You’re a gym owner, not a financial analyst. Although you specialize in helping your clients make physical gains, gains in revenue are always desirable.
You’d rather spend your time with your clients, not on your spreadsheets. But there are a few simple tactics to boost your gym’s revenue, and they won’t force you to sacrifice time away from running your gym.
In this article, we’ll illustrate six actionable and customer-friendly strategies to boost your gym's revenue.
1. Create A Mobile App Exclusive For Your Gym
Want to give your gym a tech-savvy edge over your competitors? Use a mobile app builder like Adalo and create your gym’s own mobile app. Instead of handing out membership cards, direct your clients to the iOS Apple, Google Play Store, or your website, where they can download your app.
App builders like Adalo are perfect for people who don’t know how to code and have zero hours of technical experience. No-code app builders use a drag-and-drop interface as a building function, letting you build your app with mouse clicks and fingertips, not tediously typing in long lines of code. Adalo is so intuitive that you can start building your app without watching any tutorials.
Here are just some of the features you can add to your app:
Customize Booking, Scheduling, and Workout Tracking
If you offer personal training services, build your own booking system that lets clients choose their lesson times. Clients will love the liberty of booking which trainer they want to work with at different times to meet their fitness goals.
You’ll also be able to build a workout-tracking feature in your app. This can help clients record workouts and track results. Adalo allows clients to send data from their smartwatches to your app and monitor their biometrics, like heart rate and blood glucose levels. Giving clients the ability to track how they progress on your workout plans will show them you’re serious about improving their health and helping them reach their goals.
Apps built on Adalo can be connected to most payment platforms, including Stripe, Square, PayPal, and more. This convenient integration allows you to take payments directly from your app, which will save you and your clients time.
How to Select Article Content
Why not use your app to write content pieces that can help clients reach their goals? Share your extensive knowledge about the following topics:
- Overall physical fitness.
- Weightlifting plans.
- Cardio plans.
- Strength training for jiu-jitsu.
- Flexibility for yoga.
- Nutrition regiments.
- Intermittent fasting and training.
- Stretching to improve strength.
When you get new machines, weights, or other workout equipment, promote them on your app, and do the same after onboarding new trainers or employees. Keeping your clients in the loop about fitness insights, new equipment, and members of your team, will help reinforce a sense of community at your gym. This feeling will make clients feel valued and part of a community.
In-App Messaging
Create a messenger in your app, and connect clients to your personal trainers so they can ask questions, confirm class times, or cancel and reschedule when they can no longer make it. A messenger gives your clients an easy way to communicate with your staff. It also reflects well on your professionalism, as you won’t have to rely on text messaging, WhatsApp, or Facebook to communicate directly with clients.
You can also create a group messaging feature that allows the whole community to chat together as a group or privately with each other. Offering a group messaging feature will reinforce your gym's sense of community by allowing them to connect with each other. Some of them will use the app to coordinate workout times to meet at the gym after work. Many of your clients will form friendships and be more likely to stay at your gym with a strong network of workout buddies.
2. Go All Out Getting Referrals
Outside the gym, when talking to friends, family, and coworkers, clients will likely drop the “I’m going to the gym tonight, so…” line. Some people’s ears will perk up with curiosity when they hear these lines. So, here are a few different ways to get your clients to refer these people to your gym.
Use Your App For Referrals
That app idea from the first strategy is so handy that it carries over to the second one: use your app to launch a referral program. When a new user downloads your app and signs up to try out your gym, include a “referred by” field on the signup form.
When a referral comes to your gym, show the referrer your appreciation. Offer people who refer others an energy bar, some protein powder– anything to show your gratitude!
After a referral becomes a gym member, significantly reward the referring person with an impressive gift card or a discount off their next membership. Offering referrals might be one of the most powerful ways to get new clients and boost your gym revenues.
Limited Time Referral Offers
Initiate limited-time referral offers a few times a year to create conditions for a massive influx of referrals. Keep your clients in the know and inform them about when the periods will begin, how long they’ll run, and what the referral rewards are. Here are three referral period ideas:
- The New Year's Period - Most gyms run discounts during this time.
- Late Spring and Early Summer Period - Prepare for days outside and at the beach.
- The Autumn Kick-Off Period - Get people in the habit of going to the gym before the dark winter days begin.
