If around 60 per cent of your revenue comes from membership fees – well, that’s pretty much average for the fitness industry. Yet as the pandemic has shown, relying heavily on one source of revenue is unwise. 

But how do you go about this? Here, we share 14 suggestions – but with a word of advice: don’t try and implement them all at once. Don’t overwhelm your customers with change. Don’t over-burden your staff with new tasks. Pick one or two ideas that feel ‘best fit’ for your business and introduce them on a trial basis, asking your customers for feedback before you commit to making them permanent. 

Be absolutely sure you’re approaching all this with the right mindset. Adding new fitness revenue streams shouldn’t be about squeezing every last buck from your members, nor about pushing your business into areas that don’t fit your brand. Your focus should be on creating fantastic, customer-centric experiences and products that meet actual member needs and add real value to their relationship with you. By creating more opportunities for them to engage with you while being true to your brand, customers are happy to engage in more genuine ways rather than a blatant money-spinner.

Check out these tips for fitness centres to generate new fitness revenue streams.

14 WAYS TO GENERATE NEW FITNESS REVENUE STREAMS

1. SELL ON-DEMAND CONTENT

With the rise of online fitness, many gyms are wisely offering virtual fitness training and classes that can be accessed remotely. Some choose to offer it as a complimentary value-add-on because they see it as a retention tool. Others are successfully generating significant additional revenue by selling it as a distinctly separate product, including to non-members within and beyond the gym’s geographical area. 

Wexer can help your gym do this cost-effectively, with a range of market-leading mobile solutions that channel the revenue-generating power of on-demand virtual fitness training into your business.

2. RESTRUCTURE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TIERS

There are also ways to expand fitness revenue streams within membership sales, by creating new premium tiers of membership. 

Certainly this benefits local customers who can attend the club physically, as this can often be the best way to sell on-demand content by packaging it into a hybrid membership. You can package it  alongside other valued benefits,  rather than trying to sell it as a standalone add-on that can be easily dropped.

We can help, because Wexer’s platform can be password-protected and can accommodate single sign-on, all of which means you can choose which of your members to grant this premium access to (and which not).

3. PARTNER WITH LOCAL BUSINESSES

If your gym or fitness centre isn’t yet partnering with local businesses, now is the time to consider tapping this potential. 

For example, with mental wellbeing in the spotlight these days, a growing number of employers are looking to offer employee wellness programmes. What businesses within your catchment area might be interested in such an offering, what might it look like and how can you deliver it? Can you do more than simply selling corporate gym memberships, adding new fitness revenue streams by offering in-house fitness classes, for example, or running special educational events?

4. MOVE INTO ECOMMERCE

Selling fitness-related products – supplements, apparel, small pieces of equipment – has long been gyms’ go-to for secondary revenue. In some cases, where signature apparel lines have been created, it’s also proved a powerful way to spread the word of the brand. 

Yet in terms of the sales themselves, many fitness centres limit themselves to selling to existing members, ignoring the far larger market that exists online. Is it time for your gym to explore the potential of ecommerce – not least selling small pieces of equipment to your members who, armed with your virtual fitness training content, are now exercising at home as well as at the gym?

5. RENT OUT YOUR SPACE

With wellness being today’s buzzword, your members are now looking for more than just fitness. We’re talking massage, physiotherapy, chiropody, meditation, acupuncture, life coaching… All the things that complement their wellness journey with you while not necessarily being something your gym specialises in. 

If it’s available in your club, the time is now to rent out space to reputable local practitioners. This will allow you to introduce the complementary services your members actively want – a big tick in the box for customer satisfaction – while also bringing in rent as a valuable source of income alongside your more traditional fitness revenue streams. 

You might consider opening these services up to non-members, too, as well as having an option for people to buy gift vouchers.

6. REFRESH YOUR PERSONAL TRAINING OFFERING

Personal training can often be a high-margin service, so maximise its revenue-earning potential by injecting a bit of creativity. Alongside the more standard offering of one-to-one or two-to-one training, harness the buzz around small group training by creating signature, paid-for small group sessions in visible spaces within the club to drive awareness and interest. 

