Category: Blog

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 really 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 utilized correctly, fitness newsletters have the ability to transform leads into paying customers, upsell your current customers, and to 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 recognizable 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: 

• For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can anticipate an average return of $36 
• 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—in fact, 92% of the U.S. digital population use email, with 61% using it on an average day.

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 utilizing 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 personalization 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 out, 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.

Optimize 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 optimized 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 to 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, 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, 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 favorite 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+ customizable 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 optimize campaign performance. Report on client referrals, lead conversions, promotion engagement, bounced emails, and more.

Optimize 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 utilized 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 customize 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.

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 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.

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 centralize and consolidate the process of scheduling physical resources, classes, clinics, and rentals into a color-coded schedule. Not only does this allow you to locate available resources at-a-glance, but our resource utilization 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 utilize 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

Managing a successful fitness business 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 organized 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—and the same 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 also help improve the member experience by allowing your members to access all the information they need—whether 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 

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

8. Prioritize member retention 

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

9. Invest in marketing and sales 

Marketing is an essential function needed to promote your gym and to differentiate yourself from competitors to attract potential members—and, 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, but it’s important to remember that implementing a multichannel approach will increase the likelihood of reaching your target audience and the overall success of your marketing campaigns.

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. And 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, and 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—so 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.

By the end of 2028, it’s predicted that revenue for the U.S. fitness industry will reach $434.74 billion. In anticipation of this growth, it’s important for gym owners and operators to be extra vigilant about their membership contracts. This also includes other legal documents to ensure they limit risk, liabilities, and protect both the facility and its members.

What is a gym contract? 

A gym contract is a legally binding document that defines the terms of an agreement between the gym and the people who use the facility (customers/members). Most gyms and fitness centers require customers to sign contracts as the first step to becoming a new member prior to using any of the facility’s equipment or fitness services.  

A membership contract typically outlines the pertinent information of the agreement—for example, the length of the contract, the monthly fee, and any other conditions or rules that both parties agree to. Gym contracts will also include a variety of terms and conditions that gym members must follow as part of their membership agreement.

Why do you need a gym membership agreement? 

Gym membership contracts protect the gym as well as its members. It does this by ensuring everyone is on the same page regarding the terms of use for the gym.

Additionally, gym membership contracts are used to reduce the facility’s risk and liabilities. By having the membership agreement in writing and signed by all parties involved, there is proof that everyone has understood and agreed to the terms and responsibilities.

Other benefits of a gym membership contract include:

•  It outlines and clarifies the roles and expectations of both parties
• It establishes specific terms of use and defines what is allowed and not allowed
•  It helps you maintain a list of current customers that you can use to project revenue
• It defines when and how membership dues will be paid

What to include in your gym contracts 

Your gym’s membership contract should outline all of the rules and regulations of your facility. It should also state the rights and responsibilities of both the gym and its members.

Here are some key components you’ll want to include:

Name the parties involved

This section should always be at the top of your membership contract. It should list the name of the person who’s joining your gym, followed by the name of your facility, as well as the location of your gym.

You should also include other critical information such as the date of the agreement, contact number, contact email, and emergency contact information.

At the end of the contract, include a section with a signature line to show that both parties have read and agreed to the terms mentioned therein. 

Contract length

As with any contract, defining the length is essential. This includes telling members the duration for which they’ll need to make payments. This can also help you create more appealing packages for customers who chose to opt for longer contract periods.

You can structure the length of the contract by a specific time duration, or with the pay-as-you-go option. Both of these have pros and cons, so you’ll need to assess what makes the most sense for your business. 

Payment methods and billing schedule 

Your gym membership contract needs to outline payment information. For example, which payment methods are accepted, the refund policy, the payment schedule, and the penalties for any missed payments. 

Renewal policies

It’s wise to create a separate section to stipulate whether the contract has automatic renewals. If so, you’ll need to clearly define the conditions for them. Your customers will need to know the deadline for cancelling their membership if needed, as well as the date they’ll be charged for automatic renewals.

Be aware that state governments have laws in place to protect customers from unfair renewal policies. Always make sure you include this information in a place that’s clearly visible. You should even consider highlighting the renewal clause and all the terms and conditions associated with it. 

Cancellation and refund policies  

It’s no surprise that there’s a bit of a negative stigma around gyms and difficult cancellation policies. For this reason, it’s important to design this section carefully so you can actually improve the member experience.

Clearly define the cancellation types, such as suspensions versus terminations. Next, include other pertinent details like the length of notice required for cancellation, any termination fees, and any conditions that would allow you to cancel the customer’s membership.

Legal terms and conditions 

Safety is a very important aspect for gyms and fitness businesses. Your membership contract should clearly state the compensation agreement in the case of a personal injury suit, as well as the circumstances in which your gym would be liable for a customer’s injury.

Additionally, you should include the type of compensation you’ll provide if you are liable. For example, you can stipulate whether you will pay the medical bills or a lump sum.  

Best practices for gym membership contracts 

Now that you know what to include in your gym membership contracts, let’s review some best practices to keep in mind. 

Be clear 

A gym contract should clearly state what the facility expects from its customers in terms of behavior and the use of facilities. Similarly, it should also explain what the members can expect from the gym in terms of its offerings and amenities.  

Outline terms for breach of contract 

When creating your gym membership contract, be sure to specify the terms that classify as a breach of contract and what the consequences are. This will help both parties avoid unnecessary litigation and legal fees in the future.  

Customize templates to your needs 

You can easily find generic gym membership contract templates online—and they’re great to use as a reference point—but it’s important to customize your gym membership contract so that it addresses your facility’s specific services, terms and conditions, and other policies that are unique to your gym.

Allow electronic signatures 

You can help make your customers’ experience more convenient and hassle-free by offering electronic signatures. E-signatures allow members to sign documents electronically while they’re still in their original form, rather than sending them back and forth from one person to another.

If you use a gym membership management system like EZFacility, you’ll be able to easily access and track all your facility’s membership information, including copies of customers’ signed gym membership contracts, whenever and wherever you need. Our cloud-based software solution can help you create custom membership plans, manage customer relationships, contracts and renewals, easily access waivers, and automate fee collection.

By utilizing electronic signatures, you can also decrease business costs by saving on time and space. If you operate a small gym or fitness studio, this can be a huge added benefit as you may lack the storage capacity for paper documents.

Consult with legal experts

Before you finalize and implement your gym membership contract, it’s imperative to get it reviewed by a lawyer; however, legal fees will likely apply. Despite the fees this is a necessity as legal experts will be able to spot any potential issues to ensure your contract is airtight and thoroughly protects your facility. 

Keep it simple

Frequently revising your membership contracts can create a lot of confusion and be off-putting to customers. Additionally, it can make it difficult for you and your members to know what the terms and conditions are, or what’s changed from the contract they previously signed.

If you do need to make revisions to your gym membership contracts, you’ll need to inform all of your customers of the changes and explain the reasons for doing so. Before implementing any changes, be sure to consult with your lawyer. 

Tools to simplify membership contracts 

Gym membership contracts are legally binding documents between your facility and its members. We recommend consulting a professional legal team to assist you in designing your contracts to reduce risk and liability.

After your contracts are reviewed by your legal team and ready to go, there are tools available that can help streamline distribution and make membership management easy.

Member management software

EZFacility is the complete solution for gyms and fitness businesses. From membership management to facility scheduling, point-of-sale, invoicing, online registration and more—our robust set of tools does all the heavy-lifting so that you can focus on what matters most—your members. 

Smartwaiver integration

Affordable, paperless, and integrated with EZFacility, Smartwaiver provides customizable, digital waivers and releases that can be signed at your location or online from any computer, tablet or mobile device.

When new or existing members sign your waiver with EZFacility’s Smartwaiver integration, the member will be created or updated in the EZFacility database, saving your staff valuable time.

Want to learn more about how integrating EZFacility and Smartwaiver can streamline your waiver signing process? Schedule a free, no commitment demo and product tour today.

Whether you’re just starting out or you’re an experienced fitness business owner, running gym promotions is one of the easiest and most effective ways to attract new members, generate new revenue, and increase cash flows.

A well-timed promotion can help you hit monthly sales goals and boost revenue quickly—however, the wrong promotion at the wrong time can end up having a negative impact on your fitness center. Additionally, if you run too many gym promotions, you risk devaluing your brand.

So, where’s the happy medium?

Read on to learn the key ingredients that go into successful gym promotions, as well as 10 gym promotion ideas you can easily implement for your fitness center to help you get over the line.

Key ingredients for a successful gym promotion

To be able to executive successful gym promotions, you’ll need to understand the three core components:

1. Offer something gym members want

The structure of your gym promotions should be driven by what motivates your specific target audience. To do this, you need to understand who that is and what they want so you can tailor the language and messaging of your gym promotions to clearly explain how your products and services can meet their needs and wants.

Before you begin creating any marketing campaigns or gym promotions, you’ll need to invest time to research your target audience, understand their demographics, and learn about what they like, how they like to be communicated with, and where to find them.

2. Time it right to create urgency

As with many things in life, timing is key to successful gym promotions. The right offer at the right time seen by the right people can lead to fantastic results.

A good place to start is to create gym promotions that align with seasonal trends—for example, offering a special discount, available for a limited time only, on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Personalized offers, like sending discounts on someone’s birthday, can also yield excellent results.

A key aspect to consider for successful gym promotions is the element of scarcity. When an offer expires within a set time frame or is limited to a certain number of people, it makes potential members more likely to act and commit to the purchase because they don’t want to miss out.

3. Set a goal for your promotion

Once you understand who your target audience is and what they want, it’s time to define your business goals and what you hope to achieve from each promotional campaign.

Setting clear and measurable goals will help you decide what type of gym promotions to run at various times throughout the year, and defining your goals also provides a benchmark to assess the success of your efforts later on.

Gym promotion ideas

Now that you understand the key components of successful gym promotions, let’s look at some specific examples and ideas you can consider implementing for your fitness facility.

 1. Free trial or free class

One of the best ways to attract new gym members is to offer a free class or free trial period. Many people think about joining a gym, but are uncomfortable making a blind commitment—so offering a free class or free trial period gives potential members a risk-free way to see what your gym has to offer and to assess whether the atmosphere is a good fit for them.  

