So, you’ve taken the leap and invested in Myzone. You know it will benefit your members by building community, making workouts more friendly and fun, and ultimately will help them reach their goals. But how do you get your members hooked on heart rate training? Jamie Revell, the owner of W3 Body, gives her top tips.
Jamie describes W3 Body as “a big box gym for women with a training gym inside of it”. Located outside the city limits of Chicago, the 10,000sq ft facility offers a wide range of equipment. It focuses on group training – strength-based small group sessions and large team training focusing on core and cardio.
Having grown up around fitness – Jamie’s mum ran a chain of gyms in the 1980s known as Women’s Workout World – Jamie has worked in the industry for 15 years, from teaching and creating programmes to selling and managing facilities. She purchased one of her mom’s gyms in October 2021 and set about modernising the women’s-only concept.
Target your biggest advocates.
We all know the power of word-of-mouth marketing; people trust recommendations from people they know over any advertising. This is why getting buy-in from your key members is critical.
“You need a core group of members who will be your Myzone champions and will positively spread the word.”
Jamie gave free Myzone belts to her most prominent supporters in the club.
“You want to choose your biggest advocates. For us, these were the top of our top 20 per cent of members; the ones who pay extra to be part of our team training programme, who refer other people, who buy W3 gear and always show up to our events.”
W3 Body staff and trainers were also given a free Myzone belt and educated in the technology. Together with the core members, they helped to spark interest in the wearable device and overcome resistance to change.
“A lot of my members are habit driven. They want to continue doing something if they’ve been doing it forever. So I wanted to give them a fresh perspective and encourage them to try a new workout style based on heart rate instead of the timer. Once our champions started talking about Myzone, other members took notice, and it started to catch on.”
Demonstrate the value of heart rate tracking.
At the beginning of W3’s journey, members were given demo belts for a week to learn how the technology gamifies fitness with MEPs and status rankings and to understand the app entirely. But they realised evidencing the benefits and value was the more impactful method for revenue and uptake.
Jamie has worked to embed Myzone into W3 Body by developing a strong association between technology and successful training. When new members join the facility, the team encourages them to take part in a 12-week programme that involves them with the gym’s most committed members.
“Instead of working out on their own as a basic member, they are around our top 20% of members using Myzone. They see how it works, the benefits of it and all of these very fit people working out with it. So it piques their interest right away.”
After a few weeks, members see the technology's value, making it easier to upsell to them. “Ideally, we want them to be training as a $200 monthly member instead of a $30 monthly member. After they’ve seen the value of Myzone from being around these top members for a while, we offer them a free Myzone belt if they convert to an annual membership. We give away a good amount of Myzone belts, but they’ve committed to a $2-3,000 contract, so it’s worth it. These members are brand new, and we are moulding them into those top 20% of members. It’s a good incentive.”
The key takeaways:
- Prove the product's value by exposing new members to it in an engaging way - showing them, not telling them the value.
- Be patient with promoting a new digital partner or product, and give members time to value and appreciate. Then look to bring them into the fold.
- Work with your top 20% of members to embed desired values and actions into other members.
Check out W3 Body here.
