcasts for motivation.

4. Track progress

Before you launch your workout challenge, you should prepare a template where participants can track their daily progress. If they record progress on your branded mobile app, you’ll also be able to monitor their progress so you can help keep them motivated along the way.

5. Reward them

Reward participants whenever they meet a milestone, finish first place, or complete the challenge.

Popular rewards include branded swag like t-shirts, water bottles, sweat bands, and more. Not only does this make the customer happy—it helps boost your brand awareness whenever they wear the swag outside of your facility.

Read on to learn 12 of the most popular types of workout challenges.

12 Popular Workout Challenge Ideas

So, which workout challenges are best for your fitness facility?

The great news is that you can structure them however you’d like—feel free to create your own or pull inspiration from the examples outlined below:

1. Most Club Visits

Most Club Visits are an easy challenge to set up and run, and there’s no better way to incentivise your members to come in as much as possible than with a total check-ins challenge. 

2. Improve Your Personal Best

Most people enjoy certain activities and exercises, and this type of workout challenge encourages members to work toward their long-term fitness goals by improving upon their favourite workout routines—whether that’s rowing, running, walking, or any type of lift. 

To successfully run this challenge, ask everyone who wants to participate to come in on a particular day to record their best number to date and document it. 

3. Cycling Challenges 

Cycling challenges work especially well for members who may not be able to run. The challenge can be based on the distance travelled, the speed at which it was travelled, or the duration. 

4. Running or Walking Challenge

Running challenges are one of the most common types of workout challenges. This is because it can be done anytime, (mostly) anywhere, members can go at their own pace, and they can exercise by themselves or with friends.

You also can base your running or walking challenges on total distance or a set duration of time.

5. Rowing Challenges

Rowing is a popular workout because of its aerobic intensity and full-body training, so consider adding a rowing challenge to your repertoire. You can use the machine’s digital dashboard to set time, distance and speed challenges.

6. Calories Burned 

This challenge makes the goal a result, so it gives your members a little more freedom to choose the exercises they’re most comfortable with. 

7. Healthy Eating Challenge

A healthy eating challenge can be structured in a few different ways.

A few ideas include encouraging members to try new recipes or consulting with a nutritionist to create a personalised meal plan. This helps members gain a whole new perspective when it comes to diet and nutrition.

8. 30-day yoga challenge

This type of 30-day fitness challenge is one of the most popular because yoga is widely recognised for its physical and mental health benefits.

Plus, if participants aren’t able to come to your gym every day, they can still complete their 30-minute session from home.  

9. 30-day movement challenge

The goal behind a 30-day movement challenge is to motivate and inspire people to get in the habit of exercising for at least 30 minutes every day. 

Plus, this is another challenge that can be done at the gym or from home. It can also be adapted to suit the participant. For example, the members can choose whether to do squats, abs, planks, push-ups, crunches or simply a walk, all work in this format. 

10. Stretching challenge

Stretching helps improve performance and reduce the risk of injury, but this this pre-workout warm-up activity is often overlooked.

This challenge is a great way to get members in the habit of stretching before workouts. Recommend your clients perform a variety of stretches, including legs, arms, shoulders, neck and more.

11. Seasonal Fitness Challenges

By the time January rolls around, it’s no secret that many people have set their New Year’s resolutions and are eager to shed some holiday pounds.

To attract new members and encourage existing ones to return after the holidays, consider holding holiday-themed fitness or transformation challenges like the January exercise challenge or new year fitness challenges around this time of year.

12. Mindfulness Challenge

There’s more to fitness challenges than just movement—mental performance is just as important as physical performance.

By encouraging healthy practices like meditation, mindfulness challenges can help members alleviate stress, combat chronic pain, lower blood pressure, improve sleep, reduce anxiety and depression, and more!

Putting Your Workout Challenge Idea into Action 

Workout challenges can benefit your fitness business by improving member engagement and retention rates, generating new leads, and increasing referrals. 

Hosting a fitness challenge also benefits your members by providing a fun and competitive setting for members to pursue their fitness goals, make friends, and develop a sense of community and belonging. It’s a win: win.

Learn how EZFacility’s robust set of tools and features–for example, our Branded Mobile App, Text Message functionality, and Marketing Suite–can do all the heavy lifting for you so you can easily implement workout challenges throughout the year to keep your members motivated.

Try EZFacility for free by scheduling a free, no-commitment demo and personalised product tour.

3 Key Strategies for Managing a Gym Effectively 

As with any business, before opening a gym you’ll need to do ample research and planning to set yourself up for long-term success. 

By investing the time to gain a thorough understanding of the fitness industry and the inherent challenges that come with starting a gym and being a new business owner, you’ll be able to put strategic plans in place to help you navigate foreseeable obstacles, mitigate risk, increase profitability, and keep things running smoothly and efficiently.