Another benefit to offering a free class or free trial period is that it allows you to showcase your facility and what makes it stand out from competitors. Every facility is different, and every person has different needs and wants. You may be able to convert members from other gyms by getting them in the door and using the opportunity to shine by showcasing your unique offerings.

2. Refer-a-friend campaign

Your current gym members can be your best salespeople. If they enjoy their experience at your fitness center, chances are they’ll tell their friends…but why not give them an extra nudge by offering an incentive to do so?

The goal of a refer-a-friend promotional campaign is to motivate members to actively invite friends and family to join your gym—and one of the most effective ways to motivate people is by offering a desirable reward. Popular referral rewards include gift cards, swag, a free week of gym membership, or a discount on a month’s membership.

Many of your competitors may already have a referral structure in place, so think about what you can offer that’s different and may be considered more valuable.

 3. Fitness and workout challenges

Motivation and positive reinforcement can go a long way when it comes to fitness.

Who doesn’t love a little friendly competition?

Fitness challenges and competitions are a proven way to boost member engagement and retention. 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.

They also help generate new leads, encourage referrals and maximize customer loyalty.

4. Customer loyalty programs

A great way to attract new gym members and retain current ones is to offer a customer loyalty or rewards program. You can structure your program to reward gym members for attendance, participation, meeting certain fitness goals or milestones, or spending a certain amount of money.

After you decide the focus of your rewards program, you’ll need to decide how you plan to track participation, interaction, purchases or habits. This can be done by using punch cards, a digital points system, or renewal awards offered when members renew their membership or class packages.

5. Partner with other local businesses

Teaming up with the right businesses in your area can be a highly effective way to increase mutual exposure at minimal cost. These types of arrangements allow businesses to leverage both of your audiences to reach more like-minded people and bridge the gap for converting leads.

When discussing ideas, consider how each party will benefit, including consumers. Identify what each business wants and how that can be achieved through the partnership. For example, you could work together to host one-off events, or develop an ongoing partnership

6. Social media contests

Leveraging social media to host a free giveaway is a tried-and-true promotional tactic to increase reach and engagement on social media, in addition to building brand awareness.

Everyone loves the prospect of getting something for free—especially if it’s something highly desirable or expensive.

Due to the high cost of gym memberships, offering one for free through a social media contest is a highly effective way to grab warm leads, and to get third-parties sharing your content and discussing your business.

7. Corporate challenges and discounts

More and more businesses are acknowledging the importance of total body-wellness for optimal employee performance. Developing strategic partnerships with local corporations to offer their employees discounts, the ability to participate in company competitions, and team-building exercises is a great way to secure ongoing revenue for your gym while also improving the health and wellness of others.

Examples of habit-building challenges that contribute to employees’ long-term adoption of positive and healthy habits include drinking a certain amount of water every day, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or going for a walk during lunch hours.

8. Special events

Whether you’re looking to spread the word about your gym’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 promotions they may be offering.

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.

Another idea is to host or participate in health and fitness retreats, which can target current gym members and non-members, and can be held at locations all over the world. This level of participation will require more time, planning and monetary investment, but it’s also a great way to build strong relationships that can translate into lifelong members.

9. Pop-up fitness classes

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.

10. Holiday offers

The holiday season is an excellent opportunity to attract new members and boost revenue for your fitness center. With so many holidays back-to-back during a few short months—for example, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year’s and more, gift-giving is on a lot of people’s minds.

Most people will want their gifts to be meaningful and add value to the recipient’s life—and what better way than offering them the gift of fitness. For example, you could run a promotion offering a $75 gift card for $50, or 20% off 10 classes. Other holiday promotion ideas include waiving the registration or joining fee, limited-time holiday membership price, or discounting add-on products and services.

How EZFacility can help

Creating and implementing successful gym marketing promotions is no easy task, but doing so has the potential to dramatically increase the success of your fitness business by raising brand awareness, boosting memberships, improving member satisfaction and engagement, building relationships with local businesses and community residents, and more.

Did you know EZFacility offers a suite of marketing tools that can help you get your promotions out there? Try EZFacility by scheduling a no-commitment demo today.

For a fitness business to succeed and grow, it must be able to attract potential members on a consistent basis, in addition to retaining and engaging current members. For gym owners, the way to achieve this is by developing a comprehensive digital marketing plan.

In fact, a staggering 72% of consumers say they would rather connect with brands and businesses through multichannel marketing.

Why?

Consumers prefer multichannel marketing because it meets them where they are, and where they prefer to be met. It also gives them the power and control to decide when and how they will respond to your marketing endeavors.

And although the ideal marketing plan should include differing marketing strategies across all channels (which should still be your end goal)—if you need to pick somewhere to start, building out your gym’s online marketing plan should be at the top of your priority list as the internet offers limitless opportunities to get in front of your target market—many of which are free, or low-cost, and offer a high return.

How to market your gym business online  

Consumers are more dependent on digital content than they have ever been in the past, creating the perfect opportunity for fitness brands to get direct and near-immediate access to consumers delivered right into the palm of their hands (quite literally).

If you’ve been wondering how or where to begin your digital marketing efforts, we recommend you start by focusing on the following areas:

1. Search engine optimization (SEO)

Handling over 90% of all search queries worldwide, Google is undoubtedly dominating the global search engine market share. Even though Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Baidu, and DuckDuckGo also rank among the world’s top search engines, their market shares total 7.19%, less than one-tenth of Google’s.

Considering the above, you want to make sure your business shows up in relevant searches.

Enter the role of SEO. But to succeed in your SEO efforts, your website’s data must be accurate and filled with keywords your potential members would use to find a business like yours.

Potential members will likely search keywords and phrases like “gyms near me” or “fitness centers in [insert city]”, so you’ll want to develop a list of similar keywords and incorporate those words throughout your site, but only where they’re relevant and make sense. It’s also important to use keyword identifiers in the page titles of your site so Google understands who you are and the nature of your business.

Another way to boost your SEO efforts is to make sure you have a completed business profile on Google My Business (GMB). GMB is a free tool that business owners can use to manage their company listing and online presence across the Google suite of websites.

A completed CMB page is essential for local SEO because it enables your business listing to appear in local searches, allows people to find your contact and location information easily, provides potential visitors with a picture of your facility, and lets users review your business.

2. Fitness website 

Never underestimate the power of a website—it’s one of the most powerful marketing tools in your repertoire and, arguably, the most important in establishing and growing your fitness brand.

Your website is the center of your online presence, and the home base that connects everything—it’s where you can display your mission, promote your gym, provide information about your fitness business and services, link your social media accounts, establish authority and credibility, and demonstrate expertise in your industry.

You’ll also want to ensure your website is mobile-friendly as statistics show that can have a huge impact on the customer buying journey, in addition to consumers’ opinions of your fitness business. Consider these statistics:

• 61% of users will have a more positive opinion about a business if it has a mobile-responsive website (Smart Insights)
•  61% of consumers are more likely to make purchases from mobile-friendly websites (Webfx)
•  A website with an unsatisfying mobile experience can lose 9 out of 10 users (Quoracreative)

We live in a digital world, and you should assume the vast majority of potential customers will visit your website before they decide whether or not to visit your gym or fitness center. 

As you start to build out your fitness website, always keep your target audience in mind. Consider what type of tone and imagery will appeal to them as you configure your site design and create tailored messaging that speaks and resonates uniquely to that market.

3. Email marketing

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.

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.

Regardless of the size of your fitness business, email campaigns are still an extremely effective and valuable marketing tool. In fact, research shows that email marketing offers the highest ROI of any marketing channel.

•  For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can anticipate an average return of $42.
• 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.

Here are five core elements needed to create captivating fitness email campaigns that will immediately catch readers’ attention:

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 about 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.

 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 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 your readers 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 email, and make it easy for them to do what you’d like.

 Optimize for mobile use (online and offline)

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 optimized for mobile use to provide a seamless user experience. 

By adding email marketing to your larger digital marketing strategy, you’ll be able to significantly improve your gym’s reach and visibility, which also increases engagement and lead conversion.

4. Social media marketing

Your social media marketing plan is only one piece of your larger multi-channel plan—but it’s a very important one that should not be overlooked.

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 various social media platforms.

Because the social media marketing landscape is always changing, it’s important to keep your finger on the pulse and pay attention to emerging trends.

Here are the types of posts that are especially popular right now:

Live video (aka social broadcasting)

Eighty percent of social media users they’d rather watch a video than read a blog, and internet users collectively watched more than 1 billion hours of live video in 2019. It should come as no surprise that with numbers like that, more fitness brands are going live to deliver content to consumers across the most popular social networks.

The demand for social broadcasting is anticipated to continue rising, creating a huge opportunity for fitness brands to look for ways to improve their social media marketing efforts.

Two of the hottest and most rapidly growing social media platforms you should consider using to generate more online registrations are TikTok and Instagram.

TikTok

Earlier in 2022, TikTok surpassed Google as the world’s most visited online destination and boasts a staggering 105% user growth rate in the US over the past two years. TikTok is a free, short-form video and social media app, and is available for download on both Apple and Android devices.

The major difference between TikTok and other social media platforms like YouTube and Vimeo is that TikTok is based on small, short video clips.

When utilized as a part of your larger social media marketing strategy, TikTok can be a great way to promote your gym by creating fun video content, tapping into a niche community, and engaging with a younger demographic (if applicable to your league).

Instagram

Instagram now has over 1 billion users worldwide, and the social media giant has been shown to have a strong impact on consumer opinions. 

Using the right approach, you can optimize your Instagram page to increase your number of followers, build meaningful connections with your audience, increase your gym membership numbers, and gain unfiltered feedback.

User-generated content (UGC)

Nearly half of marketing professionals (48%) believe that content created by customers helps humanize their marketing. User-generated content is an important part of social media marketing because it helps to establish trust between businesses and consumers by providing a genuine reflection of what other customers can anticipate when engaging with a particular business.

User-generated content also provides fitness brands the ability to showcase success stories, creating an emotional appeal that can have a huge impact on buying decisions.

Fitness videos

According to the Social Science Research Network, 65% of people are visual learners. And, considering that fitness is a visual business, it makes sense that videos perform well on social media and get more engagement than other types of content.

