Wodify is a leading all-in-one fitness management software, trusted by 5,000 of the world’s top businesses. With one of the largest & most accurate datasets in the industry, we decided to create this blog series in order to share specific metrics that are proven to drive results, insights from the most successful gyms, and how Wodify customers can track their progress. 

Intro

At a high level, there are two ways for a gym to increase top-line revenue:

1. Increase the average revenue per client 
2. Increase the total number of paying clients
   

This blog is going to focus on #2 and, specifically, how to get more paying clients by improving your lead conversion rate. 

Through our research, we discovered that getting leads into your gym quickly can double your conversion rate. 

Most gym owners understand that a higher lead conversion rate is good, but what is an ideal conversion rate and what can you do to increase yours? We dug into the numbers, analyzing thousands of gyms lead & attendance data to answer those questions.

What we discovered is that the single most important factor in improving your lead conversion rate is getting leads to attend their first class.

On average, the conversion rate of leads who attend class is 48% while the conversion rate of leads who do not attend a class is 24%.

To go one step further, we analyzed if there was a difference between conversion rates based on when a class attendance occurs relative to when the lead was created. 

In fact, our data shows that, of users who attend a class and convert, 70% of them will have attended that class within 5 days of becoming a lead. Further, 85% of them will have attended a class within 12 days. 

To summarize, while the biggest driver in lead conversion rate is whether they attend a class or not (recall that attending a class increases the overall conversion rate by 2x), the second biggest driver is when they attend that class (the sooner the better).

Measuring Lead Conversion & Attendance in Wodify

In order to track this, we built an Insights dashboard to show you at-a-glance how your business is performing. With Wodify Insights, you can instantly view your business metrics for:

• % of leads that attend a class within their first 12 days of becoming a lead
• Your lead attendance rates by month, to see how you’re improving over time
• Your total lead conversion rate based on class attendance
  

Moving the Numbers - Pro Tips

We asked some of the industry leaders and gyms around the world with the highest lead conversion & attendance rates for tips that you can apply to your business.

1. Don’t leave the ball in their court
   David Nichols, owner of CrossFit Flower Mound, has an impressive lead attendance rate - with 83% of his leads ending up attending a class. His advice to other gym owners is to be as proactive as possible as soon as a new lead comes in. 

As soon as a new lead submits a form on your website, you should be calling them (pro tip: try using Callingly and Wodify to automate this) or if they call your business you should get their contact info entered into Wodify immediately and try to schedule their intro class/appointment on that call. Don’t settle for a follow-up email that will give them time to come up with excuses to not come in for a class.

2. Answer the phone!
   This may sound simple, but simply picking up the phone when it rings may be the difference between getting a new lead (and booking them into a class) and losing them to another local gym. 
   
   Our data shows that only ~25% of gym’s answer their public telephone number when called during business hours. Let that sink in for a second… 3 out of every 4 people calling your business, presumably to express interest in joining, don’t talk to someone.
   
   Put yourself in that person’s shoes for a moment. Would you leave a message with all your info and patiently wait for that gym to call you back? Or would you call another gym in your area? Probably the latter…
   
   It may not be possible to have full-time front desk staff, but find a way to answer as close to 100% of calls as possible. Consider using a service like Google Voice to route calls to your cell phone/computer or a more advanced tool like Grasshopper to route calls to multiple people’s phones for the highest likelihood of someone being available. 
   
   

3. Give leads a chance to experience your community firsthand
   The most successful gyms financially, are also often the ones with the strongest communities. There are a lot of options for people to find gyms with equipment, but if you can find a way to give leads a chance to experience the community they will be joining, the more likely you are to get them to convert to a paying client. Here are a few ways you can do that:
   

• Invite leads to an upcoming community event (outdoor workout, BBQ, member social, etc.)
  
  
• Use fun icebreakers at the beginning of class as a way of introducing new leads to the rest of your clients, who may already know each other. Need inspiration? Check out these 143 ice breaker ideas from our friends at Warmup & Workout.
  
  
• Partner up your new leads with some of your most experienced members. This is a great way to foster community and sign up new clients!
  
  
• Offer new client classes where you go through slower movement demos and give a tour of your facility after the class. Create a low-pressure, safe environment to introduce new clients to your gym. 

We hope you found these insights & advice useful for your business! Keep an eye out for more posts in this series as we continue to explore the data in Wodify. 

If you are a Wodify customer, you can learn more about all of our Lead Insights. 

If you aren’t using Wodify yet, you can book a free consultation here. 

Want to keep learning? Check out our other Behind The Numbers post about 90 Day Client Retention.