One of the best ways to build a successful gym is to start with a solid framework and management software system in place to help streamline administrative tasks, improve communication and collaboration, simplify membership management, and more—saving you valuable time and money.

Whether you’re opening a new facility or stepping into a new managerial role, to effectively manage a gym you’ll need to wear many hats and juggle various responsibilities—many of which can be laborious and time-consuming.

By streamlining your gym’s operations and administrative tasks using tools and technology at your disposal—for example, gym management software—you’ll be able to manage your time and fitness business in the most efficient ways possible.

Here are three strategies to improve gym management:

1. Perfect the Member Experience

The fitness industry has undergone a major transformation while adapting to shifting demands and changing consumer habits caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

It’s important for gym and fitness business owners to understand that customers’ expectations have changed dramatically since the pandemic hit—especially in the fitness industry, where members have grown accustomed to the convenience and flexibility that digital fitness offerings provide. 

Now more than ever, providing a great customer experience is a non-negotiable for gyms and fitness-related businesses. 

Ways to Create a Great Customer Experience

In today’s increasingly digital world, ensuring a positive member experience is more important than ever.

The experience you provide—whether positive or negative—will stay with you and impact your long-term success. In fact, 87% of customers think brands need to put more effort into providing a consistent experience.

A great customer experience provides your business with a competitive edge, improves customer satisfaction and customer engagement, and helps you attract loyal customers. Conversely, a bad experience has the opposite effect, and can quickly lead people to cancel their memberships or leave negative reviews online and on social media.

A great customer experience is what will keep your members coming back, and make them more likely to recommend your business to friends.

Remember—you’re selling a long-term relationship with a continuous service, so it’s imperative that you build a strong team of engaged employees, solicit customer feedback, and continue to monitor digital trends in the fitness space to make sure you’re keeping up with the shifting landscape.

2. Streamline Operations

If you want to operate a gym efficiently, you’ll need to find gym management software that streamlines every part of your business. Without a secure and centralised platform in place, you’ll waste countless hours of valuable time trying to track everything manually, which also greatly increases the likelihood of costly mistakes and human error.

EZFacility’s all-in-one gym management software is secure, scalable, and always accessible. That means whether you’re at home or on the go, you can trust us to make sure your customers’ data is safe, their interactions are secure, and your facility is protected. And because EZFacility’s features are designed to support the needs of fitness businesses of all sizes, our software can be tailored to support your specific needs.

Our fitness facility scheduling and management features centralise and consolidate the process of scheduling physical resources, classes, clinics, and rentals into a colour-coded schedule. Not only does this allow you to locate available resources at-a-glance, but our resource utilisation reports also ensure your facility is working to capacity.

3. Identify and Manage Growth

Have you ever wondered where in the online buying and registration process clients are dropping off?

If you utilise gym management software like EZFacility, you can finally find out the answer (and more!) using our Google Analytics connector. And, as you continue to grow and open additional locations—you can rest assured that EZFacility is by your side and ready to grow with you.

The bottom line is—in today’s digital landscape, it’s imperative to use gym management software to operate a gym efficiently, and to set the stage for business growth.

In order to assess success and identify growth opportunities, you need to have access to and a constant pulse on all of your financials at any given time. This simply isn’t possible without a secure software solution in place.

EZFacility’s comprehensive dashboard and reporting suite give you an in-depth look under the hood of your gym any time, and in real-time–including financial, point-of-sale, marketing, payroll, membership, and more.

10 Tips for Improving Gym Management

Knowing how to manage a gym involves juggling multiple elements and processes. 

Here are 10 tips to help:

1. Document the entire member experience 

In a membership-based business, the customer experience is ultimately what defines and drives your business.

In order to provide a great member experience, you must remember that the experience extends beyond just the initial signup—the member experience begins at the first point of contact with customers, and encompasses all of the touch points throughout the customer journey.

The experience you provide is what makes your business unique, and it’s what attracts people to your products and services over your competitors. Providing a great member experience is critical to creating a positive association with your business, boosting customer engagement, and building a community of loyal customers.

To ensure you’re providing a positive member experience, you need to continuously offer exceptional customer support, anticipate—and exceed—customers’ expectations and needs, and provide an experience your members can’t get anywhere else. Additionally, you need to understand how your members think, and what they want.

2. Track everything 

From membership management to payroll reports—you need to keep track of everything. And there’s a lot of everything.

Simplify your life and business by streamlining your entire financial and reporting system using gym management software.

With EZFacility, specifically, you can enjoy the following benefits:  

Membership Management

EZFacility’s membership management tools make it easy to create custom membership plans, manage relationships, sell services online, assign plastic or RFID member cards, track payments, and automate text and email reminders to reduce client delinquencies.