Sharing fitness videos is a great way to showcase your gym’s unique offerings by increasing visibility and simultaneously building trust with consumers.

And, since consumers are more likely to make a purchase after watching a video, posting videos to your social media accounts can provide potential customers with that extra dose of encouragement needed to get them to sign up.

Online reviews and customer 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.

Choosing a digital marketing strategy for your gym 

Gyms and fitness businesses that want to stay relevant and competitive need to be willing and able to adapt quickly to changes in online consumer behavior.

The great thing about digital marketing is there are countless options and a number of ways your online marketing strategy can be structured—and you’ll learn as you go and be able to better tailor and refine your strategies after reviewing performance metrics.

Did you know that EZFacility’s gym management software offers an extensive report suite that can help you gauge the success of your marketing efforts?

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

In a world dominated by digital demand, consumers’ feeds are constantly flooded by countless businesses vying and competing for attention. At the same time, consumers are more dependent on digital content than they have ever been in the past.

We are in the golden era of opportunity for fitness brands to get direct and near-immediate access to consumers delivered right into the palm of their hands (quite literally).

One recent global study found that engagement on social media has increased 61% over regular usage rates since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Another predicts that nearly 73% of internet users will access the web solely via their smartphones by 2025, equivalent to roughly 3.7 billion people.

But with technology constantly improving and algorithms continually changing, it can be difficult for anyone to keep up–or, for some, to even know where to begin.

Read on to learn ten ways to improve your social media marketing strategy in 2022.

How important is social media for gyms?

Branding is the first step in understanding how to use social media to promote your fitness brand.

A strong brand begins with two things—a clear vision and a comprehensive, multi-channel marketing plan in place to outline how you will communicate that vision to your target audience. Your brand identity, therefore, becomes the embodiment of everything your fitness business is and does.

It’s important to sit down to define your fitness business and what you hope to achieve before you start building your brand and marketing it. A good place to begin is to review the 7Ps of marketing (product/service, place, price, promotion, packaging, positioning & people) to guide your decisions.

Once you have these core concepts figured out, it’s time to start thinking about marketing. Marketing is critical to consumer awareness, which is referred to as brand awareness in the marketing realm. You could have the best product or service in the world—but if no one knows about it, it doesn’t matter how high the quality is. That’s where marketing comes in.

The end goal will be to ensure all of your marketing materials work harmoniously together to support your fitness business objectives while also consistently building up your brand awareness–so your brand strategy should include how you plan to achieve that across all marketing channels (owned, earned, and paid).

How to create a social media strategy for your fitness business

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.

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

A whopping 72% of consumers say they would rather connect with brands and businesses through multichannel marketing. Why?

Consumers prefer multichannel marketing because it meets them where they are, and where they prefer to be met. It also gives them the power and control to decide when and how they will respond to your marketing endeavors.

A social media marketing plan should be only one piece of your larger multichannel plan—but it’s a very important one that should not be overlooked.

Below are 10 tips you can use to create a more effective social media marketing strategy.

Understand your target audience

Clearly defining and understanding your target audience is a critical first step because that’s what should be driving the entirety of your marketing efforts and marketing spend.

If you understand who you’re talking to, what they like, what they need, and how they like to be communicated with–then you can figure out how to perfectly package and deliver your products and services in the ways that are most appealing to them.

While you may be tempted to skip this step and attempt to appeal to a general audience, it’s important to remind yourself that your gym or fitness studio won’t be a perfect match for every person–and that’s okay, and that’s reality. Time and money are limited resources that no one wants to waste–so it’s really important to drill down the demographic details as much as possible.

Otherwise, it’d be akin to someone completely lacking in knowledge and experience randomly deciding to take a boat out into the deep ocean, blindly casting a line, and then waiting around aimlessly without having any real idea or likelihood of catching anything at all. Not only is this completely ineffective–as you can probably imagine, but it could also result in some very costly mistakes.

You may want to start this process by creating customer personas with hypothetical needs and wants to get into the mindset of the people you’re trying to reach. This will help you frame your communications and make you more aware of the subtle nuances that can ultimately have a huge impact on the success of marketing campaigns.

Content is still king

Do you tend to pay attention to things you don’t find immediately appealing or personally interesting? Probably not. So why would a business owner expect anything different from consumers?

This is yet another area where the importance of understanding your target audience comes into play. How can you consider what’s relevant–or of any potential interest at all–if you don’t actually understand who you’re talking to and trying to reach?

Nothing is a guarantee, but you can absolutely improve your odds of success and performance metrics in the digital marketing sphere when you have smart social media strategies in place.

If you own or operate a fitness business–chances are, you inherently share some common interests with potential members. Think about what types of fitness-related content interest you and what you’d like to read more about. Then, take a step back and consider whether that same type of content may also be of relevance, use, or interest to a larger audience in the fitness space.

If you think it may be, give it a try! Then be sure to keep an eye on the performance metrics because the data will tell you whether or not users have been engaging and interacting with your content.

Even if engagement metrics are low, if you still believe your followers will benefit from the post (and maybe just didn’t see it), you can always try tweaking the language slightly and posting on different days and at different times. Over time, you’ll start to see trends emerge regarding what type of content your followers like, and the days and times they’re most likely to engage with it.

Refining your social media marketing strategies will likely take quite a bit of trial and error, followed by an assessment of performance metrics–but that’s how you learn, and what allows you to effectively tailor your messaging and delivery more.

If you’re short on ideas but want to start somewhere–one fairly fool proof way for fitness brands to stay relevant is by keeping a close pulse on fitness industry trends and publishing content centered around that. But remember–while this may be a solid place to start, it’s not an effective long-term strategy.

Consistency is key

While there’s no one-size-fits-all magic formula to dictate which social media platforms you should use or how often you should post, consistency is key. For this reason, it’s a good idea to start by focusing on one or two social media platforms at a time instead of trying to master them all.

In the same way, we want to keep ongoing conversations with the people we care about, and consumers want to maintain ongoing communication with fitness brands they care about.

Your social media marketing plan should include a content calendar that details what you will post, when you will post, how you will post, as well as the business objective it is related to.

By linking each social post to a larger business objective, you’re forced to think through the details to ensure your social media marketing efforts are done with purpose.

Once you’ve completed your content calendar, then you can use social media scheduling tools (like Brandwatch, Loomly, and Sendible) to schedule social posts in advance to help you keep consistent and ongoing communication with your followers.

Social advertising

With nearly half of the global population using social media, it makes sense why so many fitness brands are investing in social media advertising. Social media advertising capabilities continue to improve, providing fitness brands the ability to reach their target audience with ease and accessibility like never before.

In terms of performance and engagement, social media ads that contain video strongly outperform those that use static images, so it’s worth investing the time to create engaging video clips to get the most impact from your ad spend.

Influencer marketing

If you’re familiar with the saying “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” then you already understand why influencer marketing can have such a profound impact on business.

Consumers want to be like the people they admire—they want to walk like them and talk like them, so to speak. So, what better way to boost engagement on your company’s social media networks than with an endorsement from a popular influencer?

It is worth noting, however, that more fitness brands are shifting to nano-influencers as many marketing budgets shrank as a result of COVID-19.

Inclusivity

Inclusivity isn’t just “in”—it’s the new standard expected of fitness brands. Today’s consumers want to align themselves with health and fitness companies that promote equality, accessibility, and welcomeness to all. In fact, 70% of Millennials are more likely to choose one brand over another if that brand demonstrates inclusion and diversity in terms of its promotions and offers.

Fitness brands that choose to ignore this and continue to tout their exclusivity, or limit their messaging to an elite demographic, will not receive the same support or following as in years past.

What should I post on my gym’s social media channels?

Because the social media marketing landscape is always changing, it’s important to keep your finger on the pulse and pay attention to emerging trends.

Fitness brands that want to stay relevant and competitive need to be willing and able to adapt and adopt quickly to break through the noise and develop lasting, authentic relationships with consumers—and to deliver the type of content they want, where they want it.

Here are the types of posts that are especially popular right now:

Live video (aka social broadcasting)

Eighty percent of social media users they’d rather watch a video than read a blog, and internet users collectively watched more than 1 billion hours of live video in 2019. It should come as no surprise that with numbers like that, more fitness brands are going live to deliver content to consumers across the most popular social networks.

The demand for social broadcasting is anticipated to continue rising, creating a huge opportunity for fitness brands to look for ways to improve their social media marketing efforts.

Two of the hottest and most rapidly growing social media platforms you should consider using to generate more online registrations are TikTok and Instagram.

TikTok

TikTok has overtaken Google as the world’s most visited online destination and boasts a staggering 105% user growth rate in the US over the past two years. TikTok is a free, short-form video and social media app, and is available for download on both Apple and Android devices. 

The major difference between TikTok and other social media platforms like YouTube and Vimeo is that TikTok is based on small, short video clips.

When utilized as a part of your larger social media marketing strategy, TikTok can be a great way to promote your sports league by creating fun video content, tapping into a niche community, and engaging with a younger demographic (if applicable to your league).

Instagram

Instagram now has over 1 billion users worldwide, and the social media giant has been shown to have a strong impact on consumer opinions. 

Using the right approach, you can optimize your Instagram page to increase your number of followers, build meaningful connections with your audience, increase your sports league’s online registrations, and gain unfiltered feedback. You can utilize this feedback to evaluate the success of your league management.

User-generated content (UGC)

Nearly half of marketing professionals (48%) believe that content created by customers helps humanize their marketing. User-generated content is an important part of social media marketing because it helps to establish trust between businesses and consumers by providing a genuine reflection of what other customers can anticipate when engaging with a particular business.

User-generated content also provides fitness brands the ability to showcase success stories, creating an emotional appeal that can have a huge impact on buying decisions.

Fitness videos

According to the Social Science Research Network, 65% of people are visual learners. And, considering that fitness is a visual business, it makes sense that videos perform well on social media and get more engagement than other types of content.

Sharing fitness videos is a great way to showcase your gym’s unique offerings by increasing visibility and simultaneously building trust with consumers.

And, since consumers are more likely to make a purchase after watching a video, posting videos to your social media accounts can provide potential customers with that extra dose of encouragement needed to get them to sign up.

Online reviews and customer 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 your product or service, they want to make the best choice and base their decision on which product or service appears 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.

