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Fitness industry archives and news

Nov 21
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What incentives should you offer to your customers?

By Fitness business management archives and news, Fitness industry archives and news, Fitness marketing and social archives and news

Between now and the end of the year we’re going to take a look at 5 areas to help you Get 2023 ready.  Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin or Twitter to be sure you don’t miss our follow-up posts.

In our second blog post in the series, we looked at how to set a pricing strategy.  In this post, we build on that topic to think about pricing tactics and what incentives you may consider both to bring in new customers but also to increase spending and retention from your existing ones.

Broadly these incentives fall into three types:

  • Incentives to try/join
  • Incentives to commit
  • Incentives to refer

Incentives to try/join

These incentives are well-known and would include ‘First class free’, ‘First month free’ or ‘Free PT consultation’ etc.

When thinking about these types of incentives it helps to think about three questions.

First, consider how long is needed to determine whether they’ll benefit from your services.  This also, of course, should take into account how long you’re asking your customer to commit. For example, if you’re requiring a yearly contract you may want to give a potential customer longer to decide than if you are offering pay-as-you-go classes.

Secondly, consider how long you think a customer needs to become an engaged customer. How long do they need to build a routine or habit that ensures you’ve converted them?

Thirdly, consider the cost to you of the offer.  Can you afford a strong take-up of the incentive?  The cost to set up and administer the offer should also be factored in.

It is also worth noting, that if you don’t feel a free or longer free period is justified, a discount can work just as well for many, especially in relation to more expensive services.  This approach can also place a higher perceived value on quality and demand which for less price-sensitive buyers may be desirable.

Incentives to commit

These incentives are more business model considerations and would include decisions around whether to offer memberships, courses/blocks and class packs etc.

The consideration here is how much you want to require or even incentivise a bigger upfront commitment as against short-run or even per-session payments.  For many smoothing and visibility of future income is desirable, but in an age where customers increasingly value flexibility, this can be a difficult balance to strike.

For some businesses with high demand or waitlists, the right decision here will be to not incentivise commitment at all, but rather just enable a regular full-priced (e.g. membership, or course/block) for customer convenience of buying or securing a space.

A second option where demand is strong or artificially creates that view is to incentivise commitment based on the access.  For example, you could give members or course buyers priority access to sessions, or an existing course buyer priority over a space on the next.  This can create an incentive to commit without costing you anything.

Where offering a price incentive to commit is desirable, matching that to your customers’ cash flow and own schedule is a good idea.  For example, if your customers generally have children, would it be a better fit to offer term-time blocks rather than year round memberships?  Or perhaps if you want to keep a premium pay-as-you-go pricing model just offering a small discount on class packs that expire based on a date from purchase may make more sense than a discounted membership.

Incentives to refer

Finally, we consider incentives you may wish to offer to customers or local partners for referring new customers.  These are often more costly than standalone free trial products, as it generally makes sense to also include your standard offer for the new customer.

Examples might be a free class pass when you bring a friend, a month’s free membership for a successful sign-up, a gift card on success or even straight cash.  Generally, it makes most financial sense to offer incentives where you can absorb your margin as part of the cost (i.e. it’s not an additional hard cash outgoing), but this of course is only the case if the incentive proves sufficiently motivating as against offering something more tangible like a gift card or cash.

Given their additional cost, we’d recommend carefully considering when and for how long these types of incentives are used, as well as meticulously tracking how successful they are.  The one big advantage they have is that it’s very likely that your existing customer base has good access to potential customers with a similar demographic and set of needs/preferences.  As such, whilst these incentives cost more, there’s every chance they’ll convert well and, indeed, may be less costly than other more outward-facing marketing initiatives.

Thinking more widely than your existing customer base for referrals can also be beneficial.  Perhaps there are local businesses with a large employee base, a service provider or even a coffee house/restaurant that has a client base that would match up well to your services who you could create a more bespoke offer for.  There’s every chance there are businesses that you may even be able to partner with to offer something in return to reduce or even remove the cost entirely.

With your pricing strategy and incentive tactics now thought through, in our next blog post, we’ll move to thinking about operational efficiency strategies, including cancellation policies. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin or Twitter to see when it drops in the coming week!

Ollie is the founder of Gymcatch, a booking and customer management software company. Visit gymcatch.com/pricing for pricing information.

Nov 14
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How to price your fitness services

By Fitness business management archives and news, Fitness industry archives and news, Fitness marketing and social archives and news

How to price your fitness services.  What are your customers willing to pay for your services?  How long and what are they prepared to commit to?

Between now and the end of the year we’re going to take a look at 5 areas to help you Get 2023 ready.  Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin or Twitter to be sure you don’t miss our follow-up posts.

In our first blog post in the series, we thought about how to define your target customer and how that should inform the services you offer.  In this post, we build on that topic to consider the evergreen topic of pricing. Here we focus on your pricing strategy, and in a follow-up post, we’ll get deeper into specific promotional tactics. 

