January in a gym or fitness club operates on its own logic and energy. Even people outside of the fitness industry are aware there is a ‘January Rush’. It can make implementing meaningful change challenging for even the most prepared gym owner, as we spent much of January covering on this very blog.
Then comes February and things aren’t quite normal yet, but they are getting there.
But for many gym members hits like the 4k mark in a 10k run. The momentum from New Year and holiday living has started to wane, Blue Monday has taken its toll and there is still at least another month of low sunlight. The direct debits that felt painless in January looks like a tempting cutback in February. This is the month that will determine if your retention measures are working, and how independent gym and fitness club owners handle the February Fade will play a key part in their facility’s growth and retention figures for the rest of the year.
The February Drop-Off (or the February Fade)
With over 25 years operating in the fitness industry, we have seen the pattern across thousands of clubs and helped to reduce the negative effects of this trend for our partners gyms and fitness clubs since before the millennium.
Mid-to-late February is one of the key periods of attrition and when the attrition rate for January Joiners turns to spike. The member who came in twelve times in January has visited twice this month. They aren’t sick, they are either burning out, or busy, or broke or some combination of the above and a few more issues besides.
Maybe they are questioning the value of their membership. Maybe they are questioning if they have the time. Maybe they are wondering if this is ‘really them’. Or maybe they want to reclaim those precious hours from these dark days.
The February Fade can’t be boiled down to just laziness, and that is a good thing for us here in the fitness industry. If we stop treating February’s dropoff as inevitable, we can start understanding how best to counteract this trend. As we covered in our January blogs, the reason this trend of joining and leaving is so pronounced is partially due to the season. It brings everything else, a gym’s pricing, facility and community, under greater scrutiny by each member. So let’s take a look at what we can all do this February.
The Cost versus Value Proposition
When a February drop-off member fills out the cancellation survey ‘the price’ will come up disproportionate to other results. Some are genuine, of course. But for many it is an impersonal exit line that doesn’t force the member to admit anything. They aren’t quitting, just being financially prudent.
But price is, of course, a growing concern for many. And at the beginning of the year, with its high heating bills and potentially a Christmas to pay off, the formula of cost and value are never far from people’s minds.
The membership cost is always being measured against the perceived return and that perception of that return can feel warped for any number of reasons during the trying first months of a new year.
It is important to make sure that you and your staff are doing as much as you can to reinforce the benefits of your service, whether it is community events, discounts or mental and physical health benefits. A member who feels that their membership is supporting them and helping them to enhance their lifestyle and their routine will be much more likely to justify the cost.
Identifying the Early Warning Signs of February Fading
As we will cover below, Ashbourne can help take the guesswork out of identifying who is at risk. But what should we be looking out for?
- The member who slipped from their pattern of steadily attending at the same time to a more erratic or sporadic schedule.
- The member who consistently attended the same class for all of January but now hasn’t for all or most of February.
- And of course, the member who had their direct debit payment bounce.
Much like the exit surveys, it is important to remember when looking at your dashboards that these aren’t just datapoints, they represent a member becoming less engaged with your service. An indication that they are questioning the cost versus value proposition. The question we have to focus on now is whether your facility is equipped to spot it in time?
Data-Driven Retention
Identifying trends in retention is one of the many areas where moving from a simple payment processor to a unified gym management system can be a true game changer. Searching through unconnected spreadsheets and basic reports can only tell you so much, and usually a month too late. To be able to make a significant impact on retention, you need to know what is happening in your facility right now.
With Ashbourne Membership Management’s BI dashboards showing you the true, up-to-date picture from your facility floor, guesswork can become a thing of the past.
Not only is it possible to understand which members are at risk with a few clicks, you can also monitor any of the scenarios we laid out above, whether it is someone’s pattern of attendance changing, a fall off in booking classes or late payments, you will be able to see it, up to date and at a glance.
Not only that, but with our retention tools, certain categories of at-risk members can be flagged to your staff automatically using the same attendance data that informs everything from access to payment status.This enables our partner gyms to contact the at-risk members, whether it is passively, via targeted e-mails, or directly to ask if anything can be done.
All of this can have a massive effect on retention rates, not only during February but at any stage of the year.
But it is a system that really proves its worth during bite periods, and February is one of the times where our retention systems can have a profound impact on a gym’s member count by the time Spring comes around.
Beat the Fade and Boost Retention with Ashbourne
As a system built by and for gym owners, our entire membership management system is designed to help tackle the problems that irk the fitness businesses year after year.
If you want to know more about how we here at Ashbourne Membership Management can help reduce the fade and boost retention, book a free demo with our in-house, UK-based demonstration team today.
In many ways, February is the proving ground, both for members and for your business. By using the right tools to spot disengaging members early, and by understanding why they might be disengaging, you can ensure that the annual February test becomes part of a fantastic first quarter for your gym.
