Can members using Smart Wearables improve Gym Retention?

There’s been a massive boom in people using fitness tracking devices, from Google Fit to Fitbit. Encouraging your gym members to use smart wearables can actually increase gym retention. Let’s look at how this can be done.

One of the major reasons people quit the gym is that they’re not seeing progress. Part of the problem is not knowing how to tell if progress is being made.

To do this it helps to be able to make incremental measurements of progress and set realistic goals accordingly. This is where SMART wearables can really help you improve gym retention.

Tracking gym metrics with SMART wearables

There’s been a significant rise in the use of wearable technology to monitor fitness and activity levels.

From people using apps like Google Fit to measure the number of steps they take per day, to the success of the Fitbit smartwatch, fitness-tracking wearables are on the rise.

Forward-thinking gyms are not missing the trick to integrating wearables into their facilities. 

According to Chuck Morris of Team 85 in New Jersey, USA, the secret to gym retention is “accountability”:

“Wearable technology separates what a person thinks they did from what they actually did… Without technology, the numbers are like a vapor – hard to touch. Wearables make those numbers tangible and make the goal a person is trying to accomplish much more realistic.”

By being able to monitor metrics they would never have had access to before wearable tech, gymgoers are able to experience a sense of achievement and progress on a very granular level.

This sense of progress and winning makes people much more emotionally invested in their gym membership as they can feel that they are hitting their goals. This increases the chances members will stick with your gym.

We’ve written about how setting personal fitness challenges is a great way to improve gym retention, and wearable tech makes this even easier to achieve.

Wearables are also a great way to keep solo gym members motivated. Research shows that people who work out in groups or with gym buddies are more likely to stick with your gym. 

How to encourage your members to use smart wearables?

The benefits of smart wearables are clear, so how do you encourage the takeup of fitness tracking tech in your gym community?

For a start, you should make it easy for members to obtain smart wearables via your gym.

You could build a relationship with a provider of smart wearables and secure discounts which you can offer to your members. This in itself can be an incentive to join your gym.

Even if you don’t have an official relationship with a wearables vendor, you can still evangelise about this tech to your members in your marketing content. Write a decent email about the benefits of fitness trackers and send it to your members.

One of the big upsides of wearable tech is that it gamifies fitness, creating mini rewards for members. It’s even possible to create leaderboards to encourage friendly competition among gym members. Talk about all these benefits and perks to your members. 

If you are offering personal training, the trainers can use the data collected from wearables to help support gym members achieve their goals. The possibilities are endless.

Encourage your gym floor staff to talk to members about whether using a fitness tracker is right for them. It’s important for your gym staff to build strong relationships with your members. This creates emotional and social reasons to keep returning to the gym and makes members feel valued and supported. These are important member retention factors.

Some gyms are even using the data collected from wearables in their group fitness programmes to monitor member performance over time. When combined with a supportive and inclusive approach to fitness coaching, and a focus on people setting personal goals that are right for them, this can be a really powerful way to keep gym members coming back time and time again.

Integrating wearable Tech with Gym Retention Data

We’re in an era where data is an invaluable resource, and with AI data processing software there’s so much that gyms can do with this data.

If you use gym retention software like KeepMe you can monitor fitness data and use it to calculate the retention risks of your members. You can then automate member outreach to help different member segments stay active and engaged.

If you keep a record of which members use wearable tech you can monitor their retention scores and find out just how valuable smart wearables are for improving member retention.

If you want to see how KeepMe can keep your members coming back for more, book a free demo of our software today.