Be aware of bias

Before we think about your business, it’s worth raising a couple of important human characteristics that invariably influence pricing.  The first is a psychological bias known as ‘loss aversion’.  This bias can unconsciously lead you to under-price your services.  The bias entails that we fear loss more than valuing potential gains, so as applied to pricing, it entails that it’s natural to take what you’ve charged to date, or what the competition charge, as a reference point, fear the worse with regards customers’ propensity to not pay or switch services, and undershoot what you could charge.  i.e. you fear the worse when considering a price change rather than accurately weighing that as against the potential upside.

Secondly, there’s an emotional element to pricing for many. One likely strength of your business is its sense of community and your relationships with your customers.  Many may be considered friends who you socialise with.  This can naturally lead to a desire to please/aversion to confrontation and impact your confidence in making price changes, especially in a scenario where you feel funds are tight.

Of course, both of these natural tendencies exist for a reason, they serve us well in many situations, and ultimately you won’t (nor should you) try to ignore them completely but being aware of them can help in driving a more objective assessment of your businesses’ pricing strategy.

Keeping those tendencies in mind, we move to assess two important inputs to your pricing strategy; your business and your customers.

Your business

As you think about pricing your fitness services, you need to start by ensuring you understand the costs that need to be met by the output of your strategy – i.e. to understand your breakeven point.

Your monthly breakeven point should include your desired base income and all venue and marketing costs.  If you know you’ll be quieter in certain months of the year (and have required outgoings for those months) you should factor this into your thinking for busier periods.  A good exercise during this time is to assess your costs for any efficiencies that can be made. This will help you identify the common costs you can reduce (insert link). This is to say, you’d increase your income target in the busier months to make up for the quieter ones.

A second business-level consideration is cash flow. This is really about the timings for incoming and outgoing cash to your business and ensuring that they are aligned.  Generally, there’s a trade-off between offering longer-term (e.g. monthly memberships, courses/blocks) and shorter-term (e.g. pay as you go, class packs) commitment-based products. 

The former strategy gives greater visibility of revenue but the latter, as it’s normally priced at a premium, would be, all things equal, revenue maximising.  The extent to which you want to smooth cash flow versus relying on regular repetitive purchases feeds into how you price the different products you offer.  Of course, what your customers are able and willing to commit also feeds into this.  Quite often the right answer is a blend, but every business is different and should think through the value to them of each.

Your customers

With your breakeven point and cash flow needs to be established, we’d recommend experimenting with different pricing and customer purchasing numbers on paper or a basic spreadsheet.  From this, you can begin to get a feel for what range of pricing and demand meets your breakeven point and generate some ideas from which to evolve your thinking.

You can now look at your pricing ideas from your customers’ (and target customers’) perspective.  Assessing willingness to pay is difficult but using your customer profile from our first post in the series and reviewing, if applicable, how customer retention changed after a previous price change will all feed into your overall conclusion.  Trying to place them (generalised) on a 1-10 sensitivity scale may help.  If you think they are highly sensitive then you may also want to consider what the local competition is doing and pay some attention to that. This is not to say you match or undercut, more just be sure that the value you offer can be clearly communicated in comparison.

Once you’ve formed a view on price sensitivity you can overlay that against your range of high-low pricing and product commitment (long v short-term options) models to conclude what makes sense for your business.

Track and review

As you launch your new strategy, be sure to regularly review how it’s performing and consider whether the assumptions you’ve made throughout this process are holding true.

Having followed a logical process, you should feel confident in the strategy and launch.  That said, as the above has revealed, determining a sound pricing structure requires you to make reasonable assumptions across often inferred preferences, so ultimately you can’t be 100% certain on how a new offering or changes will land.  As such, how you communicate price changes is also important – our 5th blog post in this series will come back to the subject of messaging.  So, as you launch, stay close to your customers as you launch it and watch for feedback. 

‘Watch’ is the right word, because stated versus revealed preferences can be very different here.  For example, I might indicate that I’m upset about a price rise, but if I still pay/keep coming there’s perhaps a reality that I can’t be that upset about it.  Indeed, it may be that you’d weigh that type of feedback from customers more than others.

With your base pricing strategy now established, we’ll build on these considerations in our next post and look at how you can evolve your pricing tactics to add incentives for current and target customers.  Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin or Twitter to see when it drops in the coming week!

Ollie is the founder of Gymcatch, a booking and customer management software company. Visit gymcatch.com/pricing for pricing information.

For more information on Gymcatch personal training booking software and how it can help your business get in touch to book a demo or start a free trial.

Nov 01
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5 key considerations for managing block bookings or courses

By Dance, Fitness business management archives and news, Fitness industry archives and news, Gym and studios, Pilates, Yoga

In this blog, we consider when to sell sessions in courses or blocks, how best to maximise their operational efficiency, and block-to-block customer retention.

Are courses or blocks right for your customer?