POS & Inventory Management

Our POS and inventory management features allow you to manage point-of-sale products from a desktop or mobile device, monitor product levels, automate reorder alerts, manage online or in-house coupon codes, and report on product profitability

Extensive Report Suite

EZFacility’s extensive report suite offers an in-depth look under the hood of your business. This includes quick and easy access to financial, point-of-sale, marketing, payroll, membership, training reports, and more. Export reports in a variety of file types, including .csv, .pdf, and .xlsx.

QuickBooks Online Integration

Easily connect with tools that you already use—like QuickBooks Online. Save time and stay organised by syncing EZFacility financials directly into the QuickBooks Online platform.

3. Build a team of A-players 

Running a gym isn’t just about laying out equipment—it’s about creating a space that can change people’s lives. The environment you foster plays a huge role in whether a member has a positive customer experience or a bad experience. The same principle applies to your staff and employees as well.

You’re likely familiar with the saying “happy employees create happy customers”—and studies have confirmed that employee happiness is directly correlated with employee efficiency, creativity, and productivity. If you want to consistently provide positive customer experiences, you need to build a team of happy, engaged employees.

Your staff is the first line of contact with customers, and they are the faces of your gym, so you’ll want to hire creative problem solvers who share the same passions as you and exude positive energy. You’ll want to hire people with positive energy who share your passion for fitness. And, as your gym grows, you’ll want to keep in mind the future skills and qualities new hires may need.

Always remember that you can hire incredible talent in your business—but it’s your responsibility to provide them with the tools, resources, trust, freedom, and support they need to be the best representatives they can be for your facility.

Your entire business model will depend on the people you choose to hire—so don’t underestimate the importance of employee management and the need to always offer a positive work environment to bring out the best in everyone. 

4. Improve communication 

Communication is key to any relationship. Make it easy to reach you, and remember to meet the customers where they are.

You can do this by physically posting contact information, visibly, throughout your gym and at the front desk. You should also always make the contact section on your website and digital communications easy to find and easy to follow.

Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback from both employees and customers—and don’t take it personally! Remember that the only way to improve things is to first have a realistic understanding of where you currently are.

Look at feedback as an opportunity to grow and to continue to evolve and adapt your business practices to offer the best gym and customer experience you can! 

5. Ask for customer feedback

The best way to know if you’re meeting customers’ expectations is to ask them.

Asking for customer feedback after key touch points during the customer journey shows members you care about their experience, which leads to greater customer satisfaction and higher customer engagement. Customer feedback is also an invaluable way to learn what you’re doing well, in addition to identifying areas for improvement.

6. Use gym management software to the fullest 

Your gym management software should help improve the member experience by allowing members to access all the information they need. They should be able to pay their membership through your platform or sign up for your latest workout stream. 

Self-service client portal

Self-service Client Portal empowers clients to update payment information, pay outstanding balances, schedule sessions, purchase packages or memberships, register their kids for summer camp or soccer clinics, and more—all online, and all on their own.

Self-check-in

With a range of options that include mobile or RFID member cards, biometric scans, and unique identifiers, our Self Check-in feature allows clients to check themselves into your facility or classes from a tablet, kiosk, or desktop computer.

7. Automate and delegate 

Centralise the scheduling of physical resources and consolidate all classes, clinics, and rentals into a colour-coded schedule. At a glance locate available resources and master resource utilisation reports to ensure your facility is working to capacity.

8. Prioritise member retention 

Improve member retention by thinking from the customer’s point-of-view to create a seamless, hassle-free joining experience. Follow this up with an exceptional customer experience to always make members feel encouraged and connected to your facility. 

9. Invest in marketing and sales 

Marketing is an essential function needed to promote your gym, differentiate yourself from competitors, and to attract potential members. When utilized effectively, marketing campaigns can also be a great way to keep current gym members engaged and reduce churn.

There’s no shortage of options when it comes to gym marketing ideas. However, it’s important to remember that implementing a multichannel approach will increase the likelihood of reaching your target audience. This will also positively impact the overall success of your campaign.

The fitness industry is highly competitive, and it’s easy to get lost in the noise. So, what can you do to stand out? Answer: multichannel marketing campaigns with a mix of both paid and unpaid marketing efforts. 

10. Be adaptable. 

As we touched on earlier, fitness consumers’ expectations have changed since COVID-19. This means gym owners need to be willing to meet the consumers where they are.

Data from a recent global study revealed that 70% of responding internet users worldwide were using their smartphones or mobile phones more as a direct result of the coronavirus outbreak, and another study found that mobile owners worldwide will continue to increase to 7.33 billion by 2023.

 For gyms and fitness-related businesses, this means that a strong digital presence is key to long-term success. Additionally, consumers now expect a hybrid combination of in-person and online workout options. They want to be able to research, book services and communicate with brands easily.

The key takeaway is that what works now might not work in six months. Therefore, you need to be ready to change and adapt your business model because it’s that level of flexibility and adaptability that will allow you to beat out the competition.

