Are you ready for the flood of members coming in your club?  Have you checked your key tag supply?

ABC Financials key tags are custom printed in vibrant full color?your company logo will be highly visible on your member?s key rings. Everywhere they go, you go too!

Key tags can include a barcode, sequential numbering or other variable data for membership tracking purposes and are formatted to work with our DataTrak software.  ABC offers many unique key tag shapes and sizes?even custom ones! 

Track and collect data or just use them as an inexpensive marketing tool?key tags are convenient and easy!  Plus, we can take the cost right from your monthly billing. 

Don?t get left out in the rain?order your key tags today!  Contact by calling 1-866-992-8960 or email us at clubmarketing@abcfinancial.com

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The holidays are here and ABC Financial has the tools to help you show your members that you care. Choose from our wide selection that?s perfect for the holidays.

Choose your design and the type of card you would like and ABC Club Marketing will personalize it for your club.

Click HERE to view and get started!

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Acquisition and Retention

A successful marketing plan doesn’t just center on acquiring new members; it also focuses on maintaining existing ones. The following three marketing strategies can help you drum up new business, while also creating loyal members from your current customers.

• Leverage your trainers
  Most health club owners fail to recognize that they aren’t just a place to work out; they are a part of the multi-billion dollar wellness industry. It’s important to take advantage of this role by offering events and programs that pull people in to the club. Numerous health clubs use their trainers to host events that teach everything from strength training to nutrition; however, few realize they can go even further by offering educational sessions on weight loss, organic foods, stress management and effective training strategies for specific sports. The possibilities are virtually endless for thoughtful health club owners, who are willing to put forth the effort.
• Community involvement
  Smart health club owners work within the community to connect with potential customers and increase brand recognition. For some, this means sponsoring runs and other recreation activities; for others, it means connecting with local apartments, businesses and associations to offer tenant and employee discounts. Whatever the case, businesses that establish roots within communities tend to enjoy higher profits and increased customer loyalty. This is an especially useful strategy in smaller communities, which have limited pools of customers.
• Cultivate loyalty
  Almost every gym has a referral program that rewards existing members for recommending new customers. That said, few gyms offer loyalty programs which reward existing customers for their continued membership. While most gyms focus all of their attention on luring in new clients who are far more likely to lose interest and cancel their memberships after a short while; smart gym owners invest in maintaining their loyal members who are committed to fitness. When you make your long-term customers feel appreciated, they will do your marketing for you via word-of-mouth advertising. This may mean offering coupons for any extra products or services you provide, such as massages, tanning, supplements or clothing; or it could even mean membership discounts. Study your budget to see what you can afford. In the end, you’re not just paying to maintain a valuable member; you are recruiting him or her as an agent who will talk your company up amongst family, friends and co-workers.

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Next to keeping your clubs filled around the clock, one of the most important things a club should pay attention to is your customer service interaction. Your means of communicating with members is VALUABLE and should be treated carefully. Email has become one of the most effective ways to communicate with your members; however you could be making some big mistakes if you?re not watching out for the following five key things.

1. THAT?S WAY TOO MUCH INFO – Most clubs like to run promotions using email blasts, which is GREAT! The problem is most members may look at your email and trash it if they are overwhelmed by all of the information and busy graphics. Unless you are truly sending your member an informational letter, your message is better received with a message that is short and sweet!

2. SPAM FILTERS ARE THE DEVIL – Did you know you might be sending a lot of your emails to no-man?s land? SPAM filters look for key things to try to identify who may be soliciting inappropriately. For example, key words that you?re using and big images may be increasing the chances that your message is never seen! Learn what keywords increase your chances for your email to go to SPAM by clicking the below link.

SPAM Alert Words – http://bit.ly/WSpsrM

3. SO, WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO AGAIN? – Do you have a clear message? Are you giving the member a clear direction? A good offer should have a ?Call to Action?. For Example, ?GET CREATIVE! Try ABC Financial?s Club Marketing Services.? This tells the reader they can be more creative if they use ABC?s Club Marketing Services.

4. YOU LEFT ME HANGING! – Any good offer or promotion extended in an email should allow the member to click to learn more. One of the biggest reasons why prospects may not be taking advantage of the offer is because they may be going to a landing page on your website where they have to figure out what?s next. Make sure your email is short and sweet but once they click to learn more, lead them to a place that gives them more detail and provides a simple way to sign up.

5. ARE YOU SURE YOU MEANT TO SEND THIS TO ME? – Everyone likes to get information that is relevant. Make sure that your letter or promo/offer is targeting a relevant segment of your members and not just to all members. Sending irrelevant messages reduces your chances to connect with that member in the future.

