7 ideas to ensure your club thrives post-lockdown.

Remember those days when members actually came to your club? With normality seeming like a long time ago it's important to start to focus on ideas that will help you to not only survive but also to bounce back and thrive once your club is allowed to re-open.

In this article we give you 7 ideas that you can implement now to help you to bounce back once your club is allowed to re-open.

First published: 19th May 2020

Enforce social distancing by creating a new calendar for members to book themselves into 'sessions'.

ClubManager Users Click to watch this video to see how to set up a seperate Sessions calendar for your club.

It's looking increasingly likely that clubs will be required to operate with social distancing in place. This means you will need to find an effective method where your members are informed of a suitable time when they can arrive and won't be turned away or forced to queue.

Hosting a secondary calendar (aside from any class calendar) in your app or on your website is a great way of doing just this.

How to do it

Calculate how many people you can have in your club at any one time with social distancing enforced (e.g. 40).
Decide on a maximum length of time you want your member to remain in your club (e.g. one hour)
Decide how frequently you would like sessions to start each hour. Starting a new session every 30 minutes is good as it's not going to be too inconvenient for the member and also won't mean you need to create lots of sessions
Divide the frequency of your sessions by the length the members can stay in the club and then divide the maximum number of people you can have in your club by that number. For example if you can have a maximum of 40 people in the club each hour then each half-hour session can have a maximum of 20 people on it.
Create the calendar based on these rules during the times you will be open
When ready the new session calendar can be released to your website and / or app.

Provide realtime feedback on how full your gym is.

ClubManager Users Click to watch this video to see how you can present your current capacity to your members in your app

Similar to the above an alternative method is to give your members realtime feedback as to how busy your club is. This puts the onus onto your members to check and decide whether it's the right time for them.

As an example if your club shows as currently being at capacity your member can decide whether they would like to queue or leave it for another time.

Ensure your classes (and sessions) are as full as possible at all times.

ClubManager Users Click to watch this video to see how to automate your waiting list, to send push notifications for reminders and more.

If you are required to run your club at a reduced capacity to ensure responsible social distancing there could be the risk that many members regularly find themselves on your waiting lists.

Disguntling members after you've opened is the last thing you want. Running more classes throughout the day is one way to reduce this. Another way is through the effective and automated management of your waiting lists. This is a two step process: 1) to ensure as many members come as possible and 2) that if a member can't make it their space goes to the next person on your waiting list.

How to do it

Set up a push notification to send a message to your members through your app when they move from your waiting list to your class.
Set up a push notification to remind your members that their class or session is about to start a few hours before (with a prompt to remove themselves from the booking if they cannot make it, which will of send a message to the next person on the waiting list telling them they are now in the class or session).
Automatically send an email when a member adds themself (or is added by a member of staff) to your waiting list (with a prompt to look out for a push notification telling them they have moved from the waiting list)
Send a confirmation email when a member books themself (or is added by a member of your staff) onto the booking.

Re-establish yourself in your community and gain some new, 'ready-to-go' leads.

ClubManager Users Watch this video to see how you can add pages and video to your app and member portal.

Then Watch this video to find out how to automatically show a new page of videos every week of a membership.

This is something you can start right now that could lead to a fresh set of brand new members ready to sign up once the lockdown of clubs is over.

Create a free six-week 'virtual' membership containing a set of pre-recorded training videos and / or streamed sessions available on your website and in your app. Reward those members by automatically 'opening up' each week of the membership with a new week's worth of training material sending them a push notification when you do. Remember to include an introduction by different members of staff and always relate your the training back to the club.

The message is simple: when the member is getting near the end of their free membership they are ready to come to the club. By this time they should have a good rapport with the club and the team.

Once you have your free membership created and your video and content is all ready run a small promotion in your local community. Using Facebook is a great way of doing this at a low cost.

Stream your live classes to gain a bigger following.

ClubManager Users Click to watch this video to see how to set-up live streaming (Zoom) Live streaming can also be done with YouTube.

With many clubs becoming familiar with streaming technologies for running virtual, online classes why not continue once your club is open?

This might not be for every club but if done well could deliver non-members or members on a budget membership the buzz of doing a class in your club whilst remaining at home.

Streaming your classes can be done by Zoom or YouTube Live. With YouTube Live your classes can be viewed by members of the public or by invited members and prospects only (by using YouTube's Unlisted status). This is something that could be set-up now ready for when your club opens. By including prospects you have another route to encouraging people to sign-up.

Before going live: Ensure that your members cannot be idenfitied in the videos and that it's instructor focused. Also consider whether your members have agreed to be filmed.

Consider off-peak memberships.

ClubManager Users Click to watch this video to see how you set-up off-peak memberships. Peak and off-peak information for the full history of your club can be found under Members > Members Dashboard.

Off-peak memberships is certainly not a new idea but if social distancing is implemented for gyms it may mean that your capacity is reached sooner, and more regularly than normal. This could leave members unhappy if they find they can no longer attend at the times they were previously familiar with.

How about offering a short-term, off-peak option? This could smooth out attendance leading to a larger number of your members being able to attend the club throughout the day.

Keep your members regularly updated

ClubManager Users Click to watch this video to see how to set-up live streaming (Zoom) Live streaming can also be done with YouTube.

Many of your members are looking forward to safely coming back to your club.

It's even more important to keep in regular communication with them. Keep your members in the loop on any changes you're making to the club, any plans for the future and any other news you may have.

Now is a good time to also double-check contact information of your members to ensure it's up-to-date (whilst remaining GDPR compliant)