It’s always best to make sure your app, website, and social media channels are updated. Aim to make them user-friendly, informative, and offer a seamless experience.

Conclusion

We know how overwhelming it can be to manage a gym. Let EZFacility help do the heavy lifting so you can focus on the things that matter.

Try EZFacility for free! Schedule a free, no-commitment demo and product tour today.

As we kick off the new year, it’s critical to have your gym’s 2023 fitness marketing plan in place—or, at least in the works—as well as your updated fitness content calendar.

While creating your annual fitness marketing plan is no easy feat—it’s worth investing the time upfront to think through and develop a comprehensive plan of action to serve as the roadmap to guide all of your marketing efforts for the year ahead and keep everyone on the same page.

When utilised correctly, fitness newsletters have the ability to transform leads into paying customers, upsell your current customers, and re-engage lapsed members—all while simultaneously building up brand authority and improving brand loyalty

A newsletter also helps you build a brand personality and familiarity, making you instantly recognisable in a crowded inbox. By creating and sending regular newsletters, you are keeping your fitness brand at the top of your customer’s minds. You’re building a relationship that other brands aren’t.

So, no matter what type of fitness business you run, let’s jump into how you can craft the perfect fitness newsletter for your audience.

Do I really need a fitness newsletter?

In the age of social media, you may be wondering if you really need to bother with fitness newsletters anymore? The short answer is, yes.

While some marketers may think email is dead—the statistics prove otherwise.

Don’t let contemporary communication methods distract you from one of the oldest, yet most effective strategies—email marketing. In fact, email marketing boasts the highest ROI of any marketing channel.

Here are some other staggering email marketing statistics for you to consider: 

• Email marketing is 40x more effective at acquiring customers than Facebook and Twitter combined
• 50% of people buy from marketing emails at least once per month
• Nearly 22% of all email campaigns are opened within the first hour of sending
• 59% of respondents say that marketing emails have influenced their purchases

Another huge benefit to using email to communicate with members is nearly everyone uses email.

So, yes–regardless of the size of your gym or fitness facility, you should absolutely have an email marketing plan in place and you should be utilising gym newsletters correctly and effectively. 

Best practices for fitness newsletters

To create an effective fitness newsletter, there are some best practices and key considerations to keep in mind.

Define your goals & objectives

Starting with a clear understanding of your goals and objectives is critical to the success of your email campaigns.

You’ll want to define the specific goal of each fitness newsletter you send as that will drive the content and design, as well as the relevancy to your recipients.

Identify your target audience

If you want to engage your audience, you need to know about them—for example, their likes, interests and other demographic data. By understanding who you’re talking to, you can create tailored content to pique interest and maximize engagement.

Segment your email lists

Segmenting your email lists can take some time, but it’s necessary to ensure the right content is going to the right people.

Segmentation places subscribers into more specific lists based on their interests, whereas personalisation entails using the recipient’s name, or reaching out to them on their birthday or to celebrate other milestones.

Sometimes general information newsletters are appropriate to send to your entire distribution list, but you’ll want to proceed with caution. If you send too many emails that aren’t relevant to the recipients, you risk getting blocked or even reported for spam. 

Determine distribution frequency

After you’ve defined your goals and identified your target audience, you’ll want to create a distribution plan that outlines the emails you plan to send, what you plan to include, and when you plan to send them.

Consistency is key, so outlining your dates and topics in advance will help you avoid the last-minute scramble.

It’s important to be realistic with the goals you set, so if you’re just starting, consider sending one or two emails per month—you can always increase the frequency later.

Design your templates

To make things a bit easier on yourself, consider creating several templates to use for different audiences and purposes. The templates and features available to you will vary by your service provider.

Keep in mind that the templates you create will be the foundation of your email marketing campaigns, so it’s important to ensure your branding and tone is consistent in order to build trust and familiarity with your audience. 

How to write an effective fitness newsletter

The primary purpose of a fitness newsletter is to keep your members informed, connected and engaged with your facility—but to do so, you’ll have to catch their attention first, and then keep them engaged.

Write snappy, attention-grabbing headlines

The subject line is one of the most important parts of your email. We’re all busy people, and most recipients will make a snap judgment whether or not to read your email based on the headline alone. To entice readers to open your email, your headline should be a balance between being informative and intriguing.

Include high-quality, captivating visuals

Visuals are the first thing we look for, so the reader’s eye will be immediately drawn to whatever visuals you include. Using rich imagery is a great way to highlight an essential point and keep your readers engaged. But it’s important to find the right balance between text and imagery because using too many images will increase your load times and risk losing the reader’s interest.

Make your text scannable

The simplicity of your fitness newsletters is key to their readability. The majority of your subscribers will open your emails on their mobile devices, and long blocks of text can quickly cause readers to lose interest. Break up your content into shorter, more digestible chunks.