Email is one of the best ways to instantly communicate with club members. Take advantage of your resources here at ABC Financial?s Professional Services and let us help you tailor a winning Email Blast for your very next promotion. Contact your Account Executive for details or email us at ProfessionalServices@abcfinancial.com.

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Health Club owners nationwide are always facing more and more competition. I can’t think of a single health club client of ours for whom competitive marketing and salesmanship isn’t a top priority.

As a health club owner, your greatest achievement will lie in trumping the fitness competition in order to expand membership sales. Here are some thoughts:

1. Know your competition. It’s essential to understand all we can about our competition. If you don’t already have copies of your competitors’ advertising, websites, Facebook page and brochures and can’t recite from memory their key selling points and messages how can you hope to successfully position against them?

2. Market your specialty. Once you know everything you can about your primary competitors, you can identify what your health club is offering your members? that’s unique or special. Take a long, hard look at the current offerings in your health club. If necessary, alter your programs or service itself, bundle in additional features or find a way to deliver the same core programming or service in a way that uniquely meets the needs of your members. Then, build your marketing campaigns around this central theme.

3. Tackle new audiences. If you’ve reached the maximum market share in a particular member niche, why not try a new one? You may be able to add line extensions (variations of your product) that will stimulate sales from a whole new set of members. Or, you can launch a new media campaign targeting a different audience, who may embrace your product or service with a minimum amount of alteration.

4. Offer more value. Some fitness providers traditionally compete based on discount pricing, but for many other types of clubs in the fitness business, cutting prices is often detrimental. If you offer a service, for example, and charge the same rates as your chief competitors, cutting your prices may make you look suspiciously cheap and inspire prospects (and members) to wonder what’s “wrong” with your club or the services it provides. A better idea is to offer something of additional value that your prospects and members will find tempting.

5. Add a sales channel. Are you presently selling via one channel alone, such as exclusively through your club? Adding another channel, such as online sales, gives your customers more choices and allows them to shop more often and at their convenience. It’s likely that most of your competitors offer sales through multiple channels. What’s more, studies show that customers who shop via more than one channel spend more (often as much as three times more) than customers who shop through one alone.

6. Tune into your members. To remain highly competitive, you must understand what your members want. Unfortunately, your members’ needs and preferences can change on a dime, so you should have systems in place to regularly solicit their feedback. As a health club owner, you’re in the enviable position of being closer to your members than some of your big-box competitors. You may know many of your members or clients by name and have the advantage of being able to contact them periodically to check in. In addition, be sure to initiate regular surveys as well as solicit ongoing feedback via your website.

7. Ask for the sale. Complacency is the enemy of small-business success. If you’re not continually asking your prospects and members for their business, you can be sure your competitors are. Set up and monitor an ongoing marketing program that reaches out to your past members and new prospects year-round. The key to success is to have a consistent marketing message and select a mix of media and tactics that “touch” prospects and members with sufficient frequency. This will help you drive your message home and stand out from your toughest competitors.

Now, go outlast your competition!

Jim Thomas? Fitness Management & Consulting
fmconsulting.net

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What if your gym memberships were FREE? What would your closing percentages be? Would your members ever leave?

Today the growing trend for health clubs is to create a value in their membership that is greater than just the use of the club. One of easiest and most lucrative ways clubs are doing this is by partnering with local merchants to provide discounts to their members where they shop everyday ? just for being a member. Key partnerships include restaurants, car washes, barbershops, nail salons, health services, car service centers, etc.

Think about it. If my dues are $25 a month and my membership with the club saves me $75 a month with discounts around the community, how could I ever leave? Better yet, how could I ever say no to a membership in the first place?

Not only can this type of program be leveraged as a prospect closing and retention tool, but many clubs are also taking it a step further. Following the success of Lifetime Fitness, clubs are now offering a low cost membership plan solely for access to their merchant discount programs. Yes, gym memberships with no gym access!

Though some clubs charge nothing to the merchants for participating in a program like this, many clubs are discovering an entirely new recurring monthly revenue source. By soliciting member businesses and partners throughout the community, there is thousands in monthly revenue to be made ? even for the smallest clubs.

For the first time you can now house this concept and control access to merchant discounts all from your club?s own custom mobile app. Not only will your app provide your members with your entire gym experience at the palm of their hands, but also by being the home for all of your merchant discounts, it drives your members to your business each time they want to use their discounts.

For more information on merchant discount programs and custom mobile club apps please visit Perx Advantage at clubapps.com

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