A common theme in our business management content is to start with your customer.  We make no apologies for this, when thinking about your business model you should always start with an assessment of your customer or target customer.

When reviewing whether a course/block of sessions is right for your customers it helps to consider a few headline questions:

  • Do you assess your client’s progress frequently or set short-term milestones?
  • Is there a scheduling reason that courses/blocks may suit your customer better than other models (i.e. pay-as-you-go/memberships)? For example, are you targeting parents that have more availability during school term time?  Or kids where it’s often vice versa?
  • Can your customers afford larger one-offs, or twice over-term payments?
  • Would a perceived lack of flexibility in scheduling put them off?
  • What, if any, service would customers want when you’re not running courses?

When considering these questions, it is perhaps not surprising that many of our business customers who operate this model do so because:

  • They focus on parents as a demographic, effectively dove-tailing with school terms
  • The structure is particularly popular with Pilates and yoga modalities
  • Other programs where clear end results over a period are a focus often use them, with many personal trainers offering either 1-2-1 or small group training courses/blocks.

Your decision-making process can, of course, also be supported by considering whether alternative business models would work better:

  • In instances where courses/blocks make the most sense, it’s often the case that a membership model might be perceived by your customers as too long-term, or a waste of money (as regular commitments mean it wouldn’t get used for much of the year)
  • Whilst pay-as-you-go can supplement course income, running that by itself may also be seen as lacking a desired certainty of attendance for customers and, indeed, income for you as the business owner.  

How to think about retention

A reason we often hear for using memberships over courses is that the former encourages greater retention, as it doesn’t require a regular review / re-purchase. With this, it’s assumed that by surfacing the buying decision regularly you can increase the chances for the customer to cancel/not re-buy.

In our experience, and based on the data we see, this is not a valid assumption, and we believe it rests on some antiquated thinking.  Whilst memberships are absolutely a great model for many businesses, having a recurring, ongoing, payment does not in itself increase customer retention.  Customers are now, perhaps more so than ever, very aware of their outgoings and rights with regards to cancellation.  Just because a payment is automated does not mean that it is unknown or unnoticed.

In our experience, when businesses build a course-centric customer base the ongoing requirement to commit to the next course/block serves to increase retention.  This is because it introduces a ‘fear of missing out’.  This is to say that customers can be made aware that spaces are limited, the course is popular, and if they don’t recommit then they may lose their space with no guarantee they’ll get it back.  This in turn increases their propensity to turn up to sessions and make use of their allocated space.  It therefore actually serves to have a positive impact on accountability, far more so than with a membership where the available sessions are entirely optional/bookable.

In addition, you can increase the ‘fear of missing out’ by layering extra privileges on buyers of your past course/blocks.  For instance, you could offer a priority purchasing window for your next course/block that’s only accessible to those that bought the previous one.  This adds immediacy to the buying decision and, again, drives repeated attendance and accountability which will assist in retention (our industry-leading Priority Access feature can help here).

How to handle swaps and drop-ins?

One understandable gripe we repeatedly hear on our consults is the time it takes many to administer week-to-week swaps when courses/blocks are running.  Illness, transport, childcare, and holidays are common themes that can cause customers to miss scheduled sessions and want to swap into different courses/blocks’ weekly sessions.

Whatever you decide to set for your cancellation policy for sessions, if you’re offering a swap/credit, the process needs to be easy and manageable.  Ensure you find a system (e.g. Gymcatch) that can handle the customer canceling and rebooking of their spot (where there’s availability) across courses/blocks without having to contact you.

With regards to drop-ins, these can be a nice way to both enable swaps, but also boost income if your course isn’t full.  The main thing here is to ensure that you’re not opening up too many spots too early (i.e. too far before their start time).  It’s important to remember that for every drop-in you sell, that reduces your total course capacity (until that session is complete) by one.  So drop-ins at premium pricing are really best used either when they’re made available close to the start date of the session, or if there’s considerable excess capacity in the course.

What to do outside of course term time?

Where courses/blocks are run across school terms, we see two approaches to non-term time.  One approach is to leave the calendar clear.  This can give customers a break, and the flexibility to manage childcare without feeling like they’re missing out or, guilt for non-attendance.  This can also give the business owner some valuable time to refocus on pre-marketing the next courses/blocks and general admin that’s difficult to do during the period of delivery.  If you hire space and variable business costs, it can also mean that you don’t necessarily continue to incur in-term overheads.

The second option we see deployed successfully is for a more flexible set-up over the period.  This might be where you allow only pay as you go, or class pack / bundle-bought sessions.  This can be a great way to boost non-term time income and gives those that want to maintain their routine the ability to do so, all without in any way prejudicing those that can’t.

How to launch or migrate to a new booking system?

If your booking system doesn’t allow for all of the above, then there’s potentially a decision to be made to migrate to one that does.

If you are moving from pen and paper, then planning a launch in between courses/blocks is no doubt a good strategy and can ensure everything kicks off with minimum disruption.  If you’re not digitally confident look for 1-2-1 onboarding as part of the offer.  At Gymcatch, we pride ourselves on ensuring that all customers receive the onboarding support they need.

