How to Use Gym Software Data for Explosive Growth

Sounds like a total scam to me.

If I told you I could bring in 23x more gym members than you’re getting right now, would you believe me? If you’re smart, you’d laugh in my face and you’d hang up the phone. Definitely a don’t call us, we’ll call you moment.

It does sound like a scam though, doesn’t it?

The truth is even crazier—make the right decisions and you’re 23x more likely to win new members, 6x more likely to keep your members, and 19x more likely to be profitable. When I first saw this, I laughed—until I saw the name behind this data point.

Data-Driven Companies Outperform Their Competitors

McKinsey’s research was pretty shocking. Their data found that data-driven companies had a huge, almost unfair advantage over their average competitors. Companies that rely on data analytics get a deep, intimate understanding of their members.

Here’s why that’s a big deal.

Data-driven decisions predict the future; they create products and services that fit members like a glove. Their marketing attracts higher-quality members who are willing to spend more. Here’s the best part about all of this—they keep more of their members.

How can gyms achieve these results?

It starts with analytics.

If you’re looking to mine your gym data for explosive growth, you’ll want to identify the tools you need.  

1. Descriptive analytics: “What happened?”
2. Diagnostic analytics: “Why did this happen?”
3. Predictive analytics: “What might happen in the future?”
4. Prescriptive analytics: “What should we do next?”

These analysis tools provide the data you need to answer questions, make informed decisions, and evaluate performance. Which tool incorporates elements of all four types of data analytics? More importantly, where should we start if we’re trying to collect data in the first place?

Start with the Best Gym Management Software You Can Get

If you’re doing it right, you’re using gym management software.

This software is the foundation, the backbone of your fitness business. If you’re not using software, you’re more likely to spend your time working in your business, rather than on your business. Good gym software streamlines repetitive tasks, e.g., billing, administrative tasks, and back-office operations.

It’s the most important step in your fitness business.

We’re biased, but we’re not wrong.

Top-tier gym software will produce measurable results across the board in your business. If you’re doing the work and using the software as intended, you should see:

• Lower operational costs
• Increased revenue via marketing automation
• A reduction in failed payment charges
• Stable payment history from members
• Lower customer service costs via self-service
• Lower late payments
• An increase in stable cash flow

If you’re in the market for gym management software, you’ll want to look for gym software that includes:

• Automated billing and on-demand payments
• Everything you need to process payments
• Digital member management
• Online class scheduling tools and booking management
• Track attendance and progression tracking
• Lead generation and nurturing
• Performance reporting and analytics
• Facility access management

You’re looking for gym software that’s scalable, customizable, and adaptable. It needs to grow with you; the last thing you need is to be hitched to a tool that charges (punishes) you for growing.

If you’re using software like Gymdesk, you’ll find that it has the four types of analytics we discussed earlier. You get descriptive analytics that tell you what happened—how are we doing? How much revenue did we bring in? But it also provides you with the data you need to make predictions via forecasting and projections.

Prescriptive elements that answer the question “what should we do next?” 

For example, your gym software just told you that you had two dozen cancellations—the obvious next step is to find out why.

Data-Driven Gym Operations and Management

When analyzing the data in your gym software, what specific information are you looking for? Stakeholders can analyze a laundry list of data, but that’s not so helpful when you’re unsure about the value you’re trying to extract. The data-driven approach works, but the focus needs to be on the right data, not all the data.

What’s the right data?

It all depends on your goal, doesn’t it?

Let’s assume that your gym is in growth mode. You’re looking for data that directly correlates to revenue! Here’s a list of metrics and key performance indicators that you can evaluate.

• Monthly Recurring Revenue: A clear indicator of the revenue you can expect in a given month
• Avg. Revenue Per Member: Your ability to monetize each member above and beyond their membership
• Customer Lifetime Value: The long-term value of your customers; this metric informs cost-per-acquisition
• Lead Conversion Rate: From A to Z, how effective is your sales funnel?
• Cost Per Acquisition: Is acquiring new members profitable for your gym?
• Trial-to-Member Conversion Rate: This metric assesses your onboarding and sales follow-up
• Member Retention Rate: The number of members you keep
• Monthly Churn Rate: The number of customers who cancelled over a specific period (i.e., one month)
• Average Member Tenure: The total months of membership
• Check-in Frequency Per Member: The higher the usage, the higher the retention and upsell potential
• Class Occupancy Rate: Class attendance over time and the number of class attendees
• Add-On Conversion Rate: The number of members who purchase add-ons
• Failed Payment Rate: The number of failed transactions divided by the total billing attempts
• Accounts Receivable Aging: Failed transactions divided by the total billing attempts
• Referral Rate: The number of new members received from referrals

See that there?

