Members are the beating heart of any gym. In fact, without them, your gym won’t be able to survive.

Of course, continuing to add new members to your membership roster leads to more revenue and a reliable stream of income. However, applying the right strategies to increase gym memberships can be challenging, especially in an extremely competitive industry.

Many factors impact your ability to attract and retain members. You need an attractive space that makes clients want to pursue their fitness goals. Enthusiastic instructors can carry the vibe through classes and get students excited. Even the tech you incorporate can be an incentive.

But what if you’re doing everything right and attracting new members is still slow going? You’ll need a killer sales and marketing strategy in place to help you attract more prospects and successfully convert them into profitable long-term members.

In this article, you’ll learn about the importance of gym membership sales. You’ll see how to define your ideal target audience and communicate with them effectively.

Then, we’ll provide a few tips to put into action to increase your customer base, starting immediately.

The Importance of Gym Membership Sales

As a gym owner, you have two goals around membership—acquiring new customers and retaining current ones. Both are critical to your success but require different strategies.

New membership sales impact longevity for the following reasons:

Understanding Your Target Market

How do you identify the best potential gym members? It’s not a one-size-fits-all goal. You can apply many approaches to define the segments that would be the ideal customer profile for your business.

First, you’ll want to get insights into the landscape of gym usage.

There’s considerable competition, as there are over 4880 gyms in the UK. And that’s not your only rival for fitness enthusiasts. Many people adopted at-home workouts during the pandemic, and the trend continues years later. 

However, there’s good news on that front, as the market for health and fitness clubs increased by 40% in 2022 and is predicted to continue to climb.

Interest and desire are there. You just have to turn the demand and intent into customers at your fitness club.

Finding, targeting, and acquiring this audience can include these steps:

• Look at your current membership roster to determine their common traits regarding demographics, geography, or interests.

• Determine how most new customers find you. Do they search online, ask for referrals, or use other means? Understanding this gives you a better idea of how consumers make decisions about gym memberships and what makes them convert into customers.

• Review market research like those statistics mentioned above to identify the market size and other characteristics of those who enjoy fitness as well as their preferences (e.g., weight training, fitness classes).

• Develop buyer personas, which are descriptions of someone representing your unique target audience. You can use these to guide your marketing campaigns and messaging so that your marketing stands out from the competition and attracts more of your ideal customer type or types.

• Note the biggest objections a potential new member would have in the context of joining. It could be cost, schedule flexibility, or amenities offered. Make sure that your sales team is prepared to handle these objections effectively.

Know that your target audience will evolve as consumer trends do, so consider this a fluid document that you’ll update regularly.

How to Increase Gym Memberships

Once you’ve determined your ideal members, it’s time to put together a plan for bringing them in. Your target audience is set. Now, let’s talk marketing methods.Attracting new members requires a different approach than retaining the ones you have, but they share many of the same platforms. This gives you the advantage of using one to inform the other.Increase Your Social Media Presence.Gym social media marketing can be a great channel to attract and acquire new members.You may already be using social media to reach your existing members. But you’ll need to up your activity so that you’re always posting new content that’s relevant and appealing to your prospective members, too.

Here are some ideas:

• Capture testimonials from current customers as they work out and share their personal stories of fitness and health. Social proof gives you more credibility and shows your prospects that your services work for people just like them.

• Spotlight your employees, as they are your most valuable assets and can play a pivotal role in member satisfaction and referrals.

• Congratulate members when they achieve goals, such as weight loss or hitting a new high in weightlifting. Show your prospects that you’re invested in and supportive of each individual’s fitness journey and personal wins.

• Share gym news, including welcoming new members and updates on classes and schedules.

• Create posts from social events or group classes that show the community you’re building at your gym.

RELATED ARTICLE : How to use Gym Social Media Marketing to Engage Your Members, Improve Retention, and Build Brand Loyalty 

Offer Attractive Incentives to New Members.

Sometimes, people need an incentive to say yes. They may be on the fence, but if you present a time-sensitive offer, it may be the nudge they need.

The incentive could be any of these things:

• A free personal training course

• A discount for an annual subscription

• Branded gym gifts (e.g., water bottles, T-shirts)

• Access to upgraded amenities, if applicable

• Buy-one-get-one deals for couples or families

Each potential customer has different motivations for what will get them to enroll. Based on your buyer personas, segmenting specific offers to specific groups of prospects will likely drive better performance.

You can push these offers out by email, text, or paid ads on social media or Google.

Don’t forget that some of your buyer personas will favour some channels over others. For example, marketing on Instagram might prove successful for Gen Z, whereas marketing over email might be better at enticing seniors.

Work on Website SEO.

If you want to target those actively seeking a gym membership, optimising your website content with relevant keywords is a must.

You can improve the content on your main pages and consistently publish blog articles. Start with keyword research focusing on search terms with purchase intent, such as “join a fitness gym.”

Geographic descriptors for these keywords will be crucial, too. An example is “join a fitness gym in [city name].”

SEO is a long-term strategy that requires constant content. You can also sometimes boost organic rankings by using paid search campaigns.

RELATED ARTICLE : A Quick Guide to Local SEO: Get Found by More Searchers 

Warm Up Cold Leads.

When considering how to increase gym memberships, you may want to look back at previous leads that didn’t convert.

This can be an incredibly cost-efficient exercise given that you’ll need to spend less money on attracting brand-new prospects, as you’ve already paid the marketing cost associated with acquiring their data.

It may be time to reengage them with an email campaign. Their reasons for deciding against joining may no longer be an issue.

You can build out a series of emails to these once-interested consumers. Start with educational content on your blog, followed by customer success stories, ending with an incentive to join.

Be sure your content includes anything new about your gym since they last inquired. You may well have new classes or equipment they’ll find of interest.

Entice Current Members to Introduce New Ones with a Referral Programme.

One of the best ways to get new members is from existing ones. A referral incentive program also keeps current customers loyal.

You can test out a member rewards programme that provides a reduced rate for members when they refer someone, and that person joins the gym. It supports retention through rewards while also increasing your revenue.

RELATED ARTICLE : How to Build a Best in Class Gym Loyalty Programme 

Tips To Start Increasing Gym Memberships Right Now

• Optimise your social media profiles by ensuring the information is up to date, branding is accurate, descriptions are informative, and images are high-quality.

• Implement a referral programme if you don’t have one. If you have one in place, promote it more actively to your customers.

• Develop or update buyer personas so they best represent your target audience.

• Seek testimonials and success stories from your members.

• Perform an SEO audit of your website to measure your ranking and where errors or gaps exist.