“600% Increase is Group Fitness Participation” Powerhouse Gym – Utica, NY (From Group Fitness Profit August 11th, 2008)
“Ed McTiernan and Gail Owen of Powerhouse Gym in Utica, New York USA explain how Group Fitness (GF) has transformed from being a big drain on club resources to becoming a vital competitive advantage to the facility in just five short months.
We have been in business since 1991 and right now it's getting tough out there. Since 2004, we've been experiencing more competition from low cost operators such as Planet Fitness – today, we have three clubs in the area who charge $20 or less a month within two miles of our facility.
Our total weekly visits to the facility vary between 1,500 and 2,000. Since we added BODYPUMP™ into the mix, we have raised our weekly average GF visits from 56 per week for nine classes in February 08, to 350 per week for nine classes – six of which are BODYPUMP™. Today, GF generates an average of 20% of our total visits compared with circa 3% before we brought BODYPUMP™ to the club. And I expect 50% of total visits to be delivered by GF as we add more LES MILLS™ programs into our business mix.”
BODYVIVE™ launch classes deliver 42 new members and over USD 20,000 revenue
Anthony Cali, Fitness Concepts Boston, MA
“We also promoted the launch heavily and spent USD 6,500 on the event including instructor wages. I invested in direct mail and saved costs by using images off eClub on the flyer, which went out to 10,000 homes in the local area. We also emailed our database of 5,000 contacts which included lapsed and suspended members plus visitors who had come to FC but not joined. I designed a newspaper insert that went out to a readership of 7,500 again using the free images on eClub. (I love eClub by the way. It is a fantastic promotional resource).
Then we got busy promoting the launch inside the club. We had 6 foot high BODYVIVE™ banners in reception, Getting Started Brochures in noticeable positions, staff handed out flyers to all members, balloons and streamers were simply everywhere (!) while the walls had numerous BODYVIVE™ posters all over the facility and instructors promoted it in all their classes. It was as we hoped – impossible to notice.”