What is specific for a premium fitness clubs?

At the beginning, you should set the criteria according to which you can classify a fitness club as a premium one. To do this well, you should first think about who your targeted customers will be. All in all, a customer decides about the perception of the club, about shaping its potential and about such trivial aspect - will he/she join and keep coming back to the club or not. Based on many surveys, observations and collected opinions I have distinguished three types of "premium customers".

Types of customers

The first and the largest group are customers for whom luxury is functional. Buyers of this type purchase premium products because of their usability values, that is: functionality, materials and technologies used etc. They do not buy with emotions. They rather calculate. For the second type of customers, luxury is a reward. Customers of this type use luxurious brands that are widely recognizable and have well-established position. At the same time, they do not want to be accused of snobbery, they care more about its discreet elegance and emphasizing social status. The last type of customers are the ones for whom luxury is a weakness, a field to satisfy hedonistic needs. However, this group is relatively small, only few people can afford luxury goods. They are usually young people from wealthy families who did not have to work for their social status.

Feed the needs

Knowing the most frequent needs of a premium customer, you can return to the question posted earlier, on what criteria a luxury fitness club can be defined. They seem now quite easy to name. They can be grouped into three categories: aesthetics, customer service and a prestigious character of the place. Aesthetics are beautiful interiors. All. From the locker room to the spinning classes room. Both the equipment itself and the furniture should be made from highest quality materials in a trendy style and with taste. Standardization will be important in customer service. Employees have to have proper dress code, way of behaving and conducting any conversation with customers, use specific language, be always prepared for FAQ etc. It is not without a reason that the last criteria is the prestigious character of a place. This is the widest issue and consists of most of points from the luxurious marketing mix. Classic 4P (Product, Price, Place, Promotion) turns here into 8P (Performance, Pedigree, Paucity, Persona, Public figure, Placement, Public relations, Pricing). As some of those points seem obvious and easy to imagine, other can be quite new requiring few words of explanation.

#Pedigree

Many premium brands have a rich pedigree and unusual history, which gives a mystical sheath around the brand.

#Paucity

Limited access is one of the factors that make the brand recognized as an exclusive one. An example may be clubs, not just fitness, with a limited number of members. Often, these restrictions are tactical, resulting from the company's strategy. This is one of the basic assumptions of the marketing strategy being prepared for upper-class clubs.

#Persona

Personality of a brand is an ingredient that allows to "humanize" the brand. This is to facilitate building customer relationships with the brand. One of the elements that is important for creating a brand's personality is its visual identification, which should be not only distinctive, but also must coherently harmonize with the values ​​to which the brand refers. In the case of premium brands, for visual identification, we also include specific design elements that give the brand a unique character or are associated with it.

And this is only the beginning. The whole subject is pretty complex and not straight forward. If you plan to run such club, PerfectGym management software is a must as a part of high standard customer service. System will allow you to take care about the customer in the slightest detail, not missing any requests or preferences. A skillful usage of this software will enable you to control many aspects of this high end business such as paucity – number of memberships, or prices  and performance.

Cover image source