Introducing a new group fitness program at your club may seem like a quick and simple process. You add the new classes to your schedule, post some flyers and classes get booked. Right?

As a club leader, you know that’s not the case. However, if it’s not that easy, is there really a right way to introduce a new group fitness program? We think so, and this post outlines a blueprint to successfully starting a new program at your club.

Establishing a culture of data-based decision making is a huge success factor for any organization, especially health clubs. This concept rings true for starting new group fitness offerings in particular. If you don’t know what your members crave, it’s hard to deliver what they crave.

With that, before getting too far down the road of program launch, it’s important to survey your health club community. What types of group fitness programs are your members interested in that you don’t currently offer? What feedback do your members and instructors have for your current offerings? There is always room for improvement, and a simple survey can give you the data you need to make effective decisions. Another opportunity to leverage data to improve is by evaluating the performance of your current programs. To scale this evaluation process, set up a regular cadence of tracking class attendance and program revenue. From there, that data paired with a survey can yield significant insights.

Designing the new program is where most health clubs likely begin. Once you have the information needed to make a successful data-based decision, the finer details can be ironed out. In many ways, this stage of introducing the new group fitness program works much like a business plan. Beyond the class description, class schedule, instructors and pricing, you should also consider the mission of this particular program and how the health club defines “success” for group fitness programs. Be as detailed as possible and document everything so you can replicate the process moving forward.

Now that you have designed a new group fitness program that health club members are craving, here comes the fun part, telling people about it! The first step to an effective program introduction is to define your why and create talk tracks for your staff. No matter what marketing avenues you choose, from in-club flyers to social media and SMS, the most important detail to communicate to your members is “why” you are choosing to start this new group fitness program. Your health club’s talk tracks should equip your staff with enough information to clearly explain the new program, and they [talk tracks] ensure the message is consistent.

If you would like to learn about optimizing your software experience for group fitness success, contact us today.