Helpful Tips for Marketing Your Gym to Millennials

There are two spectrums of millennials: those paying off their first mortgage and, at the opposite end of the spectrum, those asking friends for their Netflix password to avoid paying the $8 monthly bill. Either way, both care deeply about money, or the lack thereof. In a recent survey that I sent to my millennial friends, I discovered that money is the number one reason millennials decide to leave a gym (44% of respondents), followed closely by location convenience (43% of respondents) and in third was a busy schedule (28% of respondents).

If you’ve downloaded our recent Boutique Fitness Benchmark Report, you’ll find that thriving gym owners around the world are strict with discounting, so we are NOT recommending that you lower your prices to better serve this market. What we ARE recommending is that you increase the value of your services instead.

Haven’t downloaded the Boutique Fitness Benchmark Report yet? Get your free copy today!

It’s important to acknowledge that not everyone walking into your gym values the same thing. Start by taking a look at your millennial member base and identifying the top three reasons they decided to join your gym. The Custom Fields section of Zen Planner’s registration forms can be a great resource to uncover this information. Feel free to reach out to our Customer Advocate team for help on setting this up!

After identifying these top reasons, attribute personal core values to each one. For example, Member A will tell you they bought a membership to lose weight. However, are they wanting to lose weight because they desire acceptance, peer recognition or perhaps inner harmony? Member B joined the gym for your six-week challenge, but is competition or achievement the main drive behind this? Looking beyond surface level reasons will allow you to retain these members long after they’ve met their initial goal.

Once you’ve established values for each driver, sit down with your staff to create a retention strategy for each one. Retention efforts can include a social event, competition, prizes or a more individualized approach. For example, if peer recognition seems to be a high driver, create an Instagram campaign which will allow members to extend their progress and results to their peers outside of the gym. If consistency is an identified value, offer a nutritional consultant to the student with the most monthly check-ins. This not only promotes consistent attendance, but encourages a better routine in the kitchen.

If one strategy fails, take notes and try another. These values will never be black and white, so there really is no right or wrong answer. Identifying ways to give students more bang for their buck doesn’t have to be daunting. At the end of the day, if your passions are people and fitness, you’ll view this as a window of opportunity verses a difficult task.

Interested in learning what top gym owners around the world are doing to run financially successful gyms? Get your free copy of our Boutique Fitness Benchmark Report.