Technology has revolutionized our lives and influenced nearly every industry, including fitness.

It isn’t usually the first thing you notice at a club or studio, but its impact on a business' success is immense. From apps to wearables, technology is constantly changing the way the fitness industry functions.

The following is a summarization of an education session from the 2015 IHRSA Convention, produced with full permission from IHRSA. The full-length video is available for purchase at ihrsastore.com.

About the Speakers

John Golden is the President of Product Pioneering at EXOS.

Bonnie Patrick Mattalian is the Vice President of EXOS/Medifit.

Catherine Kolbeck is the President of Red Whisk Marketing.

Transform Your Club with Technology

To use technology effectively, identify your market segmentation. Knowing who your customers are is important when implementing fitness-targeted technology. It will be helpful to perform a competitive and demographic analysis of your market. Web searching your club can be a good way to determine your club’s internet presence.

Integrating technology into your fitness programming can enhance member retention and club revenue from existing members. Learn how technology can be used to enhance product value and outcomes.

Build a loyal community through technology and the internet to generate leads and increase revenue. Remember, it's important to always use best practices in digital member communications, so research current trends if necessary. Find new members and develop your club’s member acquisition strategy by using digital applications and social media streams.

Utilize Technology to Its Maximum Potential

Far from just being useful for crunching revenue numbers, technology can help you improve your club's performance in the following ways:

• Technology can be used to track member activity and outcomes, ensuring they receive the best possible fitness experience.

• Build a fitness and technology ecosystem within your club and have a space dedicated to evolving and learning from the information collected.

• Employ technology to reach beyond fitness campaigns, member check-ins, and simple fitness content.

• Integrate technology to collect data and information about your members and their fitness habits. This information provides the ability to create personalized programming by predicting member behavior. Better programs can produce increasing value for members.

• Technology can be integrated beyond the walls of your club by offering wearables and video content to your members.

Integrate Technology into Your Programming

Technology has transformed the simple treadmill into a machine capable of monitoring a client’s heart rate, suggesting incline changes and storing pre-made workouts. Technology leads to better results for your clients, and enhanced outcomes result in increased retention.

Use Technology to Create Winning Marketing Campaigns

A responsive website design is effective because it is optimized to work on both computers and mobile devices. Additionally, an easy-to-use user interface and intuitive information access are critical to any web presence. Offers, calls-to-action, and “join links” can be made easily accessible from the home page.

Keyword research is important for online marketing. Keywords determine how your target audience searches for and interacts with your site. Keyword research and usage can enhance web traffic to your site and increase and capture leads. You can use data on keywords relevant to your club to optimize search results.

Create valuable and relevant content for your club members. Member testimonials and specific case studies are one content option. Repurposing information from approved third-party sources increases content and can boost website traffic.

Use analytics for conversions, targeted offers and guest pass offers which are conditional upon the provision of an email address and name. Measure the efficacy of your website to better target users.

Staying up to date with current fitness technology trends will provide a competitive edge. Although technology can play a huge role in streamlining certain aspects of your club, it is important to realize that technology will never take the place of face-to-face interaction with members. Train your staff to interact meaningfully with members and prospects.

Like any big change, integrating new technology into your club comes with a learning curve, but the payoff is higher member rates, increased retention, better outcomes for exercisers, and more financial success for your business.