Conclusion

The social media marketing landscape is consistently changing while competition continues to grow; so it’s important to keep your finger on the pulse, pay attention to emerging trends, and seeing how you can incorporate those into your social media marketing strategy.

Fitness brands that want to stay relevant and competitive need to be able to adapt quickly to changes in consumer behavior. Not only do they need to meet consumers where they want, but also with the right content. In return this will raise brand awareness, build trust, and increase conversions.

In October 2022 EZFacility will switch cloud platforms to Amazon Web Services. This is a big step forward to further improve our ability to serve clients. There are plenty of reasons to migrate to AWS, but here are six main advantages that will positively impact your experience with EZFacility.

1. Amazon Web Services is the Industry’s Leading Cloud/Infrastructure Provider

Cloud computing can be defined as the real-time ability to deliver IT resources via the internet. Prior to using cloud services, software was usually uploaded to each physical computer system often in the form of a disk. Cloud computing has changed this process tremendously, especially Amazon Web Services. AWS is the industry leader among all cloud infrastructure providers. Although cloud-based software allows for a more streamlined service, it also requires more advanced security measures and consistent maintenance. Choosing an established industry leader like AWS gives EZFacility the ability to run and deliver our software in the best way possible.

2. Reduce Deployment Time

To keep any great software going, it will need to be updated. Through AWS, our deployment time for new features/updates will be reduced. We will have a greater ability to streamline new software updates, so you can enjoy new and improved features in a shorter span of time. This means we can release frequently while having less impact on your business.

3. Reduce Potential Maintenance Issues

Maintenance can be a pain, mainly because it takes time away from using our platform. It can be daunting from a developer’s perspective as well. With AWS, potential maintenance issues will be minimized. Additionally, AWS will also allow for easier and faster maintenance. This will result in not only a better software solution but also less time away from utilizing it. 

4. More Reliable Platform

The only thing worse than maintenance is unforeseen maintenance. The reliability of a cloud system is one of the most crucial components. Migrating to AWS will grant our system improved reliability, which will reduce the risk of having emergency maintenance issues with your software.

5. Improved System Security

Although cloud computing has created the ability for improved, agile software solutions, it has also created a greater potential risk for security issues. With AWS being the industry-leading cloud provider, security is of utmost importance. AWS is currently the most flexible and secure cloud computing environment available. This means you can run your business with peace of mind knowing that you and your client’s information will be further secured through using AWS.

6. Ability to Build for Infinite Scale

Quite possibly the most exciting aspect of switching to AWS is the ability it gives us to expand and innovate our software faster than ever before. AWS provides the latest technologies to experiment and innovate more quickly. It also creates the opportunity to take our software to the next level. As our software solution grows, AWS will give us the ability to scale our software to handle a larger number of clients. 

Conclusion

Many moving parts exist to make a transition like this happen. It is essential to recognize the development team and all who took part in making the migration to Amazon Web Services possible. At EZFacility, we strive to provide clients with the best solutions and experiences for their businesses, and the utilization of AWS is a great example of this priority. If any thoughts or comments arise on the AWS Migration, feel free to use the comment section within this blog post or email ezfeedback@ezfacility.com. If you are seeking a solution that will be dedicated to your business management needs schedule your free demo of EZFacility today.

Although many may think email is dead—the statistics prove otherwise.

A whopping 83% of global consumers say they prefer email when receiving communications from businesses.

And while many fitness brands may focus largely on social media marketing, email marketing offers complementary and tangible benefits when integrated into your larger marketing strategy.

Creating and sending fitness email newsletters is a powerful way to build stronger relationships with members, improve conversion rates, and generate new leads for your gym or fitness studio.

For gym email marketing to remain effective, you’ll need to keep an eye on industry trends to adapt your marketing strategies for success in 2022 and beyond.

Why gyms need an email marketing strategy

With the global shift to digitization, the use and effectiveness of email marketing have skyrocketed over the past few years.

Maintaining ongoing communication with members is fundamental to maintaining your memberships, engagement, and customer loyalty—especially in the wake of the pandemic—and fitness email marketing is an easy way to do that.

You may be wondering if you need to bother creating and sending fitness newsletters—and the answer is, yes.

Regardless of the size of your business, email campaigns are still an extremely effective and valuable marketing tool.

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

• For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can anticipate an average return of $42.
• 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

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

However, as with anything, with increased importance and demand, also comes increased competition—which is why fitness business owners need to have an updated email marketing strategy in place to stay both relevant and ahead of the curve in 2022.

Before we dive in, here are some other ways having an updated email marketing strategy can help grow your fitness business and build brand awareness:

• Clearly outlines business goals and objectives, and defines how campaign success will be measured
• Planning everything out ahead of time by using an email marketing calendar provides consistent clarity and direction regarding the next steps
• Because you already have things planned out (what you’ll be sending and when), you can automate your email campaigns based on your timeline (drip emails) or user behavior (triggered emails)
• Tailoring your messages to particular market segments helps increase sales by providing content relevant to that audience, which leads to a higher conversion rate
• Promoting specialized fitness programs and sharing membership news and updates will help you acquire new customers and retain existing ones
• Provides an optimal customer buying journey by organizing both nurturing and converting sequences of emails
• Helps grow your email list with potential members who have already shown interest in your fitness brand
• Distribution platforms offer analytics and reporting, so you can easily assess the performance of campaigns to refine your efforts as needed
• A high-performing email marketing funnel alleviates pressure from your advertising campaigns and limited spend

So now that we’ve talked about why fitness email marketing is important—let’s talk about where to start when creating your fitness email marketing strategy.

How to get started with fitness email marketing

An email marketing strategy is a detailed plan of action that provides direction and clarifies the purpose of your email marketing campaigns—meaning, it defines and addresses both the micro- and macro-level business needs and aspects.

A fitness newsletter is a form of email communication that is sent to consumers through your selected distribution service.

Fitness newsletters can be used for a variety of purposes—for example, providing updates about your fitness business, sharing relevant industry news and fitness tips, or celebrating members’ milestones.

While the content will vary depending on the purpose and the audience, the ultimate goal of email marketing is to capture readers’ attention and keep them engaged.

When creating your fitness marketing strategy, be sure to include and address the following considerations:

• What is your overall objective for each campaign?
• How many email campaigns will you create?
• How many parts will there be to your welcome sequence?
• How should you be segmenting your subscriber and distribution lists?
•  Which segment of subscribers will receive a specific sequence?
• When is the best time to send emails?
• What will each campaign be named, and what will the corresponding subject line be?

Below are other key components that will need to be addressed in your fitness email marketing plan:

1. Defined business goals and objectives for each campaign

Starting with a clear understanding of your goals and objectives is critical to the success of your email campaigns. The focus of your emails will drive the content and design, as well as the relevancy to your recipients.

Defining the specific goal and what you hope to achieve from each fitness email campaign is critical to overall success—because without knowing how relative success will be measured and assessed, how will you be able to determine the effectiveness of your efforts and calculate ROI?

2. Choose an email marketing software

To launch an email marketing campaign, you’ll need to start by selecting a distribution platform to create, automate and deliver your campaigns to the relevant audiences.

You’ll also need an online form builder to capture the email addresses from your website traffic to grow your distribution lists and build up your fitness business.

Fortunately, most email marketing software solutions also offer built-in form-building capabilities—so you should be able to accomplish both through one service provider.

Here’s what you should be considering when deciding which email marketing system is best for your gym or fitness studio:

• User-friendly and easy to build
• Mobile-responsiveness
• Ability to create tailored distribution lists

3. Build, segment, and tailor your gym’s email list

Segmenting your email lists can take some time, but it’s extremely important to the success of your email marketing campaigns.

Sometimes general information newsletters are appropriate to send to everyone, but creating tailored lists enables you to deliver the most engaging and consistent content to the right people.

Keep in mind—if you send too many emails that aren’t relevant to the recipients, you risk getting blocked or even reported for spam. 

Types of email campaigns for fitness businesses

Below is an outline of emails we recommend including in your welcome series:

1.  Welcome email

It may seem like a given, but it’s really important to do something to welcome new gym members as soon as they commit to joining your gym.

Sending a welcome email is one of the easiest ways to provide new members with all the essential information they need, and it allows you to reassure them that joining your facility was the right choice.

And, believe it or not, research shows that more than 8 out of 10 people will open a welcome email, generating 4x as many opens and 10x as many clicks as other email types.

If you’re currently using a gym management software like ours, you can easily create a new member email template and manage membership communication seamlessly. But if you’re still managing membership information and sending emails manually that’s okay, too, and we’re here to help.

When creating your welcome email template, we recommend including these key points:

• Thank new members for joining and choosing your gym or fitness studio
• Offer reassurance they made the right choice
•  Provide information about the next steps and how to get started
• Include a link to your website where they can find practical information
• Include contact information in case of any questions

Ideally, you should send more than one welcome email to establish a solid relationship and maintain ongoing communication, so you may want to consider creating a series of introductory emails.

Plus, some members may need that little extra nudge in their inbox every so often to keep them motivated.

2.  General and education newsletter

Sometimes, a “send all” is warranted—as is the case with general newsletters. The content of these campaigns can vary to keep subscribers “hungry” for more and inspire them to improve their lifestyles. In this way, you can also boost your open rates since your content will always be relevant.

General newsletters, usually sent on a weekly or monthly basis, will typically include information relevant to all members—for example, facility updates or new developments, new and upcoming class offerings and schedules, information about emerging trends in the fitness industry, and more.

A weekly or monthly newsletter should be just as informational as it is promotional. If your gym or fitness studio has a blog, this is a great place to feature your latest posts and increase your social media following.

The content of these campaigns can vary to keep subscribers “hungry” for more and inspire them to improve their lifestyles. In this way, you can also boost your open rates since your content will always be relevant

3. Class schedules and appointment reminders

Every member is different, with different fitness goals in mind.

Some members will want to work out on machines and equipment on their own, while others will want to participate in group classes like aerobics, yoga, or Pilates.

It’s important to send newsletters with upcoming class schedules so your members can see what you have to offer. Since class schedules are subject to change, it’s a good idea to send monthly emails with a schedule of the following month’s classes

In these emails, you should include the days, times, and instructors, preferably with links to the sign-up pages on your website.

