Elevating the impact of your programs, to ensure you schedule the right classes at the right times is one of the most effective ways to lift participation, grow engagement amongst your members, and trigger return visits and retention. However, truly understanding and assessing where the gaps are, who is (and isn’t) engaging, and what programs will actually work can be difficult without a clear line of sight of your data.
In this scenario, we walk through how a Programs Lead can effectively use real participation trends, demographic insights and market demand indicators to identify low engagement segments, choose the best activities to offer, and pinpoint the optimal time slots to run them.
Start by reviewing your members’ participation habits in your Programs module. In this scenario, we can see a noticeable decline in engagement among 50-59 year olds, which is a trend that does not match the wider market benchmark. Before making any decisions, it’s important to validate whether this is a consistent trend or a one-off fluctuation.
To understand whether this drop-off is a recent development or an ongoing challenge, the next step is to check the historical performance (previous months as well as year-on-year comparisons are a great place to start). Looking back over the past quarter reveals that the decline vs. market comparison has been present across July, August and September. With the pattern confirmed in this example, the 50-59 age group becomes a clear priority for targeted action.
Using ActiveXchange’s network benchmarking data insights, we need to determine whether this pattern exists across the wider sector, or whether it is confined to our site(s). Reviewing the sector comparison widgets, we can see that there is no clear drop-off in engagement for that member age bracket, re-affirming that this is an area that can be addressed within our facility.
With the target cohort identified, the focus shifts to understanding what they actually enjoy participating in, both at our site(s) and the wider network. Filtering by 50-59s and examining the Popular Group Fitness Classes widgets shows consistent preferences across both the site and the broader sector of HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), Spin, Pilates and other health/wellness options. These insights help narrow down which types of classes are most likely to attract engagement of our target cohort.
Next, the Optimal Timetable widget highlights where supply doesn’t match demand. After filtering to show only HIIT, Spin and Pilates, we can see a clear gap on Thursday mornings between 9 and 10am. This is a time period where other days are performing well and the wider market shows strong participation for this target cohort. This suggests that adding one of these classes (or adjusting an existing class which underperforms) to this timeslot could better cater to the group, increasing overall visitation.
Before introducing a new class, we need to consider whether the cohort has enough potential to support it, now and into the future. In the Operate module, we can see exactly how many unique members in that age bracket there currently are, and how many of them are considered “active members” (have visited the facility in the selected month). Additionally, we can see how many members we’ve recently acquired, how that compares against previous months and year-on-year, and how many newly acquired members can be attracted to our programs.
Looking in the Trends (monthly) widget, we can see that there are constantly around 400 active members in the 50-59 year age bracket, and that the site(s) acquisition strategy has been successful in the last three months with an increase of new joiners.
Taking a look at the Market Insight (monthly) widget, we can see the acquisition rate for that age cohort is quite high, which confirms there’s a great opportunity to engage new members that have just come into the business, early on in their member journey.
Furthermore, the attrition rate is higher than the market comparison, which is another indication for the site(s) to focus on this cohort.
To ensure longer term viability, we need to look at where demand that is unmet in the community is strongest, which can be found in our Acquire module. By mapping the age cohort identified, it displays that South Perth – Kensington (which is only a six minute drive-time from the site) has an unmet demand of around 440 prospective members, who are highly aligned to the established program offering. Knowing exactly where your potential audience lives makes targeted promotion much more effective.
By layering the insights gathered in this example, including; class preferences, timetable gaps and geographic unmet demand, the Program Lead can confidently make evidence-based scheduling decisions to better engage current, and prospective members;
