FitnessHow to Improve Profitability at Your Gym
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How to Improve Profitability at Your Gym

While your gym has many goals, such as bringing in new members and maintaining equipment, the ultimate goal is profitability. Many of the other goals relate to achieving profitability, and this focus should be kept in mind as you work on your other goals. 

So, how can you improve profitability at your gym? Here are a few ideas to consider. 

Keep Profitability in Mind

Remember the goal of running a successful business, turning a profit, as you carry out actions at your gym. It can become easy to get distracted by other activities and metrics, such as whether you’re building a following on social media and whether you have a good enough range of exercise classes. 

When you focus on those kinds of areas, hold the compass pointing north to whether they help toward the ultimate goal of profitability. Ask yourself: 

  • Are these actions supporting profitability or simply distracting from it? 
  • Are there adjustments I can make to focus on both goals at the same time? 

When you maintain the profitability focus instead of becoming distracted, the other areas should support profitability. For instance, you can adjust to focus more on whether social media brings in or retains members rather than prioritizing how many likes you get on a post. 

Likewise, see if there is a relation between adjustments to classes and other areas or if these adjustments are not helping toward the main goal. Nonetheless, keep in mind that it will likely take some time to notice results. 

Put More Effort into Retention

Member churn will cost your business profits, and it costs five to 10 times more to acquire a new customer than to retain one. Plus, current customers are the best place to tap for new customers, as they account for 68 percent of new ones on average. 

What this means is that putting a large focus on retention as the priority over seeking new members can lead to better profitability. How do you achieve this? 

Take Complaints Seriously: Take into account that 14 percent of customers stop doing business with a brand because it doesn’t handle their complaints well, while having complaints taken care of quickly leads to an 82 percent purchase intention rate. 

Give Good Customer Service: Be aware that poor customer service has led to a 37 percent increase in customer retention loss since 2016. In the U.S., there has been $75 billion lost due to customers feeling unheard. 

Give Members What They Want: Take into account what members are asking for and what they are complaining about, and ask them what would improve their experience. Truly listen and make reasonable changes to improve their experience. Also, customers like to be rewarded for their long-standing business, such as through a loyalty program or discounts. 

Stay Connected: Email marketing works 56 percent better than other digital marketing customer retention methods. Social media marketing and content marketing are also effective. This shows that it helps to develop and maintain a connection with members and to communicate with them. 

Consider Add-on Goods and Services

In addition to gym memberships, what could your gym sell as an add-on good or service? Here are some ideas to bring in extra revenue: 

Have you gained any ideas for improving profitability at your gym? You’re probably already focusing on some of these areas, but there may be others you haven’t considered or tried. Also, consider professional products and services like gym management software and accounting that can help your business streamline and see ways to improve profitability.