Include a clear call-to-action

If you want recipients to take specific action after reading your email, tell them. Guide your readers to a clear call-to-action button so they understand the purpose of your newsletter, and make it easy for them to do what you’d like.

Optimise for mobile devices

The vast majority of your subscribers will likely be reading your fitness newsletters on their phones or other mobile devices. For this reason, you want to make sure your template is optimised for mobile use to provide a seamless user experience.

Include important links

Don’t forget to tell subscribers where you need them to go (and make sure the link works)!

Something as simple as a missing, broken or easily overlooked link can make a huge difference.

Content ideas for your gym newsletter

When defining your email marketing content strategy, it’s important to plan and map out content ideas that will be timely, relevant and important to members throughout the year.

Try to limit your e-newsletter content to two or three topics, with about 200 words of descriptive text per topic.

Here are some email marketing content ideas to get you started:

Facility news

Your gym newsletter is the perfect opportunity to share facility news and updates, exciting announcements, and other general news or developments with your members.

Help keep members in the loop and informed about new classes, class schedules, staff changes, and anything else that may help them feel connected.

Showcase staff members

People relate to people. You can help build trust, comfortability, and nurture relationships by showcasing staff members in your fitness newsletters.

Interview different staff members and ask them to share the story of their personal journey, what keeps them motivated, their favourite workouts, and other information your members may find relatable.

Diet & nutrition tips

Nutrition is probably the most crucial thing for balanced health and fitness—because staying fit and maintaining a healthy lifestyle is not easy.

Ask your personal trainers, nutritionists, or health coaches to lend their expertise and share some of their favourite tips, tricks, or links to their favourite healthy recipes.  

Special offers & promotions

Are you running a promotion on personal training services? Do you have a membership drive coming up? 

Don’t forget to let your customers know! 

Class schedules & registration links

Do your classes change from week to week? How often do you add new options?

Keep members in the loop by providing a detailed class schedule. Make it easy for members to access up-to-date class schedules and registration links.

Scheduling information is especially important for gyms that rely on drop-in attendance or class punch cards, as members may need to be reminded of classes to keep attendance up.

Upcoming events

Promote upcoming events by including a brief event overview and link to the social media pages, or the website registration page.

You can also share a post-event recap that includes a brief summary, a list of noteworthy attendees or sponsors, and a few select photos.

Client success stories & customer testimonials

Help keep motivation high by sharing member success stories—include before and after pictures, discuss their weight loss journey, and provide additional information to help your readers believe they can achieve their fitness goals, too.  

This is also a perfect opportunity to work in some testimonial marketing by asking readers to submit their own success stories, provide feedback, or leave a review.

Customer reviews and testimonials are a powerful way to showcase results, build trust, demonstrate your ability to deliver an exceptional member experience, and offer social proof that you’re able to help clients achieve their goals.

Fitness industry news & events

Share the latest industry news, events, videos and happenings with your subscribers.

Not only is this a great way to keep your content relevant and timely, but it also helps establish your credibility.

Motivational quotes & images

Who doesn’t love ‘em?

Keep things light and help members stay motivated by including some of your favourite motivational quotes or imagery. 

Multi-Channel Outreach

Reach current and prospective members with multi-channel messaging. Use email to schedule informative branded content. Employ text messaging to deliver quick, relevant information within seconds. 

Template Library

Save time on design to focus on high-quality messaging. Choose from 500+ customisable email templates to kick-start your outreach. Select, edit, and apply templates to automated campaigns. 

Advanced Messaging

Create advanced email campaigns to develop new customer relationships or nurture leads throughout the buying process. With instant sending options you can ensure delivery when contacts are most likely to engage.

Targeted Campaigns

Increase the efficiency of your email and text messaging campaigns with targeted marketing. Send emails and messages to all contacts or apply filters to create specific cohorts. 

In-Depth Reporting

Use in-depth reporting to track, measure, and optimise campaign performance. Report on client referrals, lead conversions, promotion engagement, bounced emails, and more.

Optimise Lead Touch Points

Boost sales with increased lead touchpoints. Meet your prospects with the messaging they need at just the right time. Create more opportunities for inquiries and engagement with calls-to-action that move contacts through your funnel. 

Conclusion

When utilised effectively, a fitness newsletter can be one of the most useful, efficient and cost-effective marketing tools at your disposal.

Did you know EZFacility can help automate and improve your email marketing campaigns from one intuitive, responsive platform?

EZFacility’s full suite of marketing tools makes it easy to customise and send advanced email marketing campaigns to develop new customer relationships or nurture leads throughout the buying process.

With automated email and text message functionality—you can ensure your clients receive the right information at the most opportune time.

Want to learn more? Schedule a free, no-commitment demo and product tour today.

According to the IHRSA, 81% of health and fitness businesses fail within their first year but despite this the fitness industry continues to grow.

In fact, projected revenue for the U.S. fitness industry is expected to reach £356.87 billion by the end of 2028, representing annual growth of 33.10% from 2021-2028.