If you have an exclusive space available, you might also consider offering VIP personal training, assuming you have the right member profile. Make sure you do it properly, giving it the full red carpet treatment a concierge level of service in a genuinely special space with exclusive tools and top personal trainers.

7. HOST SPECIAL EVENTS

Special events – fitness competitions, for example, or one-off mass participation classes – can be an eye-catching way to build your brand locally. You can attract new customers (especially if they’re allowed to participate) and drive new revenues. You might even consider live streaming your event across multiple locations. Wexer’s technology can help you do this. How about tapping into the younger generations’ interest in brands that care, by making these charity events where a percentage of your revenues are donated to good causes? 

8. MIX IT UP IN YOUR SAMPLE AND GUEST SESSIONS

Selling day or buddy passes is a good way to enhance your fitness revenue streams, both complementing and potentially building your membership revenues. As part of this, even if you already give members a guess pass or two each month, you might consider selling additional bring-a-friend passes. For example, how about creating limited edition, ticketed fitness-plus-social activities once a month where friends and family can – and are eager to – come along? 

9. CALORIES IN AS WELL AS CALORIES OUT

As part of a rising interest in wellness, people’s focus on healthy eating is stronger then ever. Cue juicing, plant-based diets, an interest in local produce… 

Of course, a food and beverage offering doesn’t have to be vegan or vegetarian, but a carefully considered café or juice bar can be a valuable addition to a fitness centre’s offering – and its revenue streams. Either go it alone or team up with a local third-party, and make it street-facing so it draws in passing traffic as well as members.

10. SELL ADSPACE

From the integrated screens on your gym equipment and the big screen of your virtual fitness studio to good old-fashioned posters on your walls, your gym is an advertising vehicle. Your members are a captive demographic audience that by definition is interested in a field many brands are now looking to enter: wellness.

This gives you a valuable product to sell, provided you price it realistically based on member numbers, member profile and likely exposure to the ads.

As an independent operator, you’re best advised to pitch advertising opportunities to local businesses. As a national chain, you can set your sights on bigger brands. Just be careful who you sell your adspace to as you categorically do not want any ads to pop up that undermine the values of your brand.

11. UNDERSTAND WHO WANTS WHAT

Integrating AI (artificial intelligence) into your operation is a great way to build your fitness revenue streams. How so? You already have data being collected by your CRM and with the Wexer digital fitness offerings, you’ll know what people are using.

Industry expert Keepme.ai: “By automatically gathering and collating every conceivable data point on every member, AI can tell you exactly what each individual wants and needs. You can then present exactly the right product at exactly the right time, in a way that genuinely resonates with people.”

We’re talking upsell and cross-sell campaigns that are so well-targeted members don’t even realise they’re being sold to. They have a need. You meet it. They’re in. What was once a sale becomes a curated, personalised, relevant recommendation that they can’t refuse – and so your yield per member grows in a truly customer-centric way.

12. CREATE SPECIALIST COURSES

Once you really understand what your members want, you might also consider creating specialist, paid-for courses to meet specific member needs: a pilates back care course, a nutrition workshop or a weight-loss bootcamp series, for example. 

Create something with enough value-add that even high-end clubs – where members naturally expect certain extras to be offered for free – will be able to launch these as revenue-generating, opt-in specials. 

If you have the expertise in-house, you might even develop courses and programmes for those with special medical conditions, creating an additional fitness revenue stream by providing local healthcare organisations with a new way to support their patients.

13. LAUNCH A TRAINING ACADEMY

Are you particularly strong when it comes to instructor training? Does your reputation precede you in this field? If so, you might consider creating an academy for external as well as internal trainers. You certainly wouldn’t be the first, and the potential revenue you can generate makes it well worth getting yourself certified by the relevant qualification bodies and quality controllers.

14. MARKET AND GET SERIOUSLY SOCIAL

Finally, whichever of these new fitness revenue streams you choose to launch or trial at your gym or fitness centre, make sure you’re marketing your services by spreading the word far and wide. Many of the above are innovations that will appeal beyond your existing customer base, so get out there and shout about them on social media!

