If you own a fitness franchise, you’ll have a lot on your plate.
Everything from buying new equipment to finding qualified, enthusiastic instructors is part and parcel of the fitness industry.
But, you can’t take your eye off the ball when it comes to increasing revenue, especially during the holidays.
There’s no need to dread the holidays when it comes to making more cash in your fitness franchise.
Stay tuned as we’ve got 25 practical (and easy to implement) ways to grow your fitness franchise’s revenue over the holidays.
Holiday Fitness Franchise Guide
As you know, one of the most important tasks fitness franchise owners must get right is boosting gym member retention.
Fitness franchise churn is a serious and very real problem. Too much churn can not only lead to slower growth, but can lead to the closure of your business.
In the fitness business, it’s an absolute must to familiarize yourself with subscription best practices and technology, especially before the holidays.
Business owners normally love the holiday months because of the massive opportunities to acquire new customers. But, there’s the equal challenge of keeping these customers for the long-term.
25 Ways to Boost Your Fitness Franchise’s Income
So without further ado, here are 25 ways to boost your fitness franchise’s income over the holiday months — and beyond.
By following some or all of the tips below, you’ll be more likely to increase gym member retention and reduce fitness franchise churn.
1. Make The Most of New Year's Resolutions
The New Year means new goals and greater motivation for people to get in shape.
Making the most of this go-getting mindset is a clear cut way to increase revenue during the holiday season.
Because the New Year is one of the most popular times in the fitness world, you will want to provide promotions to attract new customers who want to get in shape.
Promotions can include a free month at your gym or free personal training sessions.
2. Host a Charity Event
The holiday months are a great opportunity to give back to your community.
By hosting a toy drive, turkey giveaway or a similar charity event, you help those in need.
This will also help you to build positive brand awareness for your gym. This goodwill gesture can mean that you make more revenue down the road.
3. Have the Best Customer Retention Plan and Payment Payment Recovery Plan
Most people tend to spend more during the holidays.
This extra spending could spell disaster in terms of customer churn. It’s all too easy for holiday splurges to lead to members going over their credit card limits or their bank accounts going in the red. This means that repeat payments, like your gym membership, can fail.
So what’s your plan if this happens?
Protecting your fitness franchise subscription payments shouldn’t be an afterthought (like what will be done with the leftover Thanksgiving turkey).
Instead, you should be thinking about how to protect your fitness franchise’s recurring payments now.
After all, how bitter-sweet would it be if you put so much effort into promoting your fitness franchise over the holidays, gain new members, only for their payments to fail down the line?
By partnering with Gravy, the likelihood of recovering failed payments is greatly improved. In fact we recover an average of 70% of revenue for our clients.
This is all done using our unique system which includes full-time customer retention experts who take a human and empathetic approach to your members to protect your brand.
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4. Add Seasonal Classes
To increase customer retention, think about adding some seasonal classes during the holiday months.
For example, you can provide stress-busting meditative yoga for those who are feeling the pressure of the holiday season.
Another holiday class idea is to add shorter classes of higher intensity to take up as little time as possible.
You could also try different holiday class themes by adding small touches, like decorations.
5. Offer Helpful Online Resources
During the holiday months, your members are busy getting ready to host dinners, go on trips and do a million and one other things.
So, they’re probably not going to be able to go to your gym as often as they would like. To bridge this gap, think about offering helpful workout tips by using content marketing –for example, sending exclusive email newsletters.
6. Embrace The Post-Thanksgiving Workout
After Thanksgiving, some of your customers may want to cut some of their extra weight straight away.
Promote the fact that your gym is the place to be for anyone who wants to work off any Thanksgiving excess.
Offer special post-Thanksgiving workouts to members who are ready to hit the gym after Thanksgiving.
7. Offer Special Holiday Gifts
One way to increase customer retention is to offer free holiday gifts for new and/or loyal members.
Depending on your budget, think about offering branded gym products, like bags or protein shake cups. Not only will your members appreciate the gift, but you’ll also benefit from low-cost advertising.
You can even offer free personal training sessions when a member books a package of sessions, for example, book 10 sessions and get two free.
Providing your members with inexpensive free gifts could reduce your fitness franchise churn.
8. Create a Loyalty Program
If you haven’t created one already, a loyalty program can decrease fitness franchise churn because it provides incentives to your members to keep coming to your gym.
You can customize your loyalty program for the holidays. Create an offer for members who visit 10 times within two months after the New Year to get a free gym product.
9. Host A Holiday Raffle
Everyone likes a chance to win a prize. This makes raffles a great way to find new members.
Holiday raffles are hard to beat — and easy to create.
For example, when a new member joins your gym and visits for a specific number of times during the holidays, they’re automatically entered into a raffle for an exclusive prize.
10. Make The Most of Guest Privileges
To entice new people and encourage old members to come back to your gym, think about providing some free guest passes.
Guest passes can be used for potential members to give your gym a try. They can also give you a chance to get people who have churned to come back to your gym.
