Time and labor are precious currencies in fitness business management. This fact is one of the reasons why many fitness business owners have invested in gym management systems to reduce the time and staff workload once spent doing manual processes. In a recent report, Business Research (BR) estimates that the global market size of gym market management software will grow from $225 million in 2021 to $545.68 million by 2032.
Your gym business can use fitness management software to reduce administrative hours, process payments, improve performance metrics, and increase member retention. However, before you shop for the right gym management software, you must establish a clear set of objectives for your gym management system. This step will help you avoid buying expensive software that doesn’t add value to your business or help you reach your business goals.
To help you successfully invest in the right gym management system for your business, we will answer these questions:
- What is gym management software?
- Why use it?
- What does gym management software do for your gym?
- How do you choose the right gym management system?
What is Gym Management Software?
Gym management software features powerful technology designed to streamline and optimize the operation of fitness clubs and gyms. It provides a centralized platform where you and your staff can efficiently manage various aspects of your fitness business. Also, it allows your members to interact independently with the platform to perform multiple tasks.
Why Use Gym Management Software?
One of the primary advantages of gym management software is it eliminates the need for separate systems and manual processes. For example, gym management software allows members to easily create and manage schedules online. They can also book group fitness classes, personal training sessions, or other activities. In addition, staff members can oversee and adjust the schedule as needed, all within the same system.
Gym management software also allows you to bypass time-consuming and tedious paperwork in favor of a fully automated system that accelerates and simplifies various business processes, such as recurring billing for memberships, class schedules, performance data, and member information.
What Does Gym Management Software Do for Your Gym?
Some gym management systems may have more features needed to achieve your business objectives. This means you must identify the software solutions capable of helping you meet your objectives before shopping. To help you gain this insight, here are ten business functions that gym management software can profoundly enhance.
Class Bookings and Gym Scheduling
Efficient class scheduling and booking processes can improve member retention and recruitment. For this reason, your gym management system should automate and integrate these processes, allowing members to use your client-facing app to:
- Manage class schedules
- Book online and offline appointments with their favorite instructors
- Sign up for any event your gym is hosting
By linking these processes to your client-facing app, automated scheduling and booking save time, avoid confusion, and enhance your brand. This benefit is why this feature is a must-have in the gym software package you decide to purchase, whether investing in a new gym management system or upgrading.
Member Management
Since a happy and stable membership base is essential to the success of your gym, your gym business can substantially benefit from a gym management system that streamlines and simplifies the whole member management process. Efficient member management can boost your gym’s performance in two categories: member acquisition and retention. For this reason, gym management software should help you improve marketing to potential members and retain your present members. When you use gym software to automate member management tasks, you will streamline all components in the process, including payments, check-ins, database management, and online registration.
Administrative and Billing Management
The administrative end of managing a gym can be time-consuming and confusing because of the mounds of paperwork and records. These administrative tasks include invoices, billing, contracts, payments, and membership cancellations. Gym management software can consolidate your administrative and financial records into one accessible location. As a result, you can easily oversee your gym’s finances in less time and expense. The best way to maximize the benefit of gym management software is to use it throughout the member journey. It is a valuable tool for:
- Creating and signing contracts
- Automated billing
- Membership renewal reminders
- Member feedback and other member data
Overall, the primary purpose of this type of software is to lighten your team’s administrative workload so they can concentrate on your members.
Member Retention
Long-term members save you money in marketing and administrative tasks. These members are also more likely to sign up for premium services or refer friends and relatives to your gym. However, you must provide premium customer service to nurture long-term members.
A recent Statista.com study reveals that 86% of consumers consider customer service essential. You can ensure your gym provides a higher level of customer service by choosing a gym membership software solution with powerful tools to increase member participation and retention. This technology helps you enhance the overall customer experience by automating communication and initiating frequent interaction with your members, even when they are away from the gym. Whether you prefer push notifications for reminders or automated email promotions, you can choose the type of membership software most suitable for your ambitions.
Data-Driven Decision Making
Thanks to advances in digital technology, today’s business owners have the advantage of making data-driven decisions. For this reason, leveraging your data is critical to success in a data-rich environment. Your competition is likely already making data-driven decisions to boost speed, efficiency, and service quality.
Gym management systems can come with comprehensive reporting features that provide insights into key performance metrics, including the following:
- Membership growth
- Revenue trends
- Attendance patterns
- Class utilization
This type of technology allows you to use a data-driven approach to making informed decisions and developing solid business strategies.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the most effective methods of keeping your members engaged. For this reason, it plays a significant role in member retention. You can use gym management software to maximize your email marketing efforts through these tactics:
- Targeted campaigns: Gym management software enables you to segment your member database based on specific criteria, such as membership type, demographics, activity level, interest, or length of membership.
- Automated Communication: Gym management software allows you to set up automated email messages triggered by special events, new member sign-ups, membership renewals, or class bookings. You can also automatically generate welcome messages, promotions, or follow-ups.
