By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 08 May 2018 00:51:39 +0000

You Flat Out Missed the Point
Sir: You are far off the mark. In the U.S. 90 million people pay to attend gyms, health clubs, or fitness studios, amounting to an estimated $46 billion dollars annually. Yet 40% of these folks quit within 90 days of first attending or joining. So what? There’s still 6 of 10 people left, right? Not at all. Of the remaining 6, 4 of them don’t even attend 5 times per month. That’s barely more than once per week on average. At best, this 2 out of 10 number represents low utilisation. At worst, it’s an 80% failure rate! This results in a membership base that is highly vulnerable to quitting, and quitters must be replaced at a significant marketing cost. The gym biz is growing because many of the big box gyms in the U.S. (Planet Fitness, 24 Hour Fitness, Anytime Fitness) charge $20 per month of less on an autopay basis. Impulse buyers flock to sign up with healthy and positive aspiration in mind…especially in Janurary. Reality soon sets in, resulting in the death of aspiration that results in non-attendance. While the members don’t attend, their money still does via the autopay. Why don’t members simply cancel? Psychology studies deem this the “maybe tomorrow” syndrome, whereby members look at their bill at month-end, see the low priced monthly charge and say….”Damn, I only went twice this month. Oh well, maybe…when the kids start school again / when work slows down / when my left eyelash is less sore / when the dog DOESN’T eat my homework.” In other words, “maybe tomorrow”, but tomorrow never comes. Big box gyms have deviously figured out that the emotional elasticity price point of “maybe tomorrow” is $20 or less, and they sell it hard. Their objective is to get your money to show up for a long, long time (a long LTV / lifetime value), even if YOU don’t. It’s shameful that companies line their pockets with this knowledge. Rather than address the challenge of human motivation at its core, big box fitness companies exploit it to line their corporate pockets.
The fundamental issue is that the fitness vertical attempts to address the critical challenge of non-attendance (which leads to lack of engagement, which leads to customer churn) with inadequate band-aid, superficial fixes like new classes du jour, clean towels, front desk smiles, worthless frequent-flyer rewards type programs, etc. Beneath the surface is what this industry stuck in the 60s has never been innovative enough to address: human motivation at its core. Any gym and any class and any activity works to get and keep people healthy, but you must get people to do one simple thing:
Actually. Show. Up.
Anything short of that is just placing a band-aid on cancer. Anything less is just futile.

By: krishn

krishn — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 01:34:25 +0000

problem identification
i need the city fitness problem identified, i am making the report so i need your some suggestion from your side for fitness industry

By: David

David — Sun, 24 May 2015 22:49:55 +0000

Fitness problems
Mate, you are missing the point of all of those complaints… Yes the revenue is increasing in the fitness industry, but Obesity rates and people reaching their goals are not.. The revenue from the fitness industry comes from ‘quick fix’ products that are being sold which dont work… Pretty basic, rhe industy is failing.

Comments on: The Real Issues Facing the Fitness Industry

By: Patrick

By: krishn

By: David