An AC Nielsen survey confirmed that Les Mills’ participants work out an average of 2.9 times per week in Group Fitness (“GF”) classes or 150 days per year, exceeding IHRSA’s estimate of average club attendance by 65%. IHRSA research identified that members go to their clubs on 91 days a year – or just 1.75 times a week on average.
Specific responses also showed that 39% of members attend Les Mills classes at least 4 times per week, while 90% come to work out specifically in Les Mills classes 2 times each week.
Multiple benefits from more frequent attendance
Members who come frequently to the gym are much more likely to be satisfied with their membership and less likely to quit. This will have a substantial impact on all-important membership retention rates.
Yet retention is only the beginning of the opportunities that frequent member visits offer.
Word of mouth becomes exponentially more powerful when members have a strong involvement with their clubs. It encourages members to talk about their fitness experiences to family, friends and colleagues, which in effect is free advertising.
As well as being zero cost, word of mouth offers added upsides of being both trusted and personal. It also takes some pressure of your marketing budget which can suffer from the investment required to get noticed in a competitive market.
The AC Neilsen research also benchmarked word of mouth and retention factors and concluded that 92% of respondents would “definitely” recommend
LES MILLS™ programmes to their friends and 75% agreed they might change clubs if their club stopped offering LES MILLS™ programmes.
In the medium term, higher retention increases the capacity for clubs to incrementally raise membership fees and increase profits per member.
GF as an acquisition tool – the next generation of opportunity
In our experience, facilities which enjoy a high frequency of weekly GF visits, keep group exercise fresh and exciting for members by holding quarterly re-launches of pre-choreographed and freestyle programmes. Many clubs hold these events for the retention upside they offer.
Yet a select number have gone to the next level. They hold up to 2 re-launches per annum focused on new member acquisition with extraordinary returns on investment.
| Country |
No of Clubs |
New Memberships |
Investment |
Annual Income |
Duration of Event |
|
France
|
1 |
82 |
€ 3,300 |
€ 38,540 |
7 days |
Malaysia
|
10 |
210 |
USD 3,000 |
USD 111,000 |
1 day |
Spain
|
1 |
140 |
€ 6,000 |
€ 62,160 |
4 hours |
A number of case studies on re-launches for profit are available - please click here:
http://groupfitprofit.lesmills.com/archive/category/1019.aspx
Building a successful GF department
Yet securing these benefits requires investment in GF resources. It’s critical that clubs have a commitment to excellence when recruiting talented GF Management, world-class Instructors, maintaining quality programming and employing savvy marketing strategy.
It would be great to hear your stories of how you get the maximum business benefit from Group Fit. If you are happy to share your successes, please email info@lesmills.com