You may have heard the phrase “data is the new oil”.

It is true that data can be precious to a business. Data can help uncover insights into how we can better serve our membership base.

For data to be valuable, it is essential that you are collecting the right kind of data.

In this article, we explore 7 data points every health club should collect from their members.

Has the member been to the gym before – Yes / No

Experience level of a member is fundamental as it allows us to identify new members who may need more support and nurturing in the early phases. This is a data point we ideally want to track in the initial joining or onboarding stages of the membership journey.

If yes to the above, when was the last time they were a member of a gym?

There is a big difference between a member who hasn’t been to a gym in 8 years vs a member who was a member else, where three months ago. This allows you to segment members into experience “buckets” A member who has not been to a gym in 8 years most likely needs a similar level of support to a complete beginner.

What is the members current level of fitness/physical activity?

A member who physically fit and exercises outside of the health club environment will most likely transition into your gym and build the habit of consistent attendance then someone who has not done any weekly physical activity in the past 12 months. This information again helps ensure we can identify members who potentially need a high level of support and accountability.

Time availability

Another useful data point to collect is a member time availability. In other words, does the member work full time and have kids sport on the weekend? Or are they a full-time mum with kids now at primary school? Knowing this information allows you to help the member plan how to fit gym attendance into their lifestyle. You may only recommend that a busy executive attend the gym 2-3 times a week as any more than this will lead to overload and not be viable long term. Knowing this information up front helps you develop a winning plan for each member.

Goals

This is the most obvious one. Is your member interested in losing weight? Are you increasing strength? Muscle tone? General wellbeing? Collecting this data is more useful from a holistic look at your entire membership base. For example, if you know that 45% of members who join your health club are most interested in improving muscle tone and definition you can then create programs and marketing around this area to appeal to a large segment of your membership base.

Exercise likes and dislikes

There are always some exercises that you hate doing. If a member hates the rowing machine isn’t it useful to know this before prescribing 20 minutes of rowing in her exercise program. By uncovering this information before you create a training plan for the member you can ensure you are not making the big mistake of recommending an exercise that turns the member off.

Special interests

Collecting information relating to special interests members have can be useful. For example, there may be things like long distance running, swimming, hiking etc. This is useful to promote specific events throughout the year. For instance, if you had a fun run event at your centre, wouldn’t it be helpful to inform of the members who are interested in long distance running?

Collecting quality data about your members can help you serve them more effectively as well as understand the broader demographics or “segments” that lie within your membership base.

The key is to ensure you are collecting data from members. Many health clubs make the mistake of not managing this type of information digitally. By using outdated paper-based processes, data becomes trapped and is more difficult to extract value from.

An easy way to start collecting this kind of information is by implementing specialised gym software such as FitDesk that has powerful features around collecting member data through digital fitness consultations and testing protocols.