Behind the Numbers: Why New Members Leave and How to Make Them Stay

Behind the Numbers: Why New Members Leave and How to Make Them Stay

Behind the Numbers: Why New Members Leave and How to Make Them Stay

Wodify is a leading all-in-one fitness management platform, 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

In the last Behind the Numbers blog we announced our newest feature, custom reporting, which allows you to customize how you gather and report your business’s data. Aside from all of the reasons cited in the blog post, keeping track of data is crucial to your business’s success because it can help you nurture leads and new clients.

Why is lead and new client nurturing so important? After analyzing 14 million Wodify attendee data points, this Behind the Numbers blog reveals that new clients are 68% more liekly to cancel their membership if they haven’t been to class in 20 or more days compared to long-term clients. We want to share more of this data, explain why it’s important to know, and, most importantly, give you solutions to help prevent clients from letting their membership go.

The Data Uncovered

In order to come to this data conclusion, over 14 million Wodify attendee data points were analyzed and categorized. This data revealed the following conclusions regarding how likely it is for a client to return to class:

  1. 10 days without attending class
    a. Clients in their 1st month: 48% likely to return to class
    b. Clients in their 18th month: 92% likely to return to class
  2. 20 days without attending class
    a. Clients in their 1st month: 13% likely to return to class
    b. Clients in their 18th month: 81% likely to return to class
graphical relationship between client retention rate and days since last class attendance

The graph above shows the difference between the average return rates of clients with varying lengths of membership. The sharp decline of the blue line represents the rapid decline of the likelihood of return of clients in their first month the longer time goes on that they have not attended a class. In other words, we see almost an additional 20% decline in likelihood of a client in their first month to return to class every 5 days they have not attended class.

On the other hand, the graph clearly shows the less steep lines for clients that have been members for a longer period of time. For example, a client in their first month’s likelihood to return drops almost 80% from not attending class in 5 days to not attending class in 30 days. Whereas a client in their 18th month’s likelihood to return drops only 12% from not attending a class in 5 days to not attending a class in 30 days.

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The Impact to Fitness Business Owners’ Bottom Line

Maybe you’re asking yourself what exactly this is telling you as a fitness business owner. It’s telling you that the longer your client has held a membership at your business, the more likely they are to return despite not having attended class in a while. The greater the gap in attendances for newer clients, the closer you should nurture them because their liklihood to renew their membership is fragile. 

The Bottom Line: NURTURE YOUR NEW CLIENTS. 

This data should sound intuitive to you because this is why sources on the internet are constantly telling you to pay closer attention to newer clients. Because if you treat them the same as people who have been a clients for over a year, then you will be losing thousands in potential revenue.  

Moving The Numbers

Now that you have this enticing and motivating information, where do you go from here? 

  1. Use Custom Reporting to track attendances of your members
    Tracking clients’ number of days since last sign in is not a report that static reporting systems typically include. This is why you should take advantage of Wodify’s Custom Reporting feature

    Our previous  Behind the Numbers takes you through exactly how to create this report in order to keep track of these new clients. 
  2. Call your newest members & speak to them in person
    A good old fashioned call has not gone out of style. In fact, clients appreciate it even more now that texting and emailing has become more of a common thread of communication. 

    Calling your members personally shows that you really care about them and they are more likely to come back when they feel they have a personal connection. 
  3. Use automated emails
    Automated emails can come in handy as your membership continues to grow since it will be hard to keep track of all of your member’s milestones. Small milestones, such as their first 5 classes or their first month of being a member are huge wins for clients. As a business owner, you want to show them that you’re keeping track of them too. 

    Check out this article to see what else you can do with Wodify’s automated emails and stay tuned for an upcoming webinar on automated emails as well!
  4. Offer your newest clients/leads a new client special that lasts over 1 month
    Finally, to get your clients to stay past the “one-month mark”, try offering them a new client package that lasts longer than one month, such as a 10-class pack or a 2-month special. This way, the longer they remain clients of your business, the more likely they are to return to class! 

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

Want to keep learning? Check out our most recent Behind The Numbers posts:

How You Should Really Be Keeping Track of Your Business Data

The Secret To Saving Time & Money as a Fitness Business Owner

The Surprising Impact of COVID-19 on Gym Memberships

How to Optimize Your Fitness Class Schedule

Why Every Gym Needs Client Performance Tracking 

Ready to put what you’ve learned into practice?
Download a free PDF handbook with many of NCFIT’s gym management procedures and philosophies that you can implement in your gym today.
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