As someone who is passionate about exercise, I have often felt Gyms are disconnected from the health ecosystem particularly missing an opportunity to connect with (in order proposed strategic benefit);
The growing swell of food consciousness;
With the rise of veganism and socially conscious eating, gyms could really do well to connect with local food purveyors, both Restaurant and grocery to capture both existing health conscious customers and also, those who are concern but inactive. In addition, with the myriad of cooking shows, books, apps and even connected devices like Smart Nutri-Bullets, gyms could tap into these ecosystems providing partner benefits and user discounts in a much more connected fashion creating value for themselves, partners and users.
Public Health Philanthropy
Aside from healthy individuals who exercise regularly or would like to, there are of course members of the community in great need of exercise from those suffering with depression or other mental health concerns to those preparing for surgery or needing to exercise and strengthen other forms of treatment they are undergoing. It is typically a large disconnect between gyms and this community and whilst Gyms may not possess the highly skilled providers to conduct such support, why can they not collaborate and provide the facilities in a much more structured way?
Ever increasing levels Social interactivity in society
One failing of gyms is they are predominantly indoor, independent exercise. Whilst it is expensive to maintain facilities for group sports, why do gyms not have platforms for collaboration with and access to existing sport clubs? Going one step further, there are a myriad of social and exercise meetup apps now which are building communities of like-minded folk seeking what gyms can provide. It would be wise for gyms to seek these communities out and present visible value to draw membership
My advice for a strategy would be to target the low hanging fruit of the first two offering a broad array of health food discounts for members already health conscious and similarly, discounted support for patients in our struggling NHS who have clear need. As the community and general membership “outside” the gym grows, there is a tremendous opportunity to entice anyone and everyone into the member ecosystem for social reasons and to access a whole array of healthy & social interactions. This is the likely sustaining value point for the new ecosystem