Family offer – how to tackle it?

For a long time, maybe this idea was growing and clarifying in your head: you want to aim your gym offer not only to individual customers but also to their families. Funny enough, trying to achieve such a goal you have to be aware that marketing to the whole family does not mean working with a single strategy but rather a few to choose from and simultaneously implement.

First of all, you have to answer the most important question: what the whole family will do in your club? Do you focus on family activities where everyone is involved or are you targeting a specific family member like a mother, a father or a teenage child and the rest of the family can spend time in the club but just wait for them? There is also a third option: extra activities for each member, but then again if you are planning classes for younger children you need to have the offer for their parents ready.

In the case of whole-family classes, they should be advertised slightly differently than training and classes for a particular family member. The reason for that is that when customers come for specific training or workout they want to achieve something like dump weight, relieve stress and other common activities are primarily a form of spending time together. They are an alternative to walking in the park or going to the cinema so your competition is not just about healthy lifestyle activities and is much wider. When you advertise such services focus on celebrating being together and the feelings that accompany these moments rather than health benefits.

Bear in mind that fitness club is a very local business. That's why your audience is your local community. Children in this community have their favourite places - playgrounds, cafes, or places where they have already learned to spend time with their parents. One of the most effective techniques you can apply here is co-marketing, so cooperating and preparing joint marketing effort with such a place, or co-branding, in order to have a stronger and more effective message.

Being still on the topic of the local community you must surely remember that one of the most powerful tools for reaching new customers are recommendations. But do you also know that not all people are equal and have the same effect while recommending? Most people will advocate for a product or service when someone else asks them directly. But there are those who because of their profession are powerful machines for a recommendation. And here I mean people from the real estate industry who know exactly who is new in the nearest area, doctors and bartenders at cafes and bistros.

Communication issue is another problem on our list to consider while building a family gym offer. Reaching families means a really strong interaction with the local community. Internet is cheap and effective but it's not the only way to communicate. Reaching journalists with information about an interesting activity that you as a local community are doing in co-marketing will be much more interesting than the next ad. So think of reaching the family customers in terms of building value around you. Value marketing, social responsibility even on a micro-scale - are the topics that you can explore deeper.

How PerfectGym management software can be helpful? There are a few areas of the health club business where it can support your goal. To name just a few, it could be building an effective time schedule for all group classes, a chance to post questionnaires among customers about a new idea of family classes, running recommendation promotion and later checking its results.

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