You should also include the ability to add classes to the calendars of subscribers in Google or Outlook, which can help them make a firm commitment to attending.

4.  Referral request

Most of us inherently understand the power of positive reviews.

As a gym owner, you’ve probably read some pretty compelling referral marketing statistics—for example, 92% of consumers trust referrals from people they know, and they’re four times more likely to buy when referred by a friend.

Asking current members for referrals through a newsletter can increase your marketing ROI considerably. By creating a referral campaign, you can increase membership numbers while delighting your current members at the same time.

5.  Fitness milestone emails

Just like sending any other type of email (confirmation, waitlist, newsletter), you send a milestone email when your customer accomplishes one of their goals or anniversaries at your gym or studio.

When you send a milestone email, it’s the celebratory tone and your enthusiasm that help your customer reaffirm why they made a commitment to your gym or studio in the first place.

Celebrating your gym members’ wins with them will strengthen your relationship, bond, and overall confidence in you as an instructor.

6.  Gym special offers and promotions

Email marketing is a great channel to promote your special offers due to its inherent “personal” nature. Moreover, you can also leverage urgency to create an irresistible message that your subscribers won’t ignore easily.

We’ve all seen a sampling station at the grocery store that allows you to try a new food or drink, but only for that day for a limited time. But after you’ve tasted a sample (if you haven’t before), you can decide if you’d like to take the product home or not.

The same theory applies to new gym members. Some people aren’t ready to make such a huge financial commitment to a new gym, especially when they’ve never used it before.

Offering free 7-day trials allows new potential members to experience your gym’s culture, customer services, and equipment without any required investment on their end.

7.  Fitness challenges

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

But to get members to sign up, they need to know about them first. Sending email newsletters is a great way to inform members of upcoming fitness challenges, which also makes it easy to forward along to their friends who may also have an interest in participating.

So be sure to send occasional newsletters to inform your members any time you launch a fitness challenge, and one or two more times leading up to the challenge before the cut-off date.  

What makes an effective gym marketing email?

Here are five core elements needed to create captivating fitness email campaigns that will immediately catch readers’ attention:

1.   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 about 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.

2.  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.

3.   Make text easy to scan

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.

4.   Include a clear call-to-action

If you want your readers 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 email, and make it easy for them to do what you’d like.

5.   Optimize for mobile use

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 optimized for mobile use to provide a seamless user experience.

Leveraging email marketing automation

Doing all of the above becomes extremely difficult without the right tool. 

Most email marketers and business owners prefer to leverage email marketing automation for the following key reasons:

1. Easy to set up and easy to use daily—an intuitive, user-friendly interface is necessary
2. Capable of supporting both basic and complex automation requirements
3. Pocket-friendly—no one wants to buy a tool that will cost them an arm and a leg every month

Measure results and tweak future campaigns as needed

In business, it all comes down to the numbers. Gym owners need to be able to calculate revenue over investment (ROI) to determine whether resources are being allocated efficiently.

It’s also crucial to track KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)—for example, open rate, click-through rate, email bounces, and unsubscribe rate.

The data doesn’t lie—so if your campaigns have not been performing well, it’s time to switch it up and try something new. After each campaign, you assess the overall success and tweak things as necessary as you go along.

Conclusion

Email marketing remains one of the most cost-effective and conversion-rich forms of digital marketing in the fitness industry and is consistently proven to be a highly effective marketing tool.

To learn how EZFacility’s all-in-one, cloud-based SaaS solution can improve your gym’s customer relationship management (CRM) and make membership management easy, schedule a free tour or online product demonstration today.

Keeping up with evolving technology is every modern business’ struggle, and gyms are no exception. Clients will be expecting more and more of your gym as their own personal tech grows and changes.

This list gives you a preview of the fitness technology to look out for this year. Invest only in what makes sense for your business, but always know what’s out there!

Wearables

Wearable technology is popular for personal use, but can also be used at gyms. Most wearable gym tech monitors heart rate and other vitals to give the wearer deeper insights into their performance. There are a few different types.

Wrist monitors

This is what most people think of when they hear “wearable fitness tech.” The Apple Watch and FitBit are some examples. Amazon even has its own version.

While many gym-goers have their own, it may be wise to have a few you can lend to members. Just make sure you have a good system for checking them in and out so they don’t get lost. 

Chest monitors

These work similarly to wrist monitors except they wrap around the wearer’s chest. Heart rate monitors on a chest strap are commonly used in group classes with heavy cardio so participants can see their progress against their target heart rate.

Rings

For those who don’t want something around their wrist or chest, new fitness-tracking rings offer a smaller alternative. They go around a client’s finger and monitor their heart rate from there.

Smart gym equipment

Have you ever wondered if you’re doing an exercise correctly? Of course you have. Smart gym equipment can answer that question for you with real-time feedback and built-in fitness tracking.

Many smart equipment companies also offer class subscriptions. Live and recorded classes can stream right to the device, where participants can monitor their progress on the same screen. Some products also gamify workouts, making the fitness journey more fun (and a little addictive).

Weights

New machines can automatically adjust resistance, track motion, show classes on a mirrored screen, and more. Consumers are impressed.

However, these machines are also very expensive for the average home-gym builder. Adding equipment like Tonal to your facility can bring in curious clients who want to give it a try.

Cardio

Treadmills, rowing machines, and stationary bikes are also getting smart. Companies like Peloton are leading the way, and customers love the ease and benefits of smart cardio. They can follow along with instructors and simultaneously monitor their heart rate.

Another example is the newest model of the Peloton stationary bike. It automatically adjusts resistance based on the class leader’s instructions. Expect to see more equipment on the market that does the easy work for you, so fitness can be the only manual task.   

Smart scales

Your gym likely has a normal scale that simply tells you a person’s weight. But newer, smarter scales are available to help your customers on their fitness journey.

Smart scales can connect to apps on members’ phones, break down body composition details, and calculate body mass index (BMI). Some scales can also connect to other fitness-related apps so all of one’s fitness data can be viewed in one place.

The best part? Many of these scales are under $100. Adding a few to your facility’s locker rooms is attainable and beneficial.

Gym management software

Paper sign-in sheets? Please. It’s 2022!

Gym management software is no longer a nice-to-have. Gym goers expect you to have it. They want their membership easily managed and a smooth, high-tech customer experience.

That’s where software like EZFacility comes in. Extensive features for gym owners and members alike make management easy.

Scheduling

Gym software enables your staff to schedule in one place and avoid overlaps. Members can more easily see the lineup of classes and availability of personal trainers, private rooms, etc. Users can also search the schedule to find exactly what they’re looking for.

Membership management

The hardest part of being a member at a gym should be the actual workouts, not managing a membership. The right software can give power to members so they can see and edit the details of their membership.

Members can also sign up for leagues, tournaments, and individual trainings on their own. This makes it fast for them and reduces the time your staff has to spend coordinating member activities.

Gym staff will also be able to automate fee collection, make different types of memberships, and manage valuable client relationships. Billing and payments are all handled in the same place. 

Point of sale

In an ideal gym world, products for sale don’t need to be in a separate system from memberships and other client info. EZFacility makes that ideal possible since it can act as a POS.

Reporting

Member stats and financial records can be visualized with the right gym software. You can learn more about your clientele and get ideas for business improvements.

Staff and personal trainer management

Members aren’t the only people gyms need to manage. EZFacility gym management software makes managing staff and personal trainers much easier than chasing around emails and phone calls.

Virtual classes

In this age, your gym is not only competing with other local gyms but also competing with online services that offer live and on-demand classes at members’ fingertips. It’s easy to pull up whatever class they want and they don’t have to leave the comfort of their homes.

So how do you reel in those customers who are tempted by the at-home wellness and fitness tech experience? Add your own virtual experiences to your gym’s repertoire.

Video library

Your gym’s website can do more than offer basic info and schedules. Record some classes and add them to a video library just for members.

You can host this on password-protected parts of your website or a private YouTube channel if you want to restrict it to members only. However, a free YouTube channel may also be a great way to bring in new clients!

Live streams

You can also try live streaming some of your popular classes. Do this on your website or start simple and stream it free on your social media pages.

You may be surprised by the response you get. Just make sure to promote the stream so people know when it starts and how to tune in. You could also partner with other gyms or influencers to do joint streams. 

Virtual reality (VR)

Ready to get really futuristic with your fit tech? Virtual reality is gaining popularity in the gaming world, but it’s coming for the fitness industry, too.

Get ready to see more fitness programs for VR headsets. Your members may appreciate the immersive experience.

Fitness recovery tech

Recovery is essential for continued fitness success and growth. It completes the fitness regimen and gets gym members ready for their next round.  

One of the most popular recovery tech companies is Therabody, which manufactures tools such as massage guns, vibrating rollers, compression systems, and more. These devices are well-known in the fitness community and may have a place at your facility.

Soreness/stiffness

Hand-held massage devices can help knead the soreness and stiffness out of post-workout muscles. Therabody’s popular Theragun products come with multiple attachments and massage types.

Whatever brand you go with, offering massage guns to gym members can remind them that you care about their whole fitness process, not just the workout.

Muscle Conditioning

Muscle-simulating electrical pulses can aid recovery and condition muscles. These devices stick nodes onto the skin and can connect to apps that control intensity.

Fitness apps and trackers

The majority of Americans – a whopping 85 percent – own smartphones. Not incorporating that into your gym programs would be a missed opportunity.

Fortunately, many of these apps are cheap or free. We’ve listed a few different types below.

Workout class apps

Subscription workout class services often have their own apps. Users can log in and have an organized video library ready to go.

Your gym could incorporate one of these apps into memberships. Or, create an app with your own video library to really stand out to your members.

Workout trackers

Fitness enthusiasts can use apps to track all their workout stats now. From mapping an outdoor run to recording calories burned during a HIIT session, gym-goers want a way to see all their stats in one place.

Calorie trackers

Apps such as MyFitnessPal help users keep track of their meals, calories, and macros. Adding these types of applications to your gym’s programs can up your training game. 

How to incorporate new technology in your gym

The wide variety of fitness technology available on the market today can be overwhelming. Here are three steps to keep you focused as you add some of this new tech to your facilities and

programs.