If you are migrating from a system that doesn’t provide these solutions, or that you’re over-paying for, then thinking about the following can be helpful:

  • When are you going to switch?  Again, in between courses/blocks can make a lot of sense, but equally the system may be able to import/add customers to existing courses/blocks, which may make for a gradual switchover while you’re still seeing customers regularly face-to-face to smooth the inevitable (if hopefully infrequent) questions that come up.
  • Can you import customer data and create their accounts for them?
  • Is it easy for customers to claim their accounts?

We hope you found the post useful.  If you would like to speak about the above and discuss your online booking software and your fitness bootcamp booking software needs, please book a free consultation here or if you’d like to give Gymcatch a go for free for 1 month, please get started here.

Sep 28
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ASFA® and Gymcatch announce strategic partnership

By Fitness business management archives and news, Fitness industry archives and news

The American Sports and Fitness Association® is pleased to announce its new partnership with Gymcatch. By providing great value gym booking software and customer management software for fitness and wellness businesses, ASFA® recognizes Gymcatch’s commitment to making participation easier for all.

As a leading Personal Trainer & Fitness Certification provider, ASFA® recognizes and appreciates the need for companies like Gymcatch who create easy-to-use, affordable tools that help our customers manage their businesses, enabling them to do more of what they do best: bring exercise to their community.  We are delighted to offer our community 20% off their first 12 months on the service with code ASFA20. You can find out more about the service and register here.

Additionally, we are excited to proudly display Gymcatch’s logo on ASFA’s Partner Page with other leaders in the industry such as MyCPR NOW™ – the leading online CPR and First Aid Certification provider, Human Kinetics – the leader in fitness texts and manuals provider, Berxi – a Berkshire Hathaway company and more than 100 gym chains and fitness institutions.

For more information on Gymcatch fitness and wellness booking software and how it can help your business get in touch to book a demo or start a free month.

 

Feb 02
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Thinking of scaling up your fitness business online?

By Fitness industry archives and news

Launching an online fitness business is a super effective way to scale up your operation quickly and reach out to more clients. However, this can be a daunting prospect for most as they can feel a little overwhelmed trying to catch up with this ever more popular online revenue stream.

Many fitness professionals are still attached to costly group-ex format licence fees that do not allow them to invest in their own online booking software. Others may lack the know-how or confidence to run online fitness classes as an effective business proposition. And many don’t have the flexibility to choose how or where they teach as their current programme’s limitations.

Technology today means you can download an app to help you structure your classes and deliver a killer workout from anywhere in the world, whether that is live, virtually or on-demand.

“Creating premium digital content takes time and can be very expensive. We are on mission at SH1FT to make digital first solutions for fitness instructors looking to launch or expand their business online. SH1FT instructors are fully supported to create their digital presence and teach where, when and how they want,” says Will Brereton, Founder of SH1FT.

 

How to use tech to improve your fitness services

With the environment now stabilizing, fitness instructors are breathing a welcomed sigh of relief as they have had to adapt to so many changes fast in the past few years. There is a number, however, perhaps the most engaged online or who have been running that online experience for longer, who are now looking at how they can use tech to access data to improve their services and take their business to the next level. 

In his latest podcast, Will says “your customers expect to be able to use your products your services in a variety of ways, both offline and digital. So we know that digital fitness is here to stay, and that it will form part of what your consumers are looking for.”

However, if you’re one of the many instructors that’s found maintaining momentum with your digital teaching difficult, you are in good company.

SH1FT is working with Gymcatch to provide group instructors with the tools they need to take bookings, payments and manage their business in the most cost-effective way.

What is SH1FT?

SH1FT is the brainchild of Will Brereton who wanted to build a global community of Group Fitness Instructors that strive to create ‘fitness for life’ so that their class goers can feel great at any age, with anybody. SH1FT is founded on three main values:

TRAIN SMARTER, NOT HARDER: Hard work doesn’t have to be hard on your body. We use smart, safe and simple progressions to ensure that all levels of fitness can be catered for in a single group.
FITNESS FOR LIFE, NOT JUST FOR SUMMER: We believe fitness is about feeling great in your own skin…for the long term!
FOR ANYBODY, WITH ANY BODY: We create workouts that are non-intimidating, simple and inclusive (not to mention fun!).

SH1FT has created a collection of Group Fitness formats that Instructors use to teach live, online, and blended classes. Each workout is taught using their own market-leading App which automates the boring stuff (saving huge amounts of time and money) and gives Instructors an easy and fast way to customise workouts that are unique to them. Instructors are empowered to deliver engaging, personalised fitness classes where, when, and how they want – with zero restrictions.

Dec 01
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The top destinations for an active holiday

By Fitness industry archives and news

For many of us, international travel is a means to escape, wind-down and de-stress by the beach (maybe with a good book in hand, or a cocktail or two). But there are other ways to recharge and return home revitalised.

