In the age of personalization, loyalty comes from connection, not check-ins – gyms that do it best will win
Data-driven communication is more accessible and important to businesses than ever before. Garmin Health, a global division of Garmin focused on empowering digital health solutions, is leveraging a wide portfolio of products with long battery life and multiple integration options to transform the landscape of fitness and wellness.
As personalized experiences – from curated content on social media platforms to custom recommendations for streaming sites – continue to gain traction in everyday life, gyms and fitness studios are rethinking the customer experience to build loyalty and engagement.
“Whether it’s a multi-state gym operator or a personal trainer looking to provide a boutique experience, our collaborators are asking for new and innovative ways to connect with their clients,” says Andy Beckman, Director of Garmin Health B2B Sales for the Americas. “They know many people are already wearing Garmin smartwatches, so the logical next step is to integrate with the Garmin Health Connected Ecosystem, have customers connect their accounts, and then tailor messaging based not just on activities, but the entire spectrum of health and wellness biometrics available.”
Many fitness providers begin with the Garmin Health API, a quick and cost-efficient way to receive information from the Garmin Connect app to their own. With this option, gyms can add communication touchpoints about Sleep Score, Body Battery™ Energy Monitoring, heart rate variability (HRV) and more. From there, fitness providers can customize messaging to an individual or a group, creating multiple ways to help gymgoers feel valued.
Group Challenges Anytime, Anywhere
One of the most popular ways Garmin enables community building is through third-party leaderboards and group challenges. But in this new era of digital integration, these activations are not limited by being physically present in the gym like in past years.
“People are looking for more from their fitness provider than ever before,” comments Beckman. “They want thought leadership, recommendations and opportunities to be social. And they do not want those things to stop if they are out of town or cannot make it to their favorite workout class.”
This past January, Garmin Health collaborator Crunch Fitness kicked off the new year by hosting an intensity minutes challenge for its members. Within that month, every person who recorded 2,025 intensity minutes – which are quantified by Garmin smartwatches and fitness trackers based on heart rate – was entered to win a Garmin device, a fun way to incentivize people along their fitness journey. Challenges are about hitting a goal rather than competing, making them a good option for newcomers.
However, gyms are not limited to the standard activity metrics when they use the Garmin Health API. A fitness provider could just as easily have a group challenge related to sleep, stress or Body Battery. This allows them to make it about much more than workouts, encompassing a broader spectrum of health