Have you been wondering how to increase gym revenue and take profits to the next level? Owning a gym can be a very lucrative business venture, but only if you understand how to turn gym revenues into profits.

The good news is you don’t need a financial expert to understand the foundation of gym valuations. We know it can all be a bit overwhelming, so in this blog we’ll cover the basics of assessing gym profitability and what you can do to lower costs and increase revenue, thereby also improving profitability. 

How to evaluate profitability

Did you know your business can show a profit without actually being profitable?

When you do your quarterly financial reports, you may show a profit at the end of a quarter which effectively means your gym made more money than you spent. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re bringing in enough income to remain in operations for the long haul.

This is why it’s important to understand the difference between profit and profit margins.

How to calculate gross profit

Gross profit (also referred to as gross income) is the amount of revenue left after subtracting the cost of goods and services (COGS). To calculate your gym’s gross profit, you’ll need to calculate the total amount of earnings, in addition to the cost of selling your products and services.

Then take your total sales revenue for a designated period of time, which is typically either by month, quarter or year and subtract total expenses. What’s left is your gross profit.

Total revenue – total expenses = gross profit 

How to calculate net profit

The major difference between gross profit and net profit is that the latter also accounts for the cost of operations. For example rent, utilities, wages, salaries, insurance etc. And subtracts those from total revenue.

For this reason, net profit is a more precise assessment of a gym’s profitability, but gross profit is still a suitable calculation to give you a general idea of your gym’s performance.

How to calculate gross profit margin

A gross profit margin is a metric for analysing sales. And although gross profit will show whether or not your gym is running in the black, it won’t tell you if you’re getting enough return on your expenses to stay viable. For this, you must calculate and consider your gym’s gross profit margin.

To calculate the gross profit margin, take your gross profit and divide it by total revenue to get a percentage.

Gross profit ÷ total revenue = gross profit margin

Example:

Let’s suppose your gym made £50,000 in total revenue last month and your total expenses were £30,000, leaving you with a profit of £20,000. Divide the £20,000 profit by £50,000 in income to get a profit margin of 40%.  

£50,000 – £30,000 = £20,000 gross profit

To calculate your gym’s gross profit margin, divide net profit by revenue:

£20,000 ÷ £50,000 = 0.4

Finally, multiply your gross profit by 100 to determine your gross profit margin percentage:

0.4 x 100% = 40% net profit margin

Your gym’s profit margin is one of the biggest key performance indicators (KPI) because it shows how much return you get from the money you’re spending. The larger the percentage, the more profitable the business is.

Most gyms will have a sales mix, meaning they sell multiple products and services. Therefore it can be helpful to calculate the margin mix for all products and services individually, as this calculation can help you determine which are the most profitable. 

How to increase your gym profit margin 

Profitability is the difference between your gym’s revenue and expenses. If your revenue is higher than your expenses, your gym is considered profitable. Conversely, if your expenses are greater than your revenue, your gym is not profitable.

Most gyms typically have diversified income streams, meaning they bring in revenue from a variety of sources. This includes memberships, class fees, personal training fees, as well as apparel, food, drinks or supplements.

Your expenses account for all the costs you pay to keep your gym in operation. This includes rent, utilities, staff, equipment, marketing, and more.

Generally speaking, one of the fastest and easiest ways to increase profitability is by lowering costs which could include anything from your utility bill to the costs associated with hiring and firing staff.

With the competitive market also anticipated to continue growing rapidly, it’s imperative for gym owners to be proactive about improving profitability. Fortunately, there are a number of steps you can take today to give your gym’s bottom line a boost.

Here are three examples:

Streamline operations

Gym management software—also referred to as membership management software, a facility management system, or a gym software solution—is a platform of tools that will centralise and streamline your gym’s operations. In other words, gym management software serves as a central hub for gym owners to better manage and oversee their facilities finances, staff, memberships and more.

Value-based pricing

One of the most obvious ways to increase your gym’s revenue is to increase the cost of your memberships. In addition to bumping up revenue, it can also boost the perceived value of the membership.

What you’ll need to keep in mind however, is that this only works if you deliver on that added value; otherwise this strategy could have the opposite effect and lead to a loss of members.

Add revenue streams

Some of your clients will want personal training, while others will want group classes and within those classes, you’ll need a range of levels.

Why not provide both, but limit the numbers in your group classes? Your best clients will pay more because they are receiving more personal attention than they otherwise would in a larger group class.

You might also want to consider adding new types of classes or increasing the number of your most popular classes. To figure out which are the most profitable, you can calculate the gross profit margin for each.

Conclusion

For a gym owner to be successful in today’s increasingly competitive fitness market, it’s imperative to get on board with the shift to digitisation and to invest in a gym management system that can accommodate changing business needs, in addition to the needs of employees and consumers.

Why not get started today?