Getting active is a fun and easy way to boost mental and physical wellbeing, so why not incorporate it into your next holiday? Sporting holidays are a great way to improve — or learn — a new skill, leave with a sense of achievement, and perhaps more adventurous holiday snaps to share with family and friends. 

We looked at how well equipped the 50 top world holiday destinations are for hiking, cycling, skiing, water sports and yoga. We then considered weekly budgets and the number of tourists to find the most accessible and affordable ‘active holidays’ for your next big trip abroad.

The world champions of active holiday destinations

The study reveals that Australia is the top destination for an active holiday, scoring in the top 10 for all the sports other than skiing. Australia offers the most hiking trails per tourist, with 9653 different hiking routes on offer (or 1,095 routes per 1 million tourists). With beautiful coasts, rugged outback, mountain ranges and tropical rainforests, there’s a diverse range of landscapes to explore on foot. Australia is also the 4th best destination for water sports, the 8th best for yoga and the 10th best for cycling. 

You may know Brazil as the world’s football capital, but the Latin country is a haven for sport lovers of all kinds. Coming 2nd in the study, Brazil scored particularly well for cycling; with the 4th most routes per tourist. The country came 11th for water sports, and 12th for yoga retreats and number of hiking trails, although — like Australia — the tropical destination is no skiing hotspot. 

Norway came 3rd in the list. An alternative to the ski-season favourites, France and Switzerland, Norway offers the third best skiing option for international travellers when considering the length of ski slopes on offer. 

Completing the top five were Switzerland in 4th place (which came top for skiing options per tourist) and the United States in 5th position (which came just behind Australia for hiking trails per tourist).

Best countries for cyclists

When ignoring data per tourist, it’s no surprise that Germany, Italy and France have the most listed cycling route options. But looking at the number on offer per tourist, there are plenty of alternative and attractive destinations to explore by pedal-power.

Even when taking in the amount of visitors per year, Germany is the ultimate cycling destination, with at least 1,500,000 routes listed. In second place — a trip promised to make you sweat — is Switzerland (although there are plenty of easier lake-side routes for beginners). In third place Poland offers the third most routes per tourist, thanks to a large recent investment in biking infrastructure. Cyclists can expect forest and river-bank trails, mountain trails and newly built city cycling lanes — check out the GreenVelo route to get started. 

The most ski slopes per tourist 

It’s no surprise that looking at the sheer length of ski slopes on offer, the United States and France both have over 10,000 KM of ski runs to race down. But if you don’t want to be squeezed into a ski-chalet, Switzerland, Austria and Norway offer more slopes to ski on per tourist. Switzerland is also the second most expensive destination on our list, so if you’ve wanted to try your hand at skiing but have been put off by the price, then Austria and Norway are excellent places to begin. 

Yogi paradise

But not everyone wants an adrenaline rush on holiday. To reap the mental benefits of physical activity in a more chilled environment, why not do as celebrities and influencers do and try a yoga retreat? India is the home of yoga, and our data only fortifies its title as the ultimate yoga destination. With a whopping 797 yoga retreats — by far the most per tourist too — choosing the perfect retreat will be a stress-free experience. 

With the tenets of Buddhism and Hinduism being central to its culture, Indonesia is a worthy runner-up. Whether you’re into eco-yoga, hot-yoga or something more luxurious, there’s something for every type of Yogi in Bali and beyond. 

But you don’t need to travel across the world to downward dog. Portugal has over 221 listed yoga retreats and offers some livelier options which combine sports like surfing and yoga. 

Top places for water sports

Again, it’s no surprise that bigger nations, like the United States, win on sheer volume of facilities. But per tourist, Egypt, Vietnam and Indonesia are refreshing options for a water sports holiday. 

Egypt topped the list and has been gaining interest with water sports enthusiasts over the last few years. The coral reef in Sharm el-Sheikh is considered to be one of the best diving spots in the world, and elsewhere, visitors can expect to snorkel alongside turtles and dolphins. 

Vietnam and Indonesia, in 2nd and 3rd position, are both great destinations for adrenaline junkies. These south-east Asian spots are great places to try kitesurfing, parasailing or water-skiing, with Vietnam offering slightly more choice per visitor. 

Which destinations are most popular?

But where are Brits searching for their active holidays the most? By using Google Search Trends analytics, we can see that, likely due to travel restrictions, most Brits have been searching for active holidays in the UK and Europe. 

The most searched European destination for an active holiday is Greece. Greece is an obvious choice for a sea-soaked Mediterranean adventure, but it is also the 7th best country in the world for choice of Yoga retreats.

Croatia was the next most searched for destination (and is the 6th best world destination for water sports facilities), and France, famous for cycling and skiing, was the 3rd most searched for spot. 

Considering the recent anxiety around travel, it’s clear that European destinations are currently more appealing. Rather than heading to Greece or Croatia, our research suggests the top sporting destinations in Europe are Norway, Switzerland and Germany.