If you’re running a gym and you’re trying to track all of this manually, it’s an absolute disaster. If you’re tracking this on your own, you’re working in your business, rather than on it.

Your gym can’t grow if you’re stuck working in it.

If you have a goal and you’re tracking the right metrics, you’re in a position to work on your business. If Monday morning classes are packed but Thursday classes are mostly empty, you can ask questions, redeploy resources, or offer a more popular option at that time slot.

Data-Driven Membership Management and Engagement

Marketing wins members, management keeps them.

One of the biggest benefits of gym software is, you guessed it, member management. Good member management creates engagement, and engagement drives retention, stabilizing your cash flow. If you’re evaluating your gym’s performance objectively through software, you have all the insights you need to make positive changes and build a successful gym.

With the right software tools, you should have insights into:

• Attendance at the member and group level
• Class attendance trends
• Class participation
• Member activity
• Member upgrades and purchases
• Cancellations

Wait, I just said member engagement drives retention. How do you go about improving member engagement? Here are several ways you can do it.

1. Set expectations, meet expectations: You help members set realistic expectations, then you meet them.  Do your very best to avoid fuzzy, implicit, and unrealistic expectations. Over time, trust and engagement will naturally rise.
   
2. Regular check-ins: Use the data in your gym software to check in with your members on a weekly or monthly basis. This needs to be treated as a relationship you actually care about, not a line item or to-do you’re trying to get out of the way.
   
3. Cheerleading and emotional support: Most of your members are starved for recognition and praise. Some of them are so starved that they’ll reject the customer support you provide. Stay the course. Continue to recognize them for the things they’re doing well and support them when they struggle.
   
4. Take the time to notice them: If you set an inactivity alert in your gym software, you’ll be able to identify the members who have missed sessions or are inactive. Reach out to them to check in. Let them know that they’re missed and that you care about them.    
   
5. Customize your communication: Look at the member preferences in your gym software. Use that data to customize your communication with them. Do they prefer text messages over email? A once-a-month summary of important information? Do your best to accommodate them.

If you’re paying attention to your membership data, you can identify members who are most likely to churn. Early intervention, via engagement, is the antidote to churn and the secret ingredient to loyalty. Your members know that they’re important to you.

Getting Results: Client Data and Personal Training

Your clients want results.

That’s the primary reason they’re attending your gym. They’re looking for a specific outcome in their fitness journey, and they’re trusting you to help them achieve that outcome.

Just one problem.

You can’t produce that outcome if you’re confused about what your clients want or their progress. You definitely can’t do this if you don’t track attendance, and you don’t know their preferences and limitations. Imagine that your client has a bad knee; they’re unable to bear weight on that knee. Is it a good idea to ask them to do squats?

Probably not.

However, this is the type of data you’ll need if you’re going to help your clients achieve the outcomes they want. As a gym owner, you’ll need to provide trainers with the data they need to customize client workout and nutrition plans. Data shows you how to keep your clients motivated when they hit that inevitable slump and struggle to push through. It enables trainers to adjust programming based on client progress or setbacks.

With the right gym software, personal trainers can:

• Create personalized training with a full understanding of their client’s circumstances
• Track attendance trends and performance data from client progress in real time
• Give clients valuable feedback that’s based on performance data and changes they can see
• Provide the cheerleading and customer support they need when results begin to slow
• Hold clients accountable via automated reminders for upcoming sessions and inactivity alerts
• Use your gym software to save client notes for future sessions

It’s a win for gym owners, a win for trainers, and a win for your members.

How to Increase Member Retention with Gym Data, Communication, and Automation

Dunbar’s number is a hard limit.

It’s a cognitive limit to the number of people we can maintain stable social relationships with.

No one agrees on the exact number of people we can hold. What researchers do agree on is the fact that, at some point, you’re going to hit a wall. When your gym grows into the hundreds, you’ll find you won’t be able to maintain relationships with all of your members.  

Yet another reason why you need software.

This is one of the most helpful parts of gym software. You can automate huge portions of your member communications. You can use automation and personalized messages to maintain member engagement.

I’m talking about:

• Welcome emails
• Anniversary messages
• Birthday greetings
• Class reminders
• Missed session alerts (for gym owners)
• Missed session alerts (for members)
• Upcoming renewals

But wait, there’s more!

