5 best practices for building lasting member loyalty

Key takeaways: High season is a crucial retention moment, not just a sales spike. Clubs can attract new faces and boost existing member loyalty by creating a stronger sense of belonging, using onboarding conversations to build exercise habits, optimizing their timetable to support longer and more satisfying visits, plus leaning on proven programming and data-led retention strategies.

High season is more than a membership sales opportunity – it's a critical moment to reset expectations, build healthy habits, and set new and existing members up for long-term success. With an ABC Fitness report showing gym joins declined 9% year-on-year and boutique studio joins fell 5%, retaining and engaging existing members has never been more important. Here are five tactics that help clubs achieve that.

1. DESIGN YOUR CLUB FOR BELONGING AND RETENTION

We don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, so it’s vital to spot the friction points that can make members feel uncertain. Start by walking the club through their eyes: is the entrance welcoming; is the layout intuitive; can they find the studio easily; and does the space make it simple to connect with staff and other members?

Equipment and well-maintained spaces are crucial, but modern member loyalty is secured with experiences and spaces that foster community and social fitness. The 2026 Global Fitness Report revealed that 64% of people are more likely to work out where there is a good vibe, 41% consider working out to be a chore, and preference for group activities has increased by over a third (34%) in the past three years. Winning with these members and securing their long-term attendance requires optimizing your club space to support social fitness.

Martin Seibold, CEO of LifeFit Group has made community the foundation of his clubs, with considerable success. “People come to us for community, to make and meet friends at a place where they can belong,” he says. “And making sure you’re creating a great environment for them and elevating the experience is key. Right now, we have an NPS score far north of 40 – some months we’re hitting 50 and that’s a KPI that keeps us focused on making sure members want to come back to us.”

2. RESET HABITS FOR SUCCESS

When a member joins your club, retention starts with a structured onboarding strategy that goes beyond the obligatory club tour. Early conversations should uncover each member’s goals, schedule and lifestyle, so your team can identify attendance barriers before they become retention risks.

Research from the Les Mills Lab in conjunction with Iowa State University, has identified pivotal touchpoints in the member journey that come before they even set foot in the gym. And once those habits are baked in, the results can be transformative. Researchers tracked 1,134 exercise beginners across eight groups testing different interventions. Preparation and instigation habits had the greatest impact on adherence: participants combining these habits with goal setting achieved 200% higher attendance than those with no intervention, and 29% higher than those using goal setting alone.

Including onboarding conversations around these simple habits gives members a tangible framework from which to plan their visits. Preparation involves linking exercise to a consistent cue. For example, packing a gym bag after dinner each evening turns an existing routine into a trigger for the next day's workout. And exercise adherence is even stronger when preparation is paired with instigation – linking a new habit to an existing routine. Members identify regular opportunities to exercise, such as during their lunch break, using a familiar cue in their day to trigger the decision to work out. If you’re a Les Mills partner, you can learn more about how to introduce these cues in member conversations with our SMART START guide.

3. TIMETABLE GROUP FITNESS FOR LONGER VISITS

Once members are in the club, give them more reasons to extend their visit and experience the full value of the facility. That might mean adding express classes so members can combine the gym floor with group fitness in one trip, testing new class start times based on capacity, or creating class links that help members move from strength, to cardio, to mobility in a single session. These small timetable changes can support longer visits, stronger routines and greater retention.

The Les Mills Group Fitness Management (GFM) framework helps clubs implement growth strategies with actionable, easy to implement tactics. Luke Heapes, Member Experience Manager at West Wood clubs, explains the impact GFM training had on his team and the club’s members: “The GFM removes preconceived ideas about things like time slots. There’s a misconception that classes should start on the hour or in 15-minute increments.

“GFM exposed the team to the possibility of reducing class times and the opportunities it opens, like starting classes at a time that allows us to close the gap and create class links. Then, we help a member go from BODYPUMP™ into BODYBALANCE™ and adapt the length, so they’re not exhausted by doing a two-hour workout.

“If we can create a timetable that supports members to come to the studio and get their strength, cardio and stretching fix in one session, it’s a more fulfilling visit. That’s reflected by the ripple effect which has directly increased class attendances – we’ve seen significant growth and increased attendance by up to 30% in some clubs.”

4. LEVERAGE PROVEN EXPERTISE

Creating compelling group workouts in-house is a significant undertaking, requiring specialist expertise in exercise science, programming, music, coaching and member experience – all backed by substantial investment in time and resources.

For most operators, consistently delivering fresh, high-quality content at scale while keeping pace with evolving fitness trends can be both costly and creatively demanding. Expert partnerships can help reduce that burden while supporting retention. In an industry where acquiring new customers costs more than retaining existing ones, it pays to prioritize proven retention drivers. And research examining 2.6 million member journeys reveals that Les Mills members are your club's Most Valuable Participants (MVPs).

MVPs:

• Visit their club 65% more than other members
• Are 88% more likely to still be active after 12 months
• Stay with their club 39% longer than other members
• Have a 27% higher lifetime value (LTV) than other members – not including the higher number of member referrals MVPs typically contribute.

For operators focused on maximizing impact while remaining cost-efficient, the data points to a clear opportunity: invest in programming and partnerships that increase visit frequency, deepen engagement and keep members active for longer.

5. USE AI AND DATA TO PREDICT CHURN

A winning approach to retention means always looking ahead for the next growth opportunity. In recent years, technological advancements have made staying future-facing increasingly accessible.

Amber Taylor, Chief Digital Product Officer explains the role AI can play in supporting club growth: “There are big opportunities in the club space. At Les Mills, we're using AI for targeting growth – targeting lifetime value positive customers – people who will spend more than we spend to bring them in.

“Every company that wants to stay alive will do that. We use AI in our targeting and our churn mitigation to identify when somebody looks like they have a propensity to stop their habit. We’ll then target those users with minigames – like nudges or a reminder to come back and work out with us, take a class or to do a training.”

Amber adds: “Clubs can use AI to do the same thing and target high-value members by seeking out ‘lookalikes’ to their existing highly engaged members with media targeting. They can also do that with churn because retention is a key piece for clubs. It’s about more than just winning the membership dues. Once people start moving and get fitter, clubs can start monitoring the behavior measuring the ‘lookalike’ activities of somebody who sticks versus somebody who doesn't. Then they can mine the commonalities of people who stick, and nudge those behaviors more with the people who don't.”

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