We can help you maximise the fitness revenue streams at your gym or fitness centre. Get in touch now: info@wexer.com 

The post 4 Tips To Generate New Fitness Revenue Streams appeared first on Wexer.

What is a Digital Fitness Experience? Digital fitness refers to digital devices, software, and applications that are used to provide health and fitness content and classes. The digital fitness experience can be viewed via fitness apps or online using digital or mobile devices, or in the fitness studio on large screens, or you computer for on-demand fitness.

In the past, members only had a choice of scheduled live fitness classes during peak hours. Now, a hybrid model transforms fitness by allowing members to access virtual fitness classes and digital fitness content in addition to your live classes. They can experience fitness when and where they want it. You don’t have to wait for a class, you can work out or learn any time and any where. Download the checklist here.

Checklist To Launch A Digital Fitness Experience

1. Start With A Clear Understanding Of Digital Fitness

The first step is to understand what hybrid means, because it isn’t about creating a digital add-on. It’s about embracing digital and in-person fitness equally. You can create a seamless series of touchpoints for every customer to consume your product in a way that suits them on any given day. It’s even OK to still see your in-person experience as the pinnacle, but digital must be viewed as a critical business unit that receives the same level of attention as your in-person classes and physical space.

2. Choose Your Fitness Content Partner Wisely

You’ll need to choose a digital content partner that offers relevant and reliable technology, fitness and wellness content that suits your business model, an option to monetise should you wish, scope to own and personalise the experience, and an option to scale and maximise digital’s lack of geographical boundaries. You should also make sure your partner will be with you every step of the way, taking the headache out of getting things up and running and providing ongoing support and expertise. 

3. Create A Digital Strategy 

Before you act, ensure you have a strong digital strategy and detail the metrics you will use to measure your success. With digital content, it is easy to view your measures as you can see how many members used the app or viewed online classes and content. Then keep checking your progress against your goals and evolve your actions as needed. Acknowledge and embrace the change that’s happening, recognise your strengths and weaknesses, and work with your partner to develop and execute a digital strategy that keeps you true to your brand. 

4. Establish Your Sales, Revenue And Retention Goals

Do you need your digital offering to directly make a profit, or is it more about retaining members as a way to drive broader club revenues? Is it a marketing asset – a way to get new prospects involved with your brand? Should it be integrated into your membership tiers or have a separate pricing structure: an add-on to membership? Will you sell a standalone digital membership with no physical club access included at all? Note, there’s no right overall answer – just a right answer for your desired outcomes.

5. Create A Digital Content Plan

In a hybrid world, members will want to dive straight in to a familiar experience wherever they are, meaning you must deliver exactly the same user experience across all digital and physical touchpoints. What will that mean for your business. Crucially, what unique selling position will you offer? Will it involve you filming your own content? This is a big decision and we’re here to advise on every angle for your business. 

6. Add Wellness Content To Your Offering

With the boom in wellness, there’s an opportunity for your business to become a hub that joins the dots between fitness and wellness with a large library of expertise and programming, both physically and digitally. It can be a collaborative venture. Where you have in-house expertise, your own experts could create relevant content. But where you don’t have in-house expertise – sleep, perhaps, meditation, or stress reduction – bring in the Wexer content from expert partners, to help you deliver wellness experiences in a way that reflects positively on your brand.

7. Educate and Motivate Your Team

Gather your talent, identify their skillsets and clearly assign who does what; to make hybrid a success, it needs to be a team effort. Ensure your whole team can talk about what you’re doing with genuine understanding and passion. And show them how they can bring value to digital as well as physical themselves – including, if appropriate, encouraging and incentivising your superstars to contribute content digitally as well as in-person.