1. Survey your members

Send out a survey to your current members to determine their interest in new tech. It’s always better to hear from your customers rather than take a guess and make the wrong investment.

2. Start small

It’s tempting to overhaul everything at once. While large-scale tech updates are impressive, they’re also expensive.

Make investments in new technology little by little. Replace a few machines at a time, or add online classes one type at a time.

Going slowly will also give your gym members time to adjust. It can be intimidating if everything changes overnight. 

3. Stay up-to-date

Your fitness facility’s future success depends on keeping up with consumer demands, and that includes having the latest technology. Keep up with industry news and make it a goal to invest in a few updates every quarter. 

Final thoughts

Your gym doesn’t need to have all the latest devices to be unique – your community, staff, and leadership give your gym the heart customers want. But offering advanced devices never hurts!

As you learn about what your customers want, make sure you’re still taking a step back to look at the full picture. Your job is to provide a place where fitness thrives, not just a place where a bunch of fitness technology sits.

How is your facility treating the whole individual and supporting their goals? All of your gym and fitness tech should revolve around that question first. 

When customers join your gym, they’re looking for one main thing: results. Implementing a fitness assessment system will not only enable your customers to effectively measure their results, but also give you insight into your customer base.

Here, we break down what a fitness assessment is, what factors to consider, the measurements you should include, and how to assess fitness goals.

What is a fitness assessment?

A fitness assessment is a short survey used to evaluate a gym customer’s current fitness level, fitness history, and their goals.

The format can be as simple as a quick Google Form, or you can add in some personal physical assessments.

The benefits of fitness assessments

Fitness assessment data is much more than just a client check-up. Gym owners and other fitness industry professionals can use them to foster community and get new ideas.

Set benchmarks

A well-designed fitness questionnaire can determine a gym client’s current level of wellness. Their results can be used in the future to see how far they’ve come.

These benchmarks can also be used gym-wide. Can your fitness community raise their average scores together?

Understand your clientele

If you organize your assessment data in easy-to-read dashboards, you can see where your gym members’ fitness levels are. Are your customers already very fit and looking to maintain? Are they elite athletes? Or are they average and trying to get better? Knowing where they stand will help you see your business in a new light.

Plan new programs

When you understand your gym’s customers better, you can build your business around their needs. Fitness assessments can help you get ideas for new offerings or exercise programs to go beyond the trends. 

When to offer a fitness assessment

These questionnaires can be offered as often as they are relevant. Here are a few ideas for scheduling your assessments.

New membership

Offer an assessment as soon as someone signs up for a gym membership. It shows the customer that you are invested in their wellness, and you get valuable data on new members.

Changing goals

Fitness assessments aren’t always one-size-fits-all. Someone looking to pack on muscle and someone looking to lose lots of fat may want very different benchmarks.

Encourage members to fill out a new assessment whenever their goals change. Make sure you have a few different sets of fitness survey questions prepared for these goals ahead of time.

Monthly or quarterly

Many gym members are looking for consistency – and consistent progress. If their goal is long-term, ask them to fill out a survey every month or every quarter.

This will show them how they’re performing against their benchmarks. It will also give gym owners and personal trainers an idea of how effective their programs are.

Elements to consider

When building your facility’s fitness assessment, these basic factors will affect your customers’ answers – and what you do with them. Ask about them directly on the survey and keep them in mind when interpreting answers. 

Age

Different ages have different recommended amounts of weekly exercise. The CDC recommends the following based on the needs of various age groups:

Adults 18 to 64

Those in this age group should get at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week. They should also work in strength exercises at least two days per week.

Adults 65+

Recommendations for these adults are the same as those 18 to 64. However, it’s also recommended that they add in activities that can improve balance.

Physical ability

What is impacting your members’ level of physical ability? For example, someone who uses a wheelchair will have different abilities (and needs) than someone who doesn’t.

For those with chronic conditions and/or disabilities, the CDC recommends at least 150 minutes of aerobic exercise per week in addition to two days per week of muscle training. Pregnant people should also get 150 minutes of exercise per week.

Previous injuries

Past injuries can affect a member’s current abilities. You may want to ask about affected body parts and how long ago the injuries occurred.

This can also inform the types of exercise and warmups you recommend. For example, a member may have the goal of increasing their running distance but have a history of shin splints. Knowing to recommend pre-run stretches will be good for them and improve your client relationship.

Exercise experience

Some of your gym’s members may be seasoned workout professionals. Others may be working out for the first time in their lives.

A member’s experience level will not only affect their answers on your assessment, but also how they interpret their results and recommended course of action. Frequent exercisers will understand gym jargon, but newbies will need a little more hand-holding.  

Diet

A gym member’s diet can help or hinder their progress. If you don’t ask about it directly, make sure to offer more information on diets that will contribute to fitness success.

Capacity and time

How much time at the gym can your customers realistically handle? This will vary depending on family situations, careers, or even how close someone lives to the facility.

Customer goals

The most important thing to keep in mind when someone fills out your gym’s assessment is what their goals are. Their satisfaction with your facility depends on the results they see, and knowing their goals will help you push them toward the results they want.

You can also realistically evaluate their goals using the assessment and the other elements above. For example, say that one of your customers has a goal of losing twenty pounds this month but only has a couple hours a week to come to the gym. Use this to spark a conversation about shifting either their goal or their time commitment.

What to include in a fitness assessment

Before diving into goals and timelines, your fitness survey should start with very basic health questions. It will almost feel like the paperwork you fill out at the doctor’s office.

Then you’ll get a little more granular with some fitness-related assessments. We used this info from the Mayo Clinic for some standard guidelines.   

Height and weight

After name and birthday, ask about height and weight. For those looking to lose or gain, this will act as a benchmark. It will also help you determine the customer’s BMI.

Body mass index (BMI) is one of many ways health professionals can determine if someone has a healthy weight. This calculator from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute uses height and weight to calculate BMI.

Keep in mind that BMI is not always a reliable indicator of a healthy weight, especially for very muscular builds. This is because it doesn’t distinguish between excess fat and excess muscle.

Body fat

In this section of the questionnaire, take some body measurements that will help you determine the customer’s body composition. One important measurement is the waist-to-hip ratio.   

Using a tape measure, record the circumference of the smallest part of the waist and largest part of the hips. If the waist is larger than the hips, that may indicate a health problem.

Next, get a little more technical by breaking down the body composition and measuring body fat percentage. You can do this with simple tools like skinfold calipers or a bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) device.

A person’s body fat percentage reflects how much of their body is composed of fat. On average, women’s body fat percentage will be higher than men’s. These charts from Medical News Today break it down further by gender and age.   

Heart rate

Measuring heart health is an important part of getting the full picture of someone’s fitness level. Start with resting heart rate.

Resting heart rate

Your resting heart rate is a measure of how many times your heart beats per minute when your body is at rest. A healthy resting heart rate is usually between 60 and 100 beats per minute.

With regular exercise, a high resting heart rate may become lower over time. Get your baseline with the fitness assessment and see how it changes after a few months.

1.5-mile run

Another way to measure your heart health is through an aerobic fitness test, such as running a mile and half. The ideal run time varies by age.

Table from Mayo Clinic

Strength and endurance

Use pushups and situps as strength tests to get a baseline level of a gym member’s muscular fitness.

Pushup test

Find out the maximum number of pushups your gym customer can do. They can self-report this, or a trainer can observe them.

On average, men should be able to do more pushups than women and younger people should be able to do more than older people.

Table from Mayo Clinic

Situp test

Count the maximum number of situps your customer can do. They can self-report or get help counting from a personal trainer.

Table from Mayo Clinic

Flexibility

There are a few different ways to measure flexibility. Start by asking if the gym member can touch their toes from a standing position. Many people measure their own flexibility by this one factor, so it’s good to take note of it before starting an exercise program.

Sit-and-reach is a standard test of flexibility. To get this benchmark, ask the client to sit on the floor with their legs outstretched.

A yardstick should be placed between their legs with their feet landing on either side of the fifteen-inch mark. Ask them to reach as far as they can past their feet, holding for one full second. Use the best of three tries.

Table from Mayo Clinic

Building fitness goals into the assessment

Once your customer knows where their fitness level stands, it’s time to record their goals so they can track their progress.

Don’t just leave a blank space where clients can write down whatever goals they want. At the end of your assessment, build in goal-oriented questions that follow the S.M.A.R.T. format.

Specific

A goal like “I want to lose weight” is flimsy, and flimsy goals are hard to stick to. If a gym member wants to lose weight, ask them to be specific. How many pounds and ounces are they looking to lose?

Measurable

A specific amount of weight loss is one example of a measurable goal. Some others include adding a number of reps to a weight lifting set, running a mile a few minutes faster, or losing an inch and a half off their waist.

Every time someone retakes the fitness assessment, make sure to check these goals and record updated numbers. They could also record their own progress if they have personal fitness technology.

Achievable

When asking about their goals, make sure the customer knows whether the goal is realistic. Losing 40 pounds in a month is a stretch, but five might be a good place to start.

Relevant

A customer might think they can get their ex back with a little bit of training, but that’s not something you can actually measure at the gym. Remind customers that their goals should be directly related to what they can accomplish at your facility.

Time-bound

Each goal should have an associated time limit. Whether it’s in a day, a month, or a year, ask exactly when your client wants to accomplish their goal.

Final thoughts

Providing a standardized fitness assessment to your gym customers is the ideal way to make them feel like you’re invested in their progress. A thorough questionnaire that helps members track their goals will help you stand out from the rest of the fitness market and set you apart as a gym owner that cares.

Using this article as a basis for your questions, create a survey that works for your gym. Your facility survey will help current members improve and attract new members.

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. In fact, online training became so popular during the pandemic that it secured the no.1 spot in ACSM’s 2021 fitness trends report. 

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 centralize 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 personalized product tour today.

By now, we’ve all seen the extent to which COVID-19 has disrupted the fitness industry—from the physical location where people work out to the heightened expectations consumers have regarding how gyms should operate and what health and safety protocols should be in effect. 

Fitness business owners should understand that gym members’ 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.

5 Ways to Increase Member Retention Rates in 2022

Getting new members to join your gym is only half the battle. Once new members join—how do you keep members engaged and member retention rates high?

Below are five easy strategies to give your gym retention rates a boost.

