| Three years ago, Feiko Boonstra and his son, Erwin, got seriously inspired. During their visit to New Zealand they spotted the huge opportunity that quarterly relaunches offered their club in Holland. Since 2003, Sportschool Ursus has been religious about offering quarterly relaunches to its members and has enjoyed incidental yet consistent success in securing new memberships from these events. |
- 85 New Members acquired
- 1 day-long relaunch
- Annual revenue secured of €35,700
- Investment of €500
- 200 attendees
- 50% of event space left for non members
- Small discount offered to new members
- Relaunches every quarter
- 40% of club attendances from GF
- 2,350 members
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Rewarding members for bringing a friend
In January 2006, Feiko and Erwin decided to organize their relaunch with a specific goal of attracting new members to their club. They used a diverse advertising mix for 2 weeks prior to the event. This included verbal promotion in-class, profiling the event in the club newsletter and website, banners throughout the facility and POS flyers. Each promotional tool encouraged members to bring a guest and rewarded them for this. Every space in each event class was pre-booked, so staff could track which members had brought a friend and in return, the club gave that member a gift of one month’s free membership.
It’s intriguing that Ursus only offered a minimal discount for those that signed up on the day, by waiving the standard €15 enrolment fee. Very ambitiously, Ursus also left half the room capacity available for guests. Yet it paid off, with 42% of the 200 attendees on the day signing up as new members, creating annualized revenue of circa €35,700. Given Feiko and Erwin spent only circa €500 on food and drink for the day, the return on investment appears staggering.
Creating a culture that loves relaunches
Yet, from Feiko and Irwin’s perspective, they have built on a culture of celebrating relaunch and were confident that the team would provide a superb party experience on the day. Ursus’ Instructors love relaunches to the extent that they practice regularly before each quarterly event and team-teach on the day without any extra pay…other than a big party afterwards. As a result Feiko and Erwin were able to experiment with giving away less in terms of discounting their membership fees, without compromising member experience or sales generation.
Ursus has built its relaunch culture on a foundation of strong Group Fitness success. Circa 40% of total club attendances by its 2,350 members, occur in its 2 Group Fit rooms or its dedicated RPM studio. With 7 Les Mills Programmes dominating the timetable, Ursus provides 48 classes per week to its members. Instructors are well trained and totally committed to building increasing GF success. Per Erwin, “we have such a great atmosphere in the club that there is no question that the Instructors will be at every relaunch, whether they are teaching or not.”
Quarterly GF events are a ‘must have’
According to Feiko and Erwin the key factors to their relaunch success is to always do one, every quarter without fail. The Ursus team ensures each event is fresh and fun while being rigorously well organized. The passion and excitement this creates among the club’s employees, as well as for members, is a pay-off in itself. So adding the income from new members into the equation makes quarterly relaunches a ‘no-brainer’ for Ursus.
Feiko and Erwin are always looking at how to improve. So for the next relaunch they will establish two further benchmarks to evaluate sales success. Firstly, a financial sales target and secondly, even closer monitoring of the total number of guests who come to the event, versus the number who sign up as new members. As the system gets even more powerful, we foresee even greater wins for Ursus.
Sportschool Ursus is a privately owned, independent club in Leeuwarden, Holland and has 7 Les Mills Programmes
Phillip says……
Feiko and Erwin demonstrate a powerful formula for success when utilizing relaunches for new member acquisition. Building on their solid experience in organizing regular quarterly relaunches, combined with a well-constructed plan for attracting new members, you can really go for it. Hence 50% of the class spaces were left for guests and 43% of relaunch attendees were non-members! A great achievement.
Their results show case how to apply Key Element 6 of the Group Fitness Management System, “Create a Group Fit Marketing Plan” with a balanced marketing mix working alongside a clear plan to leave half the space for guests. While we advise leaving 20% of spaces for non-members, Ursus illustrates you can take this further if you have the skills in holding relaunches and a very strong team. Excellent work.