Your clients will greatly appreciate all the benefits they’ll reap from the referral program. To encourage people who aren’t referrals, offer sign-up discounts to anyone joining your gyms during these periods.
3. Social Media: Interactive Content and Ads
You’ve most likely used Instagram and Facebook since the day you opened for business. While you always want to post pictures of the latest fitness machines, your new personal trainers, and clients enjoying your gym’s vibe, making your social content more interactive will help you stand out to potential clients.
Appeal to a wider audience by posting interactive quizzes and polls. When your quizzes testing nutrition and fitness knowledge show up on non-clients feeds, you’ll immediately appear clued up and fun. People shopping around for a gym will take note.
Grow Your Clients with Social Media Ads
Every few months, use Facebook and Instagram to run ad campaigns. Ad campaigns are not expensive, usually only $500 per campaign, and they can expose you to people most likely to join your gym.
Follow these steps to dial in an effective ad campaign to generate revenue for your gym:
- Start by setting the location of people who will see your gym’s ad. Set the location to a distance that’s not far from your gym.
- The average age of your client base. Set the age range function in the ad generator to seven years under and seven years over your average client age. If your average client age is 29, set for between ages 22 and 36. This way, you’ll expose your ad to a large number of people.
- Next, choose your target groups’ hobbies and interests– obviously, people who love working out, but also appeal to people who like non-gym active hobbies, like running, cycling, skiing, and hiking. These people enjoy being fit and might want a gym membership to stay fit for their hobbies.
Social media ads will give your gym exposure to people who might have never heard about your business. Engaging in social media ad campaigns every few months might result in a few new clients every time, so be sure to run campaigns every couple of months.
4. Partner With Like-Minded Businesses
Partnering with other businesses can increase revenue by tapping into new customer bases and building relationships. Chances are, you’ll be able to find local businesses that complement your passion for health and well-being.
Think about healthy restaurants, sports apparel clothing stores, and health food stores. Even other sports businesses, like rock climbing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and kickboxing gyms, are all feasible options for partnering.
Contact the owners of these establishments and offer their employees membership discounts. Although you’re offering discounts, your chances of landing new gym members are good because those employees already appreciate a healthy lifestyle. You’ll still create revenue by signing up more people.
5. Offer Upgraded Memberships
Create different membership grades with added perks. Here are some upgrades you can add at a premium:
- Personal training sessions.
- Access to group classes.
- Nutritional consultation.
- Quarterly body fat test and blood macronutrient measurements.
- Access to a new cold plunge.
- Weekly post-workout massage.
These extra benefits aim to optimize your client's overall health, so they’ll appeal to many gym-going clients. Promote these benefits on your mobile app, social media, and with signs around your gym. In time, you’ll know which benefits your clients prefer, allowing you to promote the popular perks even more, bringing your gym more revenue.
6. Sell Branded Merch
Branded merchandise is a powerful marketing tool that will promote and popularize your gym by offering items like hats, bandanas, beanies, shirts, workout clothing, bags, resistance bands, etc. Selling these will contribute to another revenue stream and serve as free advertising for your gym whenever a client totes your gear.
Make your gym logo your primary focus. If you don’t have a logo or need a rebrand, find a designer on Upwork or Fiverr. When you’ve got a logo you like, use the services from a site like Monday Merch to produce your merchandise.
When your merch is ready for sale, let your clients know about it on your app and social media. Here are some ways to promote your merch:
- When clients give you a referral, give them some merchandise.
- Offer a free shirt, water bottle, or any piece of merchandise to the first client to sign up for your gym each month.
- Run promotional periods on social media, where clients post pictures using your merchandise. Reward the first 10 clients to post pictures of your newest merch.
- Create an online store in your app to sell your merch.
- When clients reach certain fitness goals, give them a free piece of merch as a fruit of their labor.
While creating merchandise requires a bit of upfront investment, the payout of free advertising and increased revenue makes selling merch worth it. If you create slick and aesthetically pleasing merch, your clients will love carrying it around town - or the country.
Be Patient, and Sustain Your Revenue Growth
Just like increasing your V02 max, growing your revenue will require continuous day-to-day effort. But, like starting a workout plan, you know that after you push through those first few uncomfortable days, you’ll find your groove and get comfortable with your new routine.
Make room in your daily routine to work on these strategies. With persistence, you’ll start to notice positive results for your gym’s revenue.