1.   Communicate health and safety protocols

With the Omicron BA.2 Subvariant sweeping across the U.S., health and safety protocols are once again top-of-mind for most gym members. Customers now expect gyms to have health and safety standards in place to minimize the transmission of COVID-19—and they want to know what specific steps you’re taking to help keep them safe and comfortable when visiting your gym.

Consider creating a one-sheeter that outlines what steps your gym or health club is implementing and post it throughout your facility, ideally in highly trafficked and visible locations—for example, at the front desk, near the water fountains, on the bathroom doors, etc. You can also easily copy and paste the information from the one sheeter into a newsletter template, and send out an email blast to your database

2.   Focus on the member experience

In today’s increasingly digital world, delivering a positive member experience is more important than ever. Providing an exceptional member experience not only helps you attract new gym members—it gives your facility a competitive edge, and improves customer satisfaction and retention rates.

It’s important to remember that the member experience extends beyond just signing up members—it needs to be emulated across multiple platforms and touchpoints. Additionally, you need to understand how your members think, and what they want.

3.   The hybrid model

The hybrid gym model has become the new norm in the fitness industry. 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. It 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 or available on-demand for members who want to continue with home workouts.

Because the pandemic continues to create new challenges and restrictions on society, a hybrid fitness model puts gym owners in a more secure position to navigate the current climate, as well as future obstacles that may arise.

4.   Small Group Training

As a gym or health club owner, you’re constantly thinking about ways to keep members engaged and improve member retention rates—especially considering 50% of members quit the gym within the first six months. One solution is to provide consistent motivation.

Small group training classes are a great way for gym members to meet, interact and socialize with each other. It also helps them bond with each other, and creates a sense of belonging at your gym. When you have a community of members that are excited to come to your facility and interact with one another, it creates a better overall member experience for everyone. 

5.   Utilize gym management software

If you’re a gym owner, you already know how much time and energy it takes just to manage the day-to-day operations. From scheduling staff and fitness classes to overseeing equipment maintenance and inspections, the number of moving parts at any given time can be overwhelming.

Gym management software continues to grow in popularity given its ability to increase efficiency and productivity, improve communication, 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.

Conclusion

The fitness industry is still treading uncharted waters, and the pandemic will continue to impact the ways consumers engage with gyms and health clubs. During these uncertain times, maintaining ongoing communication is fundamental to attracting new gym members, as well as keeping member engagement and retention rates high.

To learn how EZFacility’s comprehensive software solution can help you create custom membership plans and effectively manage gym member relationships, schedule a free online demo or personalized product tour today.

If your background is in sports and athletic coaching, you may find yourself struggling to understand “the whole marketing thing”—let alone, which strategies and tactics you can use to effectively promote your youth soccer program, increase registrations and enrollments, and build stronger relationships with your team, players’ parents and the community-at-large.

But that’s why we’re here to help!

Read on to learn why building a strong, seamless online experience is more important now than ever, and three things you’ll want to keep in mind when developing a digital strategy for your youth soccer program. 

The Impact of COVID-19 on Youth Soccer

The COVID-19 pandemic completely disrupted youth soccer participation when local governments began imposing business closures, stay-at-home orders and social distancing policies. On top of that, online usage and mobile rates skyrocketed as more people flocked to their phones than ever before.

And now that many children and families are ready to re-engage with youth sports, it’s important to understand how the landscape has changed so you can figure out how to assist and improve future registrations and participation.

Three Ways to Build Your Youth Soccer’ Leagues Online Presence

Here’s a rundown of three things to keep in mind as you build your online presence:

1.   Keep your website up-to-date

It’s not enough to just have a website—you need to make sure your website stays up-to-date, and that it’s mobile responsive. When players’ parents are looking for youth sports programs in their area, their first stop is likely an online search engine or social media platform. To appear in searches, make sure your club is updated regularly with recent and relevant content.

Make sure you create noticeable links or buttons on your site so that players’ parents can find them easily and be able to follow them. This will also help minimize the amount of time your staff has to track down various practice schedules, tournament dates, and so forth.

2.   Use your social media accounts

Social media is an easy and free way to help parents looking for local activities to enrich their kids’ weekends and summers. Having a strong social media and online presence for your youth soccer program is important as it can extend your reach and spread information quickly.

Another easy way to build up interest in your youth soccer program is to regularly post photos of players, their parents, and any related events you may have. People, especially youth soccer players and their parents, love seeing themselves being featured in Facebook posts.

3.   Keep in touch with the community

Stay in touch with both past and present players and their parents. Use your email database to easily send reminders on the new programs, check up on the ones who have missed registrations, and let them know why they should not miss the next.

Offering incentives, referrals, or discounts for early registrations or referring new players is another effective way to give your registration numbers a boost.

The complete solution for your youth soccer league

Your youth soccer league’s path to success involves everything from facility scheduling to online registration and more.

Here are three ways our comprehensive software solution can help:

1. Registration: Provide clients the flexibility to register as a team or as individuals. Utilize online waivers and simplify fee collection with the use of registration deposits and a variety of processing options.
2. Scheduling: Generate schedules for your leagues and tournaments reflecting team preferences, venue availability, bye-weeks and tournament seeds using our automated scheduler.
3. Public Website: Provide clients real-time access to view standings, stay up to date on current league leaders, check scores and even browse through classified ads from teams looking for players.

Want to learn more? Schedule a free demo and personalized product tour today.

When you manage a sports league, the most important job during the offseason is promoting your league and securing players. The nature of your sports league will dictate your target audience and potential customers—so the first step is to figure out who they are, what they want, and what forms of marketing they’re most likely to respond to and engage with.

Once you have a solid understanding of your target audience—which, for the purposes of this blog, we’re assuming you do—you’ll be able to effectively utilize the strategies outlined below to guide your marketing efforts, as well as the tone, language and structure of your communications.

Read on to learn five quick and easy ways to increase your sports league’s online registration numbers.

1. Organic Social Media Efforts

Consumers are more dependent on digital content than they’ve ever been in the past. In fact, one recent global study found that engagement on social media has increased 61% over regular usage rates since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two of the hottest and most rapidly growing social media platforms you should consider using to generate more online registrations are TikTok and Instagram.

TikTok

TikTok has overtaken Google as the world’s most visited online destination, and boasts a staggering 105% user growth rate in the US over the past two years. TikTok is a free, short-form video and social media app, and is available for download on both Apple and Android devices. The major difference between TikTok and other social media platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, is that TikTok is based on small, short video clips.

When utilized as a part of your larger social media marketing strategy, TikTok can be a great way to promote your sports league by creating fun video content, tapping into a niche community, and engaging with a younger demographic (if applicable to your league).

Instagram

Instagram now has over 1 billion users worldwide, and the social media giant has been shown to have a strong impact on consumer opinions. With the right approach, you can utilize your Instagram page to increase your number of followers, build meaningful connections with your audience, increase your sports league’s online registrations, and gain unfiltered feedback that you can use to evaluate the success of your league management.

2. Paid Ads on Social Media

As of January 2022, there are 3.96 billion total social media users across all platforms. With the average consumer now spending an unprecedented amount of time online, utilizing targeted advertising is one of the most effective ways to reach your target audience. And, fortunately, there are a number of tools at your disposal that make it easier than ever, regardless of which social media platforms you choose.

3. SMS Marketing / Text Message Marketing

Text message marketing has come a long way since the early 2000s. Today, it’s one of the most highly effective, and cost effective, marketing methods available.

With roughly 97% of Americans owning some type of mobile phone—and approximately 85% of mobile phone users having smart phones—everyone’s more connected, and constantly connected, than ever before. On top of that, the average text message conversion rate is 30%.

It makes sense, then, to utilize SMS marketing to promote your sports league’s online registration page. It’s also a great way to touch base with your contact base, keep them informed of any important changes or updates, and to continue building the relationship in a nonintrusive way. Keep your texts short, friendly, and informative, and be sure to let subscribers know where to find your online registration.

4. Email Marketing

With time and resources limited, it’s understandable that you’ll want to make sure your marketing budget is being allocated wisely and effectively. You may be wondering if email marketing is really worth it, considering all the other marketing options available to businesses nowadays.

The answer is yes—and here’s why: Beyond being able to use scheduling software to create and distribute tailored email marketing campaigns to encourage more online registrations, email marketing has also been shown to be an extremely valuable tool in building upon existing relationships with customers, in addition to reaching new potential customers. 

Keep your emails short and sweet. The copy should be upbeat, visually appealing, easy to skim, and clear in nature. This applies to the subject line as well. And don’t forget to include a clear call-to-action button with a link to your sports league’s online registration page.

5. Sports League Management Software

EZFacility’s sports league management software gives you a complete set of features bundled into one intuitive, responsive platform. Our cloud-based, comprehensive SaaS service simplifies the scheduling and management of fields, courts, leagues, tournaments, teams, coaches, memberships, and more.

Conclusion

All successful businesses—including sports leagues—are built on strong relationships. The stronger the relationship, the deeper the level of customer loyalty and repeat business.

Since successful league management is reliant upon community involvement and engagement, it’s absolutely fundamental that you clearly define—and understand—your target audience so that you can create a solid marketing plan around their needs and preferences to build long-lasting relationships. 

To learn more about EZFacility’s comprehensive sports league management, contact us today to schedule a free no-commitment demo and personalized product tour. 

When you’re running a basketball league, your head needs to be in the game. So, if you’ve been wondering what you can do to spend less time worrying about registration forms and other time-consuming administrative tasks—you’re in luck!

In this blog, we’ll talk about how basketball league management software can be an affordable solution tailored to meet your league’s unique needs.

What is Basketball Management Software?

Basketball league management software is an online tool that can be used to simplify and streamline the scheduling of basketball courts, teams, coaches, leagues, tournaments, and more.

Benefits of Basketball League Management Software

Whether you’re simply looking to save time on administrative tasks, or need some help managing the more complex aspects—the right basketball league management software can be the difference between a swish or a flop.  

EZFacility’s sports league management and registration software gives you every tool you need to manage your basketball leagues with a complete set of features bundled into one responsive, user-friendly platform that updates in real-time.