After a difficult few years, we all deserve a break. We hope this study inspires you to plan your ultimate, active holiday and push yourself out of your comfort zone. Swap your flip-flops for trainers, your book for a bike, and explore the world one adventure at a time. 

Nov 30
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Map fitness ranking

Pilates tops the list of the most in-demand exercise

By Fitness industry archives and news, Pilates

Top wellness and fitness trend

Pilates is the exercise discipline that showed the most resilience throughout the ups and downs of the Covid pandemic. Our research shows that the public stuck with, or turned to, Pilates when other exercise disciplines were experiencing tougher trading conditions.

Formed by Joseph and Clara Pilates in the 1920’s when they opened Body Conditioning Gym in New York City, Pilates has evolved through the years while sticking to its original philosophy and principles.

Today over 12 million people enjoy the benefits of Pilates, establishing itself as the top wellness and fitness trend in the UK throughout the pandemic, performing even more robustly than Yoga.

“We have seen a surge for low impact classes. People are increasingly focused on wellness and Pilates offers a great blend of flexibility and strength training,” says Ollie Bailey, CEO at Gymcatch.

The popularity of Pilates

When assessing the popularity of Pilates the main factor was consumer attitudes to the discipline. Pilates enthusiasts, more than in other areas of fitness and wellness, considered Pilates to be an essential part of their routines, rather than a hobby.

Moreover, in a period where people were particularly keen to avoid using health services, we saw consistent feedback that the low-impact, low injury risk reputation of the discipline saw consumers turn to Pilates rather than disciplines that they perceived as riskier.

Finally, Pilates has proved to be a more convenient form of exercise during the past year, as lower intensity and simpler forms of Pilates were perfectly suited to participation at home.

“Pilates has evolved, and demand has increased due to the pandemic with more people looking for mind-body health and overall wellbeing. Thirty minutes a day can be enough to get real results, so it fits into the workday well,” says Joanne Cobbe from JPilates.

Pilates in numbers

Lower impact exercise saw a 2556% increase in bookings between January and July 2021 on Gymcatch. Pilates alone has seen a 25% increase from 2020 to 2021, despite the incredibly challenging backdrop. In the UK Pilates is a truly national discipline with participation levels slightly higher in London and southern counties but distributed throughout the country with almost half of English counties searching for a Pilates exercise class.

Fitness map display

 

Virtual Pilates classes are here to stay

Many consumers have fully adjusted to online classes and are now seeking the perfect blend of face- to-face and virtual sessions. But this does not mean that face-to-face delivery is going anywhere. The majority of consumers have returned to in-person delivery and in most cases virtual sessions appear to be supplementing, rather than replacing the in person experience.

Following the end of the national lockdown in the UK in April 2021 we’ve seen a steady recovery of in person delivery. In May 25% of classes were still online only. During June and July 2021 85% of classes were delivered in-personGymcatch expects about 10% of pilates participation to permanently switch to virtual.

“People still want access to On-Demand content or have the option to attend a live-streamed class. By doing both, Pilates instructors can offer more value and more convenience for their clients while adding revenue, new streams and resilience to their businesses,” says Ollie Bailey, CEO at Gymcatch.

For more information on Gymcatch yoga studio software and how it can help with your yoga or pilates business, get in contact to book a demo or start a free trial.

 

 

Sep 14
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Fitness trends in 2021: Group fitness helped Brits through the pandemic

By Fitness industry archives and news

In March 2020 our everyday lives changed drastically, with most Brits being stripped of their favourite fitness routines. The pandemic made us homebound, but how did the fitness industry adapt to this new way of living, and where do we stand now? We’ve analysed the bookings made through our app and search volumes to help you understand how the pandemic changed the fitness landscape.

 

LOW IMPACT TRAINING GAINED THE MOST POPULARITY


Low Impact Training (LIT) for older adults was the highest relative gainer during the pandemic. LIT classes saw a 2556% relative increase in bookings between January and July 2021 compared to the number of bookings from the same period of time the year before, reaching the highest number of bookings in March 2021 with exercises such as Active Aging and Paracise to the fore.

Besides LIT, gymnastics, and martial arts classes also saw big increases in bookings in 2021, with classes being held virtually from January till April, and then in person after the easing of the lockdown measures.

Perhaps surprisingly, the gymnastics lovers were eager to carry on exercising during the pandemic as the sport had the second highest relative increase with bookings for classes going up by 308% during the first half of the 2021 when compared to 2020. Martial arts also bounced back strongly in 2021, with Karate, Jiu Jitsu, and Kung Fu bookings seeing a 203% like-for-like increase on the Gymcatch platform between January and July 2021, placing martial arts classes in third place.

DANCE AND RHYTHM: THE MOST POPULAR WORKOUT CATEGORY OVERALL


Fun dance and rhythm related exercise classes such as Zumba, Pole, Clubbercise, and Boogie Bounce accounted for a third of all exercise classes booked through the Gymcatch apps in 2021, dubbing the category the most popular form of exercise for the third year running.