- Promotions and Offers: You can use this technology to provide tools to create and distribute promotional emails, discounts, special offers, and loyalty rewards to current and prospective members. These efforts can encourage membership sign-ups, class participation, and personal training bookings.
- Event promotion: When you host special events, workshops, and challenges, gym management software allows you to promote these events through email to your member base. You can also include event details, registration lines, and incentives.
- Feedback and surveys: You can gain insight into what improvements and changes you need to make to your gym through email feedback and surveys facilitated by gym management software.
Financial Insights
Easily accessible financial data is essential for making well-informed financial decisions. Since a gym management system can generate reports and track cash flow, you can instantly get financial insights on your gym’s business operations that would otherwise take many hours to retrieve and organize. Within a few minutes, you can know how much money flows in and out of your business. It doesn’t matter whether you track multiple revenue streams or recurring monthly income.
Integrating Gym Hardware and Software
The less time you and your team spend using several ways of accessing devices and logging in to multiple software solutions — the more time and energy you can spend on revenue-generating aspects of the business. If you want to maximize your resources, gym management software helps you streamline operations and enhance functionality by seamlessly integrating hardware devices and software applications. This connectivity means you can access and control gym equipment, monitoring systems, accounting software, and CRM systems from a single platform.
Check-in and Access Control
Integrated check-in systems give members convenient access to your gym using keycards, QR codes, or biometric scanners. Besides ensuring security, this software provides vital member activity data to track attendance and monitor gym usage.
Cost Reduction
Traditional paper workflows consume considerable time and labor costs. Even you, the gym owner, must charge the business for time spent on manual administrative tasks. Imagine getting all the billing, scheduling, marketing, and operational work done in a fraction of the time paper workflows require.
Since a gym management system automates and integrates these workflows to peak efficiency, you and your team can use your labor hours to:
- Devote more energy and time to customer-focused work
- Concentrate on money-making activities
- Save on the cost of supplies and services
- Avoid spending money by hiring outside agencies
In addition, your ability to make data-driven decisions using gym management software will likely result in more profitable, money-saving, and effective results.
How Do You Choose the Right Gym Management System?
Although there is a wide variety of fitness software solutions, the best choice for your gym management system will ultimately have software solutions capable of advancing your objectives. As you shop for the appropriate gym management software, consider how their features optimize performance in these business areas.
Accessibility
Maximum accessibility for staff and members is vital when choosing a gym management system. Your choice depends on your preferred means of access to the system, either online, offline, or both. Regardless of your preferences, your gym management system should include:
- Member portals and mobile apps: These features allow members to book appointments, track their progress independently, and view schedules.
- Easy accessibility for staff: Your staff members can use various devices to schedule events, submit reports, and access member data.
Marketing
Gym management software includes solutions to boost membership sales, member engagement, and member retention. Some vital features to consider are:
- Lead capture tools
- Email marketing system
- Social media integration
- Automation of marketing processes
Before you invest in a gym management system, you should feel comfortable with its tools for sending newsletters and promotions, integrating fitness tracking devices, motivating members to stay engaged, and tracking member progress. These features can help you achieve the most profitable results from your marketing efforts.
Point of Sale and E-commerce
It’s essential to consider how you want to upgrade your point of sale and e-commerce system. Your current system may be functioning well. However, your new gym management system can integrate these functions to provide your members seamless in-app, online, and in-person payment options.
If your business offers online workshops, branded merchandise, and digital memberships, you need point-of-sale features to support these business offerings. You can tailor your point-of-sale needs by considering your members’ payment preferences. For example, suppose most members pay and book through your gym’s app. In this case, your new system should make these processes as fluid and seamless as possible. This focus on a user-friendly payment system can enhance the member experience.
Mobile App Integration
The mobile app is vital to member services because it allows your members to easily make payments, book classes, and manage their membership accounts. For this reason, mobile app integration should be a high priority when choosing your gym management system.
Your app should align with your online and website portal to allow your members to select their favorite way of booking events and making payments. It helps to consider the makeup of your membership. For example, older members may favor booking in-person or online, while members under 40 may be app users only.
To help improve member experience, you should consider other app features, such as app store integration and check-in services. In addition, ensure that you choose mobile apps compatible with Android, Windows operating systems, and iPhone.
Automation
Not only does automation positively impact gym administration and operations, but you can also use it to boost marketing and member retention. It takes the physical labor out of emailing class reminders, welcoming new members, and prompting inactive members to participate in classes and other gym-sponsored activities.
Automation typically reacts to behavior prompts, such as a new member signing up for the gym’s digital platform. In this case, the new member would get a welcome email and perhaps an introductory video outlining the platform’s features.
Moving Forward
When you choose your fitness software solutions to match your objectives, you can optimize your gym business’s performance, enable your staff to concentrate more on members and revenue-generating activities, enhance member experience, and run smoother operations.
The right gym management software saves you time and expense by replacing manual processes with automated workflows and integrated systems. Watch this demo video to learn how Kilo can help construct your business’s best gym management system.