8. Create Marketing For a Pre-Launch Buzz

Make a big deal of your upcoming launch. Be ready to ‘sell’ it as a brand new experience. Get your entire team briefed and enthusiastically ready to run sample sessions and answer member questions. With the extensive member data most fitness clubs have in their club management systems, it’s easy to know who to target with which element of the offering, and what the different benefits are for different groups. Get creative in your prospect marketing, too, sharing content teasers, creating hashtags and linking them to competitions, even hosting workouts on third-party platforms to win new fans and harness the power of peer recommendation.

9. Be Patient

Getting digital up and running while turning it into a success story isn’t as hard as launching a start-up. Success won’t happen overnight, so be patient, be consistent, and keep plugging away. You are, effectively, creating a whole new business opportunity. Set realistic expectations and a realistic timeframe to achieve them.  

10. Measure & Keep Fine-Tuning

The more you can take what each person wants and embed it in their day-to-day life, the more relevant and meaningful it becomes to them, the more they will come back. So forget gut instinct. Forget what your experience might tell you. The joy of digital is that it hands you clear, usable data on what your customers are actually doing. No more guess work. Use this data to continually review your strategy and refine your digital offering: what’s being consumed, when, how, for how long? With digital, you can see very clearly what’s working… allowing you to do more of it.

Get in touch now to discuss how we can help your business go digital and get started on your checklist: info@wexer.com

The post Checklist For Launching A Digital Fitness Experience appeared first on Wexer.

Trends In Group Fitness Classes

1. Virtual Group Fitness Classes Go Local

Virtual group fitness classes aren’t necessarily a new way to deliver fitness. The Wexer virtual fitness platform has been helping gyms maximise the yield of their GX studios for over a decade, but we have seen a shift of new trends and nuances in the way they are being delivered in the pandemic’s aftermath.

Members became accustomed to doing their favourite group fitness classes online with their favourite instructors and it also created a demand for content by the fitness club’s own trainers. 

The trend began out-of-club, as the likes of Evolution Wellness partnered with Wexer to drive major uptake of its self-produced content via the Wexer ‘any time, anywhere’ digital platform. As members continue to seek the community aspect of their club environment, it makes sense for this self-produced content to find a home on the big screens of clubs’ virtual studios. 

That’s why Wexer launched Virtual Connect in 2022, allowing clubs to upload their own content into the Wexer Player alongside the vast library of Wexer Wexer virtual fitness content to enable both on-demand and scheduled use. 

Many times, the top GX classes in clubs have waitlists because they are so popular. What better way to ensure everyone gets to take part in your most popular group fitness classes led by your top stars?

2. Mobile Group Fitness Convenience

Even though members are returning to their health clubs, many companies still have hybrid work models. Health clubs and studios need to continue providing a hybrid virtual fitness model by offering members access to both physical or digital fitness. Members should be able to access virtual fitness any time, whether they are working out in the club, at home or on-the-go.

It’s why the Wexer Web Player mobile solution continues to be in demand with the large volume of virtual content. The Web Player has a new user-friendly design where every page is now highly responsive and able to adapt to larger screens, unleashing the content for maximum impact.

Alternatively, with our Wexer API and Wexer SDK, you can take whatever content you want from our library and put it straight into your own digital channels. We have curated a vast library of world-class virtual content with our global partners.

Whichever route you go, it’s about delivering what members expect with the flexibility and convenience of popular group fitness classes in members’ pockets.

3. The Rise Of Wellness

Wellness is arguably the hot trend right now, worth $1.5 trillion (USD) globally and growing at 5–10 percent annually, according to McKinsey research. Wellness is already a category we have been developing in our rich content library. In 2022, we brought in a wealth of new wellness-focused content: a Breathe channel, Stretch and Recover category, meditation, Sleep Stories by Sweat Factor, mind-body classes, and the snackable wellness breaks with Office Fit by Sweat Factor. 

The uptake has been phenomenal and indicates a broader shift within the health and fitness industry, where end users now appreciate the value of a holistic approach to their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.

We’ll continue to place a strong emphasis on wellness in 2023, making the development of this category a key focus of our content strategy this year.

4. Strength And Functional Fitness Classes

A quick glance at the latest global fitness trends by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) shows a strong and continued demand for functional training, bodyweight training, HIIT and free weights.

