The coming months are going to be focused around one goal – member acquisition to recoup lost revenue and drive new income streams. But while anecdotal feedback from operators suggests there will be significant pent-up demand on reopening, once that post-COVID ‘bounce’ wears off and the tougher summer months kick in, there won’t be plentiful funds to throw at the challenge: a survey of Hussle partners revealed, while 62% have a bounce back plan in place, 71% will be spending the same, or less, on marketing.
The sector needs to create growth while keeping customer acquisition costs (the money spent getting new customers) lean. This means reducing marketing wastage and appealing to a new, previously unengaged breed of member, to increase the chance of conversion and so member lifetime value.
Now is the time to move beyond what you’ve always done; keep doing the same things and you’ll only get the same results, if you’re lucky. More likely, you’ll get diminishing returns as others become more competitive. As we emerge from lockdown, it’s the prime time to embrace new marketing tactics to up-scale your business.
As a digital marketing channel with powerful UK-wide reach, Hussle offers a free route to revenue that many operators won’t have previously explored. Gyms needs members. Fact. Our new Membership Conversion Service (MCS) is designed to generate all the marketing power needed to source a new member and then help you convert them.
The MCS proactively targets people visiting a gym through Hussle to directly join if they’re attending regularly. This service identifies customers who would be best served by a direct gym membership, creating a new joiner channel for operators. Some customers will always want to use multiple gyms but others use Hussle as a tool to find a gym they like. We identify these high value customers and convert them into direct members, helping reduce operators’ customer acquisition costs – there’s no wastage, no resource overheads, just more members.
What makes Hussle unique in the market is that a member converted becomes just that, an actual member. Most marketing partners provide operators with revenue, but the customers will never become your own members. Whether it’s the ‘try-before-they-buys’ or occasional users, a marketing partner should offer ways to convert this footfall to memberships and so a higher lifetime value. In the last 18 months Hussle has converted 30,000 into direct members, with no impact on constrained marketing budgets.
It’s free to list a gym on the platform and we’re always keen to discuss building a recovery partnership with operators. Visit www.hussle.com/list-my-gym.