Give us a call and try EZFacility for free! 

Whether you’re looking to spread the word about your fitness club’s grand opening (or a new product or service offering), add additional streams of revenue, increase your social media presence, or build brand awareness, fitness events are a fun way gym owners can promote their facility and any summer promotions they may be offering.

Why Host Fitness Events?

As a fitness club owner, strategically incorporating multiple revenue streams is the best way to create a solid foundation for financial success. Fitness events also help build a sense of community, which will keep current members engaged while also attracting new ones. Additionally, posting about your upcoming event on social media will help generate brand awareness and build your online presence.

Fun Fitness Event Ideas

When deciding which event ideas are the best fit for you, be sure to consider your target audience, goals, and budget to ensure you’re hosting events that your current members will love to keep them engaged, while also attracting new potential members.

Looking for some creative event ideas for the summer? Start here.

1.   Socials

Socials give your members and potential members a chance to connect and interact with each other, with the primary goal being to nurture bonds and build a sense of community. Socials create a space for connections so your local community can grow in and outside of your fitness club. Types of social events can include a special after-hours personal training session for a select group, a non-alcoholic night out, or a healthy eating event.

2.   Pop-up fitness class

A pop-up fitness class gives gym owners a way to generate buzz in a new location or with a new class offering. These types of events can attract a new demographic, spread awareness in previously untapped locations and generate more brand awareness. Consider using parks or other public spaces by arranging partnerships with local businesses.

3.   One-off free fitness class

If you’re getting ready to launch a new fitness class or just hired a new instructor, consider offering a one-off free fitness class event. It’s a great way to give potential members an experience with your gym before they commit to a membership. You can invite influencers from the local community to your launch event to generate more buzz around your new class or fitness instructor.

4.   Workout challenges

Workout challenges are a fun way to keep members engaged and working toward their fitness goals. They help your members set challenging yet realistic goals within a time specified timeframe—and when participants start to see the physical results, they’ll also start to associate your fitness club with success and be more motivated to keep coming back. Workout challenges are also a great way for gym owners to generate new leads, increase referrals, and assist in building long term relationships with clients and the local community.

5.   Health and fitness retreats

Health and fitness retreats are growing sectors. They do require more planning and monetary investment, but they can generate a steady stream of income for gym owners. Yoga retreats, mindfulness breaks, and weekends away give your members the opportunity to connect with your fitness club on a personal level and elevate the brand. Fitness retreats can target current gym members and non-members, and can be held at locations all over the world.

Conclusion

Whether you’re looking to create a buzz around a launch, generate additional revenue streams, or build brand awareness—the possibilities are endless when planning fun summer fitness events! With a thorough understanding of your target audience, goals, and budget, you can create a fitness event that your current gym members love, while also attracting new members and building stronger relationships within your local community.

We all know there are gyms and health clubs all over the place–and, at their core, they all offer essentially the same thing: a place to work out and improve physical health. With so much variety among competitors, it can be challenging to figure out how to attract potential clients and retain your existing ones.

To remain competitive, it’s important to stand out rather than to fit in. So, what can you do to differentiate your gym from competitors?

Read on to learn four ways you can make your gym shine and stand out amongst your competitors.

1.    Focus on the Member Experience

In today’s increasingly digital world, ensuring a positive member experience is more important than ever. A great customer experience provides your business with a competitive edge, improves customer satisfaction and customer engagement, and helps you attract potential clients. Conversely, a bad experience has the opposite effect, and can quickly lead people to cancel their memberships, or leave negative reviews online and on social media.

The experience you provide is what makes your gym unique, and it’s what attracts people to your products or services over your competitors. Providing a great member experience gives you a competitive edge, and it’s critical to creating a positive association with your brand, and building a community of loyal, engaged members.

The member experience begins at the first point of contact with customers and encompasses all the touch points throughout the customer journey. To ensure you’re providing a positive member experience, you need to continuously offer exceptional customer support, anticipate customers’ needs and expectations, and make your members feel like your gym offers something they can’t get anywhere else.

2.    Expand Your Digital Fitness Offerings

Online training and on-demand classes were perfect solutions for fitness businesses trying to stay afloat and generate new income streams during worldwide lockdowns and forced business closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The demand for digital and hybrid fitness options isn’t going away any time soon. Many members have grown accustomed to the flexibility, and they still want the option to go to the gym a few days a week, or to get their workouts done at home.

To stay competitive in 2022, fitness businesses should continue to focus on expanding, improving, and marketing online fitness offerings. Consumers now expect a hybrid combination of in-person and online workout options, and they want to be able to research, book services, and communicate with brands easily.

3.    Showcase Online Reviews & Member Testimonials

When it comes to business, nothing speaks louder than results. And in the fitness industry, customer reviews and testimonials are a powerful way to showcase results, build trust, demonstrate your ability to deliver an exceptional member experience, and offer social proof that you’re able to help clients achieve their goals. 