The classes gained even more relative popularity over the pandemic as 20% of all our booked classes in 2019 were dance and rhythm related, whereas during the pandemic the category saw a 10% increase and accounted for 30% of all classes in 2021.

Being one of the Brits’s all time favourite exercises, boxing has remained as the second most popular exercise for the past 3 years. Between 2020 and 2021 the third most popular exercise has changed from Aerobics to now highly popular Low Impact Training.

MENTAL HEALTH VALUED MORE IN LOCKDOWN


Lockdown periods have taken their toll on mental health, with feelings of uncertainty increasing anxiety. Therefore it comes as no surprise that 5% of all classes booked through Gymcatch in 2021 accounted for emerging wellness classes.

To help manage negative emotions, Brits have been actively looking to book online Meditation classes and Thrive Approach which promotes children’s positive mental health by helping parents to understand their child’s mental state also gained popularity.

The highest number of these type of wellness class bookings were recorded between March and July 2020, and January and April 2021 when the UK was still under national lockdown. Like-for-like, they were 50% more popular in April 2021 than there were in April 2020, indicating that people had looked for ways to maintain and improve their mental health to get through the uncertain times.

Lockdown undoubtedly caused a rise in virtual workouts and socially distanced outdoor activities, and following the end of the national lockdown in April 2021, this trend continued, with people still hesitant to attend in-person classes. In May 25% of classes were still online only, reducing to 15% in June and July 2021.

PERSONAL TRAINER DEMAND IN 2021


Personal trainers were in demand after the UK’s gyms reopened in April 2021. The number of personal training sessions booked through the Gymcatch app saw a 70% spike in April compared to the demand just a month earlier in March. All in all there were 10% more personal training sessions booked between January and July 2021 than there were during the same months in 2020.

PRE AND POST NATAL CLASSES: 2021 SAW A RISE IN BOOKINGS


In 2020, Pre and Post Natal classes accounted for a smaller share of the overall class bookings than they did pre-pandemic in 2019. However, in 2021 the number of bookings saw an uptrend and the classes made up 3% of all places booked using the Gymcatch apps. The number of Pre and Post Natal class bookings increased by 135% between January and July 2021 compared to the same period of time the year before in 2020.

THE MOST SEARCHED FOR EXERCISES IN THE UK


The Brits seem to disagree on their favourite exercises, as most of the English were looking up for local Pilates classes with the Scottish showing more interest in yoga and core workouts over the past 3 years. Like the Scottish, the Welsh were on a journey of a balanced lifestyle with yoga being the most searched for exercise. In Northern Ireland people were keen to work on their abs with most searches being for core exercises.

Even the English were divided over their favourite exercise; the South preferring Pilates, whereas the North preferred Yoga and Gymnastics. Overall, the most searched for exercises were Pilates, Yoga, and Martial Arts.

Things might not be as they used to be quite yet, but for what it’s worth at least gyms are open now, and most exercise classes are running as they were before the pandemic, providing many with a much needed sense of routine and community.

For more information on Gymcatch personal training booking software and how it can help your business get in touch to book a demo or start a free trial. 

 

 

Apr 07
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Gymcatch partners with HFE to deliver booking and management tools to their instructors

By Fitness business management archives and news, Fitness industry archives and news
HFE

Gymcatch is proud to be partnering with HFE to provide their instructors industry-leading booking and management tools.

HFE is the one of the UK’s leading providers of personal trainer courses and fitness qualifications including exercise to music, yoga, Pilates and sports massage. For them, it’s less the qualification that maters, but more what their instructors become in the process. They challenge each and every student to ‘become more’, to go out into the industry and truly change lives.

To make this to happen they run practical training at over 35 nationwide venues including London, Manchester, Glasgow, Cardiff and Birmingham.  This is backed up by unlimited support from a dedicated tutor and access to a bespoke online learning system which includes exclusive video lectures delivered by leading doctors, physiotherapists, nutritionists and dietitians.

Speaking about an exciting new partnership with Gymcatch, HFE’s Marketing Manager Josh Douglas-Walton had this to say:

“We never have a shortage of companies and organisations wanting to work with us and because of this we have the luxury of being able to handpick our partnerships. One of the most important things for us is that any potential partner embodies of ethos of helping our students and graduates become more. What’s clear with Gymcatch is they can do just that. They have the ability to cater for our wide spectrum of graduates, from personal trainers to group exercise instructors, and with an incredibly impressive feature-set, it’s going to be a very exciting a few weeks, months and hopefully years working together.”

Ollie Bailey, Gymcatch CEO, commented:

“We’re delighted to be parting with HFE. It’s been clear in our discussions that they really care about their community and focus on offering a holistic approach to entering and thriving within the industry. We look forward to supporting this approach and their members in the future.”

