7 Ways To Increase The Value Of Gym Memberships

Increasing the value of your gym memberships is brilliant for sales and retention. It’s much easier to sell a membership that clearly provides a lot of value. And members are more likely to remain loyal if they feel they’re getting a lot in return for their money.

In this article, we share 7 ways you can increase the value of your gym membership packages (without it costing you a lot of time or money).

We’re a specialist fitness marketing agency with 15+ years of industry experience, so we know first-hand what works (and what doesn’t!). We’ve helped gyms, fitness studios, and personal trainers to market their businesses successfully, so our strategies are tried and tested.

Packing your gym membership packages with as much value as possible will make it more appealing to would-be customers. It’s a smart business move as it can help you to…

• Increase sales – because you’ll convert more leads into paying members.
• Increase pricing – you can charge more for memberships when you provide more value.
• Increase profits – by increasing sales and/or pricing without increasing overheads.

Let’s explore some practical ways to add value to your gym membership packages for minimal time and money investment…

Goal-Oriented Email Courses

Set up automated email courses that new members can access when they join. Theme the courses around popular goals that your members typically have, such as bulking up, fat loss, or sports-specific aims. This provides additional value as soon as they join and helps reassure them that signing up was a good idea.

Pick a timeframe, such as a 7-day fat-loss course or a 6-week bulking program. Then collate your existing content (like Instagram Reels, YouTube videos, and blog posts) and organise it into a coherent structure.

Then create an automated series of emails that walk people through the content. You schedule the emails to be sent once a day or at the start of each week.

Then you can set and forget it! Just add new members to the email sequence when they join up and they’ll automatically receive the course content over a series of days or weeks. It’s an easy way to help members make progress toward their goals.

Ask Me Anything (AMA)

AMAs are popular on social media where brands invite their followers to ‘ask them anything’. But gyms can offer this as a way of providing additional value too!

Schedule a 30-minute ‘ask us anything clinic’ where members can ask their questions to a personal trainer. You can do this over social media (in the comments of a post or using live video), on your website, or in person.

AMAs provide personalized feedback to members which is incredibly valuable. But it’s also an opportunity for trainers and coaches to showcase their expertise and upsell other products or services.

Online Fitness Classes

Create a library of online fitness classes that’s exclusively for paying gym members. Including workouts that they can do anywhere, within the price of your membership, is a highly valuable asset.

It can help them to stay on track toward their goals when they’re busy or travelling, and make them less likely to cancel. Even if they’re not visiting your facility, they’ll still feel like they’re getting value from the membership.

You don’t need to create a lot of videos or commit to producing them regularly. Just having a library of 10-15 online workouts is sufficient. Unless you’re pivoting your gym business to an online model entirely, in which case crack on!

Host your videos somewhere password-protected so they can only be accessed by members. Vimeo, Podia, and Memberful are all great online platforms for this.

Printable Fitness Resources

Sometimes it’s the little things that members really value. Like printable workout trackers, healthy shopping lists, and mindfulness journaling prompts.

Review your in-house resources and lead magnets to see if there are any that members would find useful. Habit-tracking checklists, recipe cards, and infographics are always popular.

Here are some ideas to get you thinking (or you can save time by downloading the bundle)…

Fitness-Related Email Newsletters

Email newsletters are an easy way to provide additional value to members without spending much time or money. It’s also a great way to signpost them to other resources you have like videos, social media content, and blog posts.

Email your gym members weekly with health and fitness tips, links to helpful articles, or book summaries. Collate a list of the resources you’re reading or listening to, like the latest scientific research on HIIT or podcast episodes on carb loading. You can even crowdsource the content by asking your personal trainers and class instructors to recommend articles!

Members Only Facebook Group

You can also share the same newsletter content in a private members-only Facebook group. Just post the articles and podcast recommendations on a daily basis instead of once a week.

The downside is that you’ll need to moderate the comments and you don’t control the platform. So if Facebook decides to shut you down overnight, the group is gone.

But it’s a low-effort way to add value to a gym membership. And if you’re collating the resources for your email newsletter anyway, then you might as well share it to your private Facebook group too…

Events & Workshops Technique Sessions

Organizing events and workshops is another effective way to provide more value to your gym members. They can be in-person social events, technique sessions, or online masterclasses.

Social events naturally build a sense of community which can help retention over time. Educational events help people achieve their goals and feel that they’re getting more for their money.

For educational events, focus on one aspect of health and fitness such as a deep dive into protein or training techniques for a specific sport. You could give members the opportunity to work on a specific skill, such as perfecting their press-ups (no knees!), pull-ups, or the correct technique for squats.

You can also film any demonstrations that you do at these events and turn them into videos. Share them in your private Facebook group or use them for email course content. Repurpose everything you can to squeeze the most value from it (and save yourself time too).

Taking these steps will help you to maintain a sense of community and build a stronger relationship with customers. This not only keeps them on track toward their health and fitness goals but creates loyalty which aids long-term retention.