Private and small group training sessions are a great way to add an additional revenue source to your fitness business and make the most of excess capacity.
Whether you operate a gym, yoga, pilates, or dance studio or teach group fitness classes, adding private bookings can go a long way towards getting your best customers back – and retaining them.
Here are 5 Ways to Increase Your Gym’s Revenue and Retention with Private Appointments …
Add Private and Small Group Training Sessions
With Punchpass’ new Appointments feature, you can add a tab to your website’s schedule for any private workout session you’d like – personal training, open gym booking, private yoga lessons, or small group VIP classes or workouts.
Using your fitness business software to manage your appointment schedule, bookings and payments makes adding this additional service line simple and easy.
Pro-tip: By marketing your private or small group sessions as an opportunity for your customers to get customized, one-on-one coaching and attention, you can create a VIP experience that is worth a premium price. Add in exclusive on-demand video instruction to boost the value of the experience and use your Punchpass content library’s restricted access feature to deliver it.
Fill Up Unused Time & Space
If you use your space primarily for group exercise classes, make the most of your off-peak time slots by offering them for private or small-group sessions. Likewise, if you’re primarily an open-gym concept, carve out 30 to 60 min time slots during times when your facility is less crowded to offer for private or exclusive small-group training.
You may even consider using dynamic pricing where you charge less for early morning or mid-afternoon appointments and a premium for popular workout times like the lunch hour or early evening.
Pro-tip: As you are re-building your community and your customers are eagerly anticipating seeing friends and family again, offer small group “workout parties” where a group can book a private time. Limit the number of attendees to what you are comfortable with or that meets your local health and safety regulations. As a bonus – add in a live video component so that those who prefer to work out from home can do so, while vibe-ing off the energy of the in-person group.
Create Safer, Smaller Group Classes or Training Sessions
Everyone is anxious to get back in shape and return to normal – but not everyone is ready, nor is it safe, to gather in large groups when working out. By enabling your customers to pre-book their workouts, you control the size of the group and your customers get a much more intimate – and valuable – experience with you and your instructors.
Some fitness industry experts predict that highly-customized small group personal training is the wave of the future. While you may be frustrated by the current limits on capacity, consider that this is an opportunity to get to know your customers in a more intimate way, and to charge them for the personalized training time they get with you.
In the end, these one-on-one and small group sessions may build lasting relationships that could exponentially increase your retention rate for years to come.
Get Creative with Additional 1:1 Services
There’s huge demand for customized fitness and weight loss coaching right now. If you’re a yoga studio, for example, what about offering massage? If you’re a Crossfit or boxing studio, would your customer’s value private nutritional advice?
Restorative and stress-fighting practices like meditation, post-workout stretching and other relaxation techniques have also dramatically increased in popularity during the past year. Many potential customers are also seeking ways to rehabilitate after an injury or weight gain.
Pro-tip: Think of all the ways that you and your trainers incorporate daily practices into your healthy lifestyle. Your customers would love to learn more about “how you stay so healthy and fit.” Package this wisdom into programs and coaching that you can deliver privately or to small groups and use your new Appointments feature to launch your new service lines.
Market Your New Personal Training and Private Sessions
When adding a new service – especially a premium one – the best way to generate bookings is to reach out to your most loyal customers personally, and invite them to try it out. You can use your Punchpass software to send a small group email to the attendees of your latest class, or find individual student’s contact information for one-on-one phone calls or emails.
Another great way to get the word out is to share through email and social media. Punchpass’s Appointments feature makes this easy with a customizable URL (link) that you can share and include in your Instagram bio with free link list programs like Linktree and Contactinbio.
You may want to launch an introductory discount to entice customers to try out one of your new sessions. Again, this is super easy to do by generating a Punchpass promo code and sharing it through email and on social media. You could even create a “deal” post and promote it for a limited time to create a sense of excitement and energy.
For more information on how to use Appointments to build your fitness business, check out our complimentary, on-demand webinar, “All About Appointments; Grow Beyond Your Fitness Classes.”