For more information on Gymcatch yoga studio software and how it can help with your yoga, pilates and sports massage business, get in contact to book a demo.

Dec 07
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Fitness marketing tips: 5 steps to boost your fitness business

By Fitness business management archives and news, Fitness industry archives and news, Fitness marketing and social archives and news

Whether a gym, studio, group instructor or personal training business, tried and trusted marketing campaigns can be transformed with digital support. Here we examine 5 well-established campaigns and look at how digital can enhance your marketing returns.


1. Publish your schedule

Ok, so we’ve started with a bit of an obvious one. It’s one thing getting your name out there, but if you don’t tell people what’s on when and make it easy to book, you’re not helping yourself (or your customers).

Knowing that schedules change, we know that this process can be difficult.

Gymcatch helps here by providing one digital source of truth for what’s on when. You can refer people to one web page, or one in-app ‘What’s On’ tab to give them a clear picture of what’s on when. With our unique ‘Appointment Windows’, you can also add one-to-one availability in a flexible way, enabling bookings within a wider time slot rather than having to give a rigid structure that may not work for existing clients or potential customers.


2. Run a referral program

This is a well known strategy, but it is indeed very likely that your best source for new customers are your existing. They’re already buying into your services, so it’s highly likely they know other people with similar backgrounds who would also be interested in what you have to offer.

Nonetheless, referral programs are often poorly advertised and aren’t exactly easy to act upon. If you ask some of your customers, I’m sure they’ll say they’d be willing to recommend your business, but actually getting them to sit down and write that email, send that text or make that phone call is difficult, and you don’t want to be ‘that person’ who keeps asking for something…

The solution here is two-fold. Firstly, keep the referral program front and centre. This can be done easily with posters, emails and verbal reminders. None of this is ‘in your face’ marketing, and it doesn’t put your customers under undue pressure. The second key is to make sure referrals are easy. The best way to do this is to make the referral personally and contextually relevant.

We achieve this within Gymcatch with our prominent session ‘Share’ function, which customers see whilst browsing sessions but also at the completion of a booking. This makes it easy for a potential referee to share specific session details via email, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter etc. with a personalized message suggesting their friend gets in on the action.


3. Offer a free trial

So you’ve secured your referral, but then how do you make it easy for that person to come for their first session? You don’t want to create any barriers or additional admin for them – any extra effort creates an opportunity for them to give up. Making the booking possible without the customer having to put much effort in is key.

Every business will have their own experience and point of view regarding free trials. Some think one visit is enough, but we’ve seen as high as a five-session free pass to encourage an initial habit formation. It may also be that you want to limit which sessions the free pass can be used for. Whatever your strategy, you need to make it as easy as possible to book.

With Gymcatch, you can create a free pass, assign specific sessions to the pass, and set a time limit on the pass itself. You’ll always have complete visibility of who’s redeemed the pass, so you can give them specific focus and give yourself the best possible chance of converting them into a customer.


4. Group wellness programs

We’ve all read the well trodden marketing campaign targeting local business owners to set up a bespoke wellness programs, whether it’s a discounted membership or a value group/bundle discount for class or one-to-one training.

Whilst certainly worth exploring, once established you’ve still got to find a nudge within the business to get them to take advantage of the scheme. One option is to target businesses where your current customers are working – this way you have an internal advocate ready to go. The downside here is there’s no guarantee the client in question is going to be comfortable with pushing your services internally.

Another option is to try and link a group activity or cause to starting your sessions. Matching up a program to tie in with half marathons, ToughMudder (or similar) or a custom challenge you design with your wellness program is a great idea as it can create an initial buzz and motivation to sign up in the workplace, as well as a communal commitment to training sessions.

Gymcatch can help to enable the program and create the training community. With Gymcatch’s custom packages, you can put the discounted program directly on sale to let employees find, book and pay for the package right away. Alternatively, if you don’t want it shown to your existing customers, you can take payments offline and gift the package to enable bookings into your specific corporate sessions.


5. Host an event

A well established marketing idea that applies just as well to gyms, studios, group and personal training marketing is hosting your own event. Whether this is an anniversary or seasonal party, a BBQ, or anything else – an event is a great opportunity for customers to enjoy a little downtime with their fitness community and invite their friends to tag along, which means potential referrals and customers for you.

This marketing idea neatly applies to all of 1-4 above. Making sure the event is published early and promoted regularly on your booking system is a no-brainer, as is seamlessly enabling any referrals that come out of it.

The Gymcatch event share functionality lets business admins post to the Gymcatch Newsfeed (and to other social networks, as well as email and SMS) to continually promote events to the community. All posts include a push and email notification, so you’ll be able to grab your customer’s attention.

We’re all for the traditional fitness marketing campaigns and ideas – they’re well known about for good reason. We just think that they can be optimized with the right online booking software, and we built Gymcatch to do just that.

For more information on Gymcatch group fitness management software, and how it can help with your booking, admin and marketing. Get in contact to book a demo or start a free trial.

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