Over recent years, we’ve seen this demand change the entire face of the fitness floor, with large, eye-catching functional zones being created in highly visible locations. These spaces aren’t just used for personal training and independent workouts: they are also the home of popular small group personal training classes. These classes allow for a higher level of personal attention than traditional group fitness classes and less expense than one-on-one personal training.

In fact, the approach has become so popular, we’re seeing health clubs around the world expand these zones, spawning a new generation of small group fitness classes that reach and even exceed attendance in many GX studios. There really is nothing quite like it for creating a buzz in the gym!

5. Boutique Expectations

When the boutique studio sector reached critical mass a few years back, it challenged big box health clubs around the world to up their game for group fitness classes.  

First, boutiques set new expectations of flexibility, selling packages of classes rather than forcing memberships and contracts. They acknowledged people’s busy schedules and their desire to mix and match, and fitness consumers warmly welcomed this fresh approach.

But perhaps even more crucial for the big boxes, boutiques set new expectations in terms of the member experience. They continue to push the boundaries today, investing in wow factor facilities, superstar instructors and jaw-dropping AV systems. 

Increasingly, big box clubs are forced to compete or die with signature class launches and branded studios. Apply the boutique level of polish to your group fitness classes to meet member’s workout needs.

6. Data Driven Workouts vs Escapism And Fun

One interesting trend in group fitness classes today is the growing division of member participation and motivation, and the way classes are growing to meet these different trains of thought.

Indoor cycling is a great example of this, where on the one hand we’re seeing an explosion in rhythm cycling as the ‘party on a bike’ approach that SoulCycle trail blazed is now commonplace in studios around the world. It’s all about escapism and fun. The workout is almost secondary to the overall experience, and stats and data don’t get a look-in.

On the other hand, there’s a large group of exercisers who are interested in metrics, seeking performance data and evidence of progression. This has created other GX classes that are incorporating wearables and heart rate monitors, projecting performance data onto big screens, and motivating participants through challenges, personal targets, and leaderboards.

It will be interesting to see if and how this division continues to grow between technical, data-led group fitness classes and classes designed for escapism and fun.

7. Fusion Fitness

Fusion fitness has been around for a while now where group fitness classes bring together multiple disciplines in one workout. For example, there is a combination of pilates and boxing (or ‘piloxing’, as it’s known). We’re talking boutique pioneer Barry’s rolling out its RIDE x LIFT class which is a twist on its traditional class where indoor cycling replaces the treadmill.

Others are sure to follow and develop more varieties of fusion classes. They’re a great chance for operators to create signature experiences for their brands, as well as for members to take part in ‘more bang for their buck’ workouts that keep them engaged, give them a great all-round workout and offer high perceived value for money.  

8. Outdoor Exercise

Here’s another one from the ACSM’s 2023 global fitness trends, which ranked outdoor exercise as trend #6.

Of course, the ACSM’s definition of outdoor exercise spans everything from hiking to running, cycling, paddleboarding, and kayaking. But with exercise moving outdoors for much of the pandemic, we saw many gyms take their group fitness classes outdoors. A good proportion of these GX classes have remained, as members have appreciated not just the physical but also the mental health benefits of exercising in the great outdoors. 

9. Virtual Fitness Is Hot

Virtual content is where the money now is, so it’s hardly surprising that everyone from celebrities to media networks are generating fitness content, with the focus generally on group fitness classes. In short, group exercise is no longer the exclusive domain of traditional fitness providers.

Yet, as noted in trend #1, clubs still have a major advantage with their in-house superstars. Group exercise instructors have been key to member loyalty and building communities of enthusiastic followers. Now they’ve become even stronger over recent years with the virtual GX classes. 

If you’re not taking advantage of virtual and mobile fitness content, move with the times by creating content fronted by your own local instructors. Stay relevant even in this fast-moving ‘me too’ market. 

Find out how Wexer can keep your business ahead of the game when it comes to group exercise: info@wexer.com

The post Ways Group Fitness Classes Are Changing Trends Forever appeared first on Wexer.