If you’re using top-tier gym software, your members have self service options as well. With self service portals, your members can:

• Book personals
• Sign up for classes
• Manage their automated billing details
• Access the gym
• Receive critical updates and promotions

Here’s why this matters.

Offering more self service options in your gym software reduces your expenses, boosts revenue, and reduces your staff headcount. You can operate your gym profitably with a barebones team—software does the heavy lifting, allowing you and your team to focus on the high-impact, low-volume work that matters most.  

What does this look like?

Yelena is one of your CrossFit regulars, so she receives an automated message promoting an upcoming CrossFit workshop or event. She may also be interested in booking private sessions with Sean, your CrossFit specialist, to prepare.

She logs in to her members’ area and upgrades her account. She adds notes for Sean, and just like that, she’s ready for her camp.

See what I mean?

One automated hand washes the other.

Boosting Revenue with Secure Payment Processing and Billing

As I mentioned in a previous post, Good cash flow management is the lifeblood of your business. If your gym community is healthy, revenue through your business consistently.

There’s a cadence to financial management. You want more money flowing in and less money flowing out. When you streamline your payment processing and automated billing processes, you get to keep more of your money.

Your gym management software should offer:

• Payment processing integrations
• Automated invoicing
• Automated billing
• Failed payment alerts
• Payment history logs

The more transparent you are with member recurring payments and financial records, the easier it is to avoid or minimize disputes, refund requests, and chargebacks, a win for your active members. Analyze your financial data and you’ll identify trends, conversion bottlenecks, and popular options in your business.

Look for PCI-compliant software and integrations with payment processing from companies like Stripe, Square, and Authorize.net that offer key features (e.g., Auto-verify expiring cards via a CAU system).

Use Your Gym Software Data to Drive Growth and Revenue

If you’re pulling data from your gym software (e.g., Gymdesk), Google Analytics, and survey marketing tools like Typeform, you should understand what happened, why it happened, what will happen next, and what you should do. Here are a few examples:

• You can identify which membership plans are popular and which ones are not.
• Identify the price points that work and the ones that don’t
• Set ideal pricing strategies
• Optimizing class scheduling
• Improve upselling, cross-selling, and down-selling opportunities

You can use your data to drive growth and revenue. Here’s an example:

• Offering a 10-class pack for members who attend infrequently
• Promoting premium memberships with VIP incentives
• Extending seasonal or referral-based discounts to attract fence-sitters

You can go as deep as you like with your data, using your marketing performance to shape the strategies and tactics you use in the future. Did your SMS campaign work better than your paid social or SEO campaigns? Look at your data? Do your print campaigns work better when they’re paired with your display and paid social campaigns?

Use your data.

Use your data to align your business with the things your members value—pull as many valuable insights as possible from your gym software; use your gym insights to identify the offers and communication that your members respond to best.

Growth via Facility Access and Security Data

One of the gyms I’ve attended offers key fobs.

Great, right?

What’s not great is the fact that this gym business didn’t have someone at the front desk. They decided to run their gym security on the honor system. Suddenly, the basketball hoop is broken, the gym equipment has been damaged, members’ personal items are being stolen, and members are allowing non-members to use the facilities.

Naturally, members don’t want to put up with that.

Gym security and access control have a direct impact on gym safety, operations, and member satisfaction. If your gym software offers it, you’ll have built-in and integratable access control systems, including:

• Keycards
• Key fobs
• Mobile check-ins
• Biometric scanners

These systems improve your gym security, but they also:

1. Track facility usage by time/day/member type
2. Help staff manage capacity during peak times
3. Prevent unauthorized access

Here’s the neat part about all of this.

Your access data can also correlate with billing and membership data. If Jenn, one of your members, hasn’t checked in for 30 days, your facility’s security system can trigger a reminder email, alerting staff to follow up. This provides your team with a comprehensive view of what’s working.

Data-Driven Companies Outperform Their Competitors

McKinsey’s research is pretty clear. Their data found that data-driven companies had a huge, almost unfair advantage over their average competitors. Companies that rely on data analytics get a deep, intimate understanding of their members.

Data-driven decisions predict the future.

When you know your members inside and out, it’s easy to create products and services that fit members like a glove. When gym owners use the right gym management software data to grow, they attract higher-quality members who are willing to spend and invest significantly more.

Use your data to make the right decisions, and you’re 23x more likely to win new members, 6x more likely to keep your members, and 19x more likely to be profitable.