Expand your horizons – host seminars at your gym

I was doing my typical cardio workout on a treadmill and I was searching for something to stare at when my eyes caught sight of this poster advertising an upcoming seminar dedicated to nutrition and food supplements for people who trained a lot. The price was reasonable, duration about 3-4 hours, during weekend and there were a few well-known food supplements brands mentioned as sponsors. At this point, I really started to analyze not only this particular seminar, but the whole idea of organizing such events and what it can bring to the gym business.

It is about better understanding of their bodies and minds.

Seminars are something new to the gym business. People would focus mainly on physical aspects of training, would look for diversification in training types or gym classes and invest maybe in some food supplements like whey or BCAA. Now they are given an opportunity to add a great value to their sports lives – in the surrounding they know and appreciate, they can expand their knowledge and become experts. This is really a great bonus as many gym users search for new options to intensify and diversify their routines in new areas. Moreover, people are more conscious and their lifestyles have a broader spectrum than just going to the gym.

Depending on your business profile, you may need to focus on a bit different subjects for seminars. There are some areas which often pop up as seminar themes such as: healthy cooking & dieting, food supplements, muscle and weight gain, losing weight, need of recovery & stretching etc. If your business is about yoga, martial arts or anything specific, you will probably concentrate on some narrow categories for seminars in order to make them really worth for your customers.

Seminars are a great tool of loyalty marketing which targets your most regular audience.

The most important subject is how you can benefit from it as a business owner. Thanks to the gym management program like Perfect Gym, you can evaluate how big your potential group of customers is for some specific seminars, you can also send targeted communication or a discount offer for such an event. You can give bonuses to the most loyal and long-term clients. If the idea of seminars finds its place at your gym, you can start to think about it as a regular point in your membership strategy.

Well organized and prepared seminars can become a great start for building community around your place. Small group of attendees, focus on some topics and issues, longer time spent with each other – these are just a few reasons why people during seminars will get to know each other and can start to share their experience and know-how. There is likely a chance that they will open a group on social media to continue their discussions and sharing. You can always partner them in order to keep it alive, show an interest and share some future plans for possible next seminars.

Seminars can also help you find new business partners. Some companies can easily become sponsors for this type of event, others can send their ambassadors as a main or additional speaker, some companies may want to give away samples and after some time check the opinion and satisfaction level with that group. There are plentiful possibilities in this area.

The final point to mention here is that if you have a good level of attendance and positive feedback after the first of a few seminars, it may be worthwhile to consider organizing long-term seminar cycles. This tool might not generate very high income for you, but could have a positive impact on the retention rate in a longer perspective. Building a reward system with your seminar attendees may also result in an increased amount of gym members who will appreciate the loyalty system in your facility.