Here are just a few ways we can help you save time, simplify online bookings, and improve overall league management:

• Online Registration: Provide clients the flexibility to register as a team or as individuals. Utilize online waivers and simplify fee collection with the use of registration deposits and a variety of processing options.
• Schedule Maker: Generate schedules for your leagues and tournaments reflecting team preferences, venue availability, bye-weeks and tournament seeds using our automated scheduler.
• Public Website: Provide clients real-time access to view standings, stay up to date on current league leaders, check scores and even browse through classified ads from teams looking for players.
• League Management: Create complex league and tournament schedules in minutes. Keep games running on time with referee assignments, printable scorecards, and photo ID cards for player verification.
• Customization: Make EZLeagues your own. Transform EZLeagues to match your brand, or embed it within your own website. With familiar customization tools, you can tailor the look-and-feel in minutes.

Additional features include:

• Real-Time TV Display
• Custom Color Schemes
• Automated Game Reminders
• Sports Specific Game Cards
• League & Tournament Classified Ads
• IFrame Integration
• Officials Management
• Advertising Capability
• Detailed Reporting

Take Your Basketball League to the Next Level

If you’re ready to up your game, contact us today to schedule a free demo and personalized product tour.

Although sports marketing is a bit different than traditional marketing, the fundamentals of the game are the same.

In this blog, we’ll cover five swinging strategies to help you promote your baseball league and increase registration numbers.

1. Create a Winning Game Plan

A sports marketing plan is an outline that should include all of the marketing efforts you have planned for the next month, quarter, or year. It should also clearly define how your marketing efforts directly align and support your league’s goals.

To create an effective sports marketing program for your baseball league, be sure to include the following key elements:

• Overview of marketing goals and objectives: Your marketing goals should be SMART—that is, Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
  
• Assessment of your baseball league’s current marketing efforts: An analysis of the current state of the organization concerning its marketing positioning.
  
• Description of your target market and customer needs: Here’s where to include the critical information for your target market—who they are, where they’re located, as well as any preferences, needs, or gaps that will be relevant to your marketing efforts.
  
•  Outline of marketing activities: A list of all the marketing campaigns and baseball marketing strategies planned for the period and the indicated timelines.
  
• Key performance indicators (KPIs): Critical indicators of progress toward a desired goal or target. KPIs provide focus for strategic and operational improvement by establishing an analytic baseline by which to measure success.

2. Leverage Your Baseball League’s Sponsors

Leveraging your sponsors is an easy way to increase your league’s visibility, while also giving them some reciprocal added value. As you secure new sponsorships, ask to collaborate with their marketing teams to come up with clever ways you can cross-promote one another across social media accounts.

By working with your sponsors, you can ensure your messaging and promotions are aligned with what they’re looking for, and help you build strong working relationships that can lead to long-term sponsorship commitments.

3. Share Behind the Scenes Content

Instead of simply sharing photos and videos on game day, drum up some pre-game excitement by giving your fan base and supporters a look behind the scenes. Sharing behind the scenes content feels more genuine, which social media users are more likely to engage with.

Something as simple as posting photos or clips of player warm-ups or practices can have surprisingly positive effects—for example, increasing your online presence, piquing the interest of new potential sponsors, as well as attracting new players and increasing online registrations. 

4. Utilize Branded Hashtags

Hashtags are one of the most wide-ranging (and free!) social media marketing tools at your disposal. They have the power to spread your message across multiple social media platforms, and they can help you track trending topics, engage in relevant and timely conversations, market your sports events, and more. In fact, according to Twitter, Tweets with hashtags get 100% more engagement.

Piggy-backing off of an existing hashtag can be useful for capitalizing on a new trend or hot topic discussion, but be aware that your message could get lost in the noise if the hashtag is, or becomes, highly saturated.

A branded hashtag is a custom hashtag unique to your brand, which is helpful in both paid and organic social media marketing efforts. You can use branded hashtags to create buzz for your baseball league, encourage user-generated content, run contests and promotions, and increase league registrations. 

5. Share Highlights

To successfully market your baseball league, you’ll need to do more than just promote it. People who aren’t able to attend games in-person will still want to feel like a part of the experience, which is why sharing highlights from games on your social media accounts can be a highly effective way to promote your baseball league. This also allows your fan base to share highlights on their personal pages, which will help boost your engagement metrics as well.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for ways to save time on administrative work and streamline league management so you can focus on knocking it out of the park with these hard-hitting marketing strategies, click here to learn how EZFacility can help.

So, you’re thinking of building a sports facility and you’re doing a little homework first. Congratulations!

In this blog, we’ll cover key items to consider before embarking on this exciting new business journey.

First Things First

When creating anything in life, a solid foundation is key. In this case, a literal solid foundation is what you will need. That requires proper funds, appropriate regulations, and reliable contractors.

Funding

Name an adventure that doesn’t encounter a few hiccups, right? Nobody wants them to happen but being prepared can save time, money, and setbacks. Calculate how much money you will need for the entire project from start to finish. Then, tag on a bit more to cover emergencies and unplanned hurdles.

Regulations

Next, check with your local municipality center. Each local municipality center has information related to specific zoning and building regulations. You, of course, want everything done up to code and that is smart thinking. As the age old saying goes, “Haste makes waste.”

Contractors

Look for contractors with great reviews and plenty of experience building sports facilities. Check out their website and past projects, too. And really take your time selecting one. Your vision is only as strong as the company building it.

Sporting Events and Parking

Before determining the size of the sports complex and building type, two things are crucial. And, they go hand in hand. First, you need to imagine the future sports events you want to hold in your sports complex. After that, think about the amount of parking needed to accommodate everyone. And then some! Because remember, you will be competing with other nearby facilities for guests.

Parking

Parking gets a second shout-out here because it is often overlooked. Many places decide on minimum parking. The problem with minimum parking is, it doesn’t allow for growth and expansions down the line. So, adequate parking space is a big deal! 

Also, the location and layout matter. When designing a parking lot, think about the distance from the playing field.

Ask yourself the following questions:

1. How far will guests have to walk from their vehicles to the sporting events?
   
2. Are any vehicles in danger of being hit? Because depending on the sport, there could be a chance of stray balls and broken windshields. This means you might need proper signage, protection nets, or a different layout.
   
3. Speaking of the layout, is it easy to navigate, and is congestion going to be an issue?
   
4. What is the type of lighting you are thinking about? Proper nighttime lighting is important for safety and security. But it also raises your budget. So, start listing cost-efficient, and environmentally friendly, options like LED.

Athletic Surface and Weather Conditions

The athletic surface and outdoor weather conditions also go hand in hand. And they matter to the teams who will be playing at your facility. There are pros and cons with natural grass and artificial turf. Artificial turf is pricklier and more prone to heat. And natural grass requires maintenance such as mowing and pesticides. Whereas, artificial turf does not. Also, natural grass can become muddy and slippery after a rain downpour.

If your playing facility is outside, consider installing a lightning detection system. Most events are during rain or shine. But for a more weather-controlled option, indoor sports facilities are great, too. Some might even prefer it. Here’s why.

Conclusion

Building a new sports facility can be a lot to think about. This list is only the beginning! Once you’re up and running, some other key considerations include creating a business plan, researching management software programs, building out a solid team, and incorporating marketing strategies. Subscribe to our blog to stay up to date with more industry tips.

You may also be interested in:

Soccer Facility Business Trends

How to Increase Revenue at Your Indoor Soccer Facility

Marketing Ideas for an Indoor Soccer Facility Business

Sports club management has never been easier, thanks to the rise of sports facility and league management software.  Sports club management software helps facility owners manage all aspects of their sports facility—from coach and lesson scheduling to player invoicing and payments.

By streamlining the scheduling and management of your baseball facility, you’ll save time and money, improve member management, kickstart new growth opportunities, and more.

Benefits of Sports Club Management Software

Sports club management software makes it easy to manage your entire baseball or batting cage facility with a complete set of features bundled into one intuitive, accessible, secure, and responsive platform.

Improve Communication & Collaboration

Communication barriers can lead to misinformation, misunderstandings and errors, all of which end up costing valuable time and money. Sports club management tools make communication and collaboration between staff members easy by providing a centralized platform for real-time collaboration, brainstorming and problem solving.

Having one central hub where your team can quickly access and communicate about vital information in real-time helps them collaborate faster and more effectively, reduces the risk of miscommunication, improves team performance, and increases operational efficiency.

Save Time & Money

Being able to accurately track and assess the actual amount of time, staff, equipment, and resources required to cover everyday operations is absolutely vital to long-term success. 

When all of your customer and league information is organized in a central database, your staff can easily access all the information necessary to keep track of rentals, financial records, status of participants’ forms, rosters, and contact information.

Benefits of Choosing EZFacility

EZFacility’s comprehensive software solution makes it easy to manage your entire baseball or batting cage business with a complete set of features bundled into one intuitive, accessible, secure, and responsive platform.

Here are just a few ways we can help you grow your baseball facility:

Accessible anytime, anywhere—and always secure!

Manage your baseball facility anywhere from any device with our fully responsive easy-to-navigate user interface. Save time with simple, clean workflows and processes designed to anticipate the needs of your staff. We’re securely hosted on Amazon Web Services and boast a 99.99% uptime.

Streamline Scheduling

Maximize coach productivity, save time and increase your cash flow. Define pitching coach availability, quickly update batting cage schedules, create single or recurring sessions, and send clients automated emails and text reminders.

You can also generate schedules for your leagues and tournaments based on team preferences, venue availability, and tournament seeds using our automated scheduler.

Streamline Billing

Choosing a sports club management software that includes integrated payment processing is a huge plus. Simplify your billing process with customized payment schedules, automated invoicing and expiring credit card reminders. Accept online payments and track package, membership and equipment sales.

League Management

Enroll, maintain, track and retain players. Quickly access detailed player profiles, create coaching packages, track attendance, alert members to schedule changes, and target new revenue opportunities.

With EZFacility, clients have real-time access to view standings, stay up to date on current league leaders, check scores and even browse through classified ads from teams looking for players.

Automate Billing Invoicing & Payments

Simplify your billing process with customized payment schedules, automated invoicing and expiring credit card reminders. Accept online payments and track package, membership and equipment sales.

Conclusion

There are countless advantages to sports club management software–and ours can be customized to meet your specific business needs!

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