?One month free with a three month membership!?

?50% off all summer membership dues!?

Health clubs can come to dread the summer months, a time when memberships slide as social calendars fill, vacations commence or outside exercise beckons. An understandably common advertising approach to health club membership retention in the summer months is displayed in the first three lines of this post. But if the filling of social calendars, vacations or outside exercise opportunities are more of the root cause of this problem ? is offering and advertising lower membership prices truly the solution?

Think about what you hear from members in your health club. Do they approach you frequently to thank you for offering the lowest prices in town ? or ? are they thanking you for helping whip them into shape with power yoga, offering a space for their intramural basketball league or keeping the kid?s busy while they get their workout in? If so, is it price or programs that contribute more heavily to your club membership retention goals?

Keeping that in mind, compare the ads above to a few alternate variations below:

?Sign up now for outdoor power yoga ? all summer long.?

?Outdoor summer basketball leagues start this June.?

?Summer kids clubs programs offered every afternoon through Labor Day.?

Ultimately, the question of why your health club memberships may tend to lapse each summer will be specific to your club. As such ? the proposed ad copy above may not be right for you ? as it simply may not sync with your current offerings. Health club membership retention lapses may also tie into more
over-arching issues, including your members? dissatisfaction with staff or equipment ? in which case ? you really need to be listening more closely to member feedback.

But as you?ve probably learned from this post, if your health club membership lapses from June through August, it may simply not have anything to do with
your prices. And if this is true, advertising a lower price point will likely have little if any impact on your bottom-line. Your key in overcoming this hurdle will be to meet the wants and needs of your members by promoting what it is they want from your health club ? and their exercise regimen as a whole ? in the summer months.

And in lieu of asking your members what they want, sometimes the best way to determine this is just to listen.

To learn more about the health club membership retention services our team provides, request a demo from ABC Financial.

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We are also aware of how frightening it can to experience a sudden member exodus ? whether it?s due to normal seasonal fluctuation (think summer health club membership lapses) or something more troubling (dissatisfaction with staff or equipment.) And mo matter who we are, when fear enters the picture, our thinking can become clouded.

As such, it is vital that everyone in our industry think of health club membership retention as a proactive outcome of member outreach ? rather than as a reactive response to member exodus. Below, we?ve provided a list of ideas that you can use today to reach out to your membership and work towards retention goals, before you find yourself in an emergency situation:

• Develop and Deploy Member Surveys. Whether deployed in person, via mail or electronically, the survey is perhaps the most traditional and proven method of garnering feedback from your membership. To increase the response rate, add in a few prizes for randomly chosen individuals. The trick is to make sure the prizes aren?t too large. If the prize is $1 million, for example, you?ll receive very biased positive responses. Make it something more reasonable, like three free months of membership to a few lucky winners.
• Distribute Member Email Campaigns. Email campaigns, oftentimes thought of in more of a prospect marketing sense, are a great method for directly connecting with your customers ? especially if combined with a member survey. If you do choose this method of connecting with existing members, remember that the key to receiving honest responses is how you phrase the questions. Avoid biased or leading questions, and when you want honest feedback, ask open-ended questions (or questions that do not have yes/no answers).
• Build Your Membership Into A Community. This article at Yahoo! Voices notes the instinctive human desire for being a part of the group, whether that group is a family, a team ? or even a health club community.You can enhance this sense of community by hosting member events ranging from holiday parties to workshops ? or even singles events and mixers. You can even show more community leadership by sponsoring a member that may be experiencing medical or financial hardship by setting up a benefit or fund drive (with permission of that member, of course.) Not only will this show an incredible amount of support for one member ? but the resulting sense of community will help to transform the balance of your members into a more tightly knit community.

Much like other marketing initiatives, health club membership retention is one part science and one part art. And whether you most appreciate the science of a bottom-line or the art of a closely knit community, a health club that retains its members is a beautiful picture.

To learn more about the health club membership retention services our team provides, request a demo from ABC Financial.

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Unfortunately, there?s not much we can do to combat the latter. Price and programs, on the other hand, is a different story. In an earlier post, I recommended against the almost default option of lowering health club rates in the summer in an effort to meet membership retention goals. Instead, I suggested, focus on developing the types of summer programs that your members want.

But, of course, telling you is one thing ? and showing you is another ? especially if you are having difficulty seeing what types of summer programs you could offer.

With that in mind, see five examples below of creative summer programs from clubs across the country, designed to help provide you with some summer program ideas for your health club:

1. Wilson?s Fitness Center?s Beach & Tennis Club. If you have the fortune of being located near a beach, take advantage of it like this club does. Their programs target the whole family, and can include everything from swimming and diving lessons, to family nights on the beach.
2. New Holland Recreation Center?s Hiking Club. Located in New Holland, Pennsylvania, this health club offers hiking for adults, a surprisingly rare offering. If you club is within a reasonable driving distance of local trails, consider asking your members if they would be interested in a similar program.
3. Bethesda Sport & Health?s TenniStar Day Camp for Kids. Some organizations offer half and full-day camps centered exclusively on a specific sport. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, this organization helps children improve their tennis fundamentals. Think about your geographic region, which sports are in the highest demand, and how your club could meet that demand.
4. The Thoreau Club?s Traditional Day Camp for Kids. The Thoreau Club, located in Concord, Massachusetts, offers your standard day camp, filled with tons of activities. A typical morning session can involve everything from basic archery lessons to swimming. Kids can even choose what they get to do in the afternoon by selecting from a variety of programs including dancing, candle making, ultimate frisbee, and many more.
5. The Work?s Adult Co-Ed Softball League. Located in New Hampshire, The Work?s softball league provides a more inclusive version of the sport by opening it up to co-ed participation. If your area is short on leagues, especially at the co-ed level, consult with your members to gauge their interest.

The question of how best to achieve health club membership retention goals in the summer rests with your members ? and your members alone. While the list of programs above represents a great start to a brainstorm ? always remember that the best way to offer programs that will interest your members is simply to ask, ?What types of programs you be interested in?? Of course, be sure to add one qualifier to the end of that question: ?This summer.?

To learn more about the health club membership retention services our team provides, request a demo from ABC Financial.

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