Your online presence will affect everything from how many people follow you on social media to your company’s bottom line. For fitness businesses, a positive reputation can help attract new potential clients, entice a better selection of prospective employees, create more business opportunities, improve your local search engine rankings, and more. Conversely, a negative reputation can lead to loss of sales, membership churn, high employee turnover, and other costly consequences.

When a potential client is considering making a purchase decision, they want to make the best choice—and they base their decision on which product or service appears to be superior. Nearly 90% of consumers worldwide make an effort to read reviews before buying products, and 86% of customers rely on word of mouth recommendations and online reviews. These statistics illustrate the importance of your online reputation and digital footprint, as well the impact of positive reviews.

4.    Streamline Operations

Gym management software continues to grow in popularity given its ability to increase efficiency and productivity, reduce the risk of human error, save time and money, and enhance the member experience. On top of that, the low upfront cost structure of a cloud-based software solution makes it a financially attractive option for fitness businesses of all sizes.

Gym management software—also sometimes referred to as membership management software, a facility management system, or a gym software solution—is a platform of tools that will centralise and streamline your facility’s operations.

Gym software makes it easy for members to update payment information, pay outstanding balances, view your calendar, schedule sessions, purchase packages or memberships, register their kids for summer camp or soccer clinics, and more—all online, and all on their own.

Conclusion

For a gym owner to be successful in today’s business climate, it’s imperative to get onboard with the fitness industry’s shift to digital, and to invest in a gym management system that can accommodate changing business needs, in addition to the needs of employees and members.

To learn how EZFacility’s comprehensive gym management software can help you easily connect with members and potential clients, convert leads into long-lasting relationships, and streamline operations so you can focus on the most important aspects of running your business, schedule a free demo and personalised product tour today.

Workout challenges are a fun way to keep members engaged and working toward their fitness goals. They help your members set challenging yet realistic goals within a time specified timeframe—and when participants start to see the physical results, they’ll also start to associate your fitness facility with success and be more motivated to keep coming back.

From a fitness business standpoint, workout challenges are also a great way to generate new leads, increase referrals, and assist in building long term relationships with clients.

Key Considerations When Designing Workout Challenges

When it comes to workout challenges, the opportunities are limitless. You can choose to structure them any way you’d like, and it’s a great way to keep your online and offline customers engaged. 

Here are some key considerations to keep in mind:

• Once you set your duration for each challenge, be sure it’s communicated clearly to participants so they know what to expect.
• Promote your workout challenges on your social media pages to generate buzz and encourage more sign ups. 
• Results can be tracked using a mobile app, gym software, or your staff can create a leaderboard and manually enter results. Participants can take pictures of their results, if need be.
• An individual challenge has members working toward a set goal, such as running 100 within a certain time frame. Rewards are typically smaller with individual challenges since every participant could be a winner.
• A competitive challenge has members compete against each other. Since awards are usually tiered and given in the order in which participants finish, rewards are usually larger.
• Once you determine how many people will be rewarded for participating in your workout challenges, you must decide what the reward(s) will be. Popular rewards include free swag, a personal training session, or a discount on membership.

Read on to learn six of the most popular types of workout challenges.

Six Popular Workout Challenges

So, which workout challenges are best for your fitness facility? The great news is that you can structure them however you’d like—feel free to create your own, or pull inspiration from the examples outlined below:

1. Most Club Visits

Most Club Visits is an easy challenge to set up and run, and there’s no better way to incentivise your members to come in as much as possible than with a total check-ins challenge.

2. Improve Your Personal Best by 10%

Most people enjoy certain activities and exercises, and this type of workout challenge encourages members to work toward their long-term fitness goals by improving upon their favourite workout routines—whether that’s rowing, running, walking, or any type of lift.

To successfully run this challenge, ask everyone who wants to participate to come in on a particular day to record their best number to-date and document it.

3. Cycling Challenges

Cycling challenges work especially well for members who may not be able to run. The challenge can be based on distance traveled, the speed at which it was traveled, or the duration.

4. Running Challenges

Running challenges are one of the most common types of workout challenges because members can go at their own pace. The challenge can be based on total distance, or the speed at which a certain distance is run.

5. Rowing Challenges

Rowing is a popular workout because of its aerobic intensity and full-body training, so consider adding a rowing challenge to your repertoire. You can use the machine’s digital dashboard to set time, distance and speed challenges.

6. Calories Burned

This challenge makes the goal an end-result, so it gives your members a little more freedom to choose the exercises they’re most comfortable with.

Conclusion

Workout challenges can benefit your fitness business by improving member engagement and retention rates, generating new leads, and increasing referrals. They also benefit your members by providing a fun and competitive setting for members to pursue their fitness goals, make friends, and develop a sense of community and belonging. It’s a win:win.

What workout challenges have you held at your gym? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.