Make the most of this opportunity by allocating staff to discuss why the members left in the first place and what changes they would like to see.
Remember to offer free guest passes to current gym members as well, so they can invite their family and friends to try out your gym during the holidays.
11. Organize A Holiday Party For Members
Keep the spirit of the holidays by hosting a holiday party for members and their families. Doing this will help members to socialize with each other and make new friends.
A holiday party can be one of those sneaky revenue boosters since it’s been shown that members are more likely to stay at a gym where they have friends.
12. Sell Gift Cards
If you haven’t sold them already, gift cards can be a profitable way to generate additional revenue during the holiday months.
They make simple stocking fillers and can be an excellent present for family or friends
13. Think About Selling Workout Clothes
An additional way to bring in revenue is to sell workout clothes.
Stocking key pieces of trendy and practical workout pieces can increase your fitness franchise revenue during the holidays.
Encourage your members to reward themselves for the hard work they have already put in at your gym by getting new workout gear – or gift them to a friend or fellow fitness buddy.
Brand these seasonal workout clothes as a special “holiday edition” with your gym’s or fitness franchise’s logo and current year, and you have taken a big step toward both brand awareness and #fomo as members will likely want to collect one each year.
14. Create a Referral Program
A referral program is an example of a subscription best practice.
Referral programs make the most out of your relationship with your existing members.
Word-of-mouth marketing is still one of the most powerful promotional tools around.
A referral program helps you to find new members and also rewards your existing customers.
Gaining new members while retaining current members helps to reduce fitness franchise churn during the holidays.
15. Offer Free Upgrades
What better time to shower your members with gifts?
Your fitness franchise should see the holiday season as the time to keep on giving (while keeping a close eye of revenue). An example of a holiday gift could be if you have peak and off-peak membership costs: think about a free peak upgrade for your customers for a specified period.
16. Freeze Activation Fees
If you have an initiation or activation fee to become a new member, think about putting a freeze on that fee during the holiday season.
Although you could lose some upfront revenue, you might entice new customers who were initially on the fence about joining your gym.
17. Give Free Trials
People want to know what they’re getting into before they make a commitment to a fitness franchise.
Free trials can be a great way to introduce new customers to your gym during the holiday season. By taking part in a free trial, someone may be more likely to become a long-term paying member.
This tip can only be an effective revenue generator for your fitness franchise if you ensure that people who are on the free trial receive excellent service. Make sure your staff get these potential members to record their goals and formulate a plan of action.
This strategy will mean that the people who are on a free trial will be invested in your fitness franchise and more likely to become members.
18. Take Advantage of Black Friday
Black Friday gives fitness franchise owners one of the best chances to find new members.
Offer special Black Friday deals for new customers, like 12 months for the price of 10. Remember to create promotions and incentives for current members to boost gym member retention.
19. Invest In New Equipment
Your members shouldn’t be the only ones benefiting from holiday bargains.
During the holiday season, you could find some great deals on new equipment for your gym. New equipment will provide a better customer experience and, ultimately, reduce fitness franchise churn.
20. Use Social Media Marketing
During the holiday months, shoppers are scouring the internet for great new deals.
Meet them where they are, which is on social media. Use your Facebook, Twitter and other social networks to promote your special holiday offers.
21. Monitor Client Milestones
By making your gym experience more personalized, you will have an easier time with gym member retention.
When new customers join during the holiday months, help them track their overall fitness goals. Set targets that they should expect to meet in three, six and nine months time.
It’s also important to monitor these targets and provide motivation for your members to keep striving towards their goals. This will help with member retention as members see that your fitness franchise is invested in their outcomes.
22. Create Group Challenges
One subscription best practice is to make your gym a community.
Think about starting holiday group fitness challenges as a way to build a community and encourage friendship among your members.
23. Offer Free Fitness Assessments
Provide free fitness assessments to new members who have joined during the holidays. LA Fitness has been known to do this.
This is a great way to introduce new members to your gym. The new member gets a starting point of their fitness and you can help them to set realistic and achievable goals based on the results of the fitness assessment.
24. Treat Your Employees
One of the best ways to provide a stellar customer experience during the holidays is by having motivated employees.
By rewarding your staff during the holiday months, they will bring a positive attitude to your members, which can ultimately increase retention.
25. Make Scheduling Easy
Without easy scheduling, you will be at risk of fitness franchise churn. The holiday season is a great excuse to review your scheduling procedures. If they’re too complicated for members, act fast to remove scheduling obstacles.
Add Gravy to Your Holiday Revenue Growth Strategy
Now that you have an arsenal of growth strategies ready to employ this holiday season, let Gravy partner with you to prevent customer churn and retain your paying members.
Book your free coaching session today for more details about how we can help you to keep the members and revenue you gain throughout this holiday season — and beyond.
Download Your Free Gym and Fitness Franchise Holiday e-Guide
Click on the book below to download your free e-guide to reference as you grow your fitness franchise business over the holidays this year.
Also, make sure to read our post on the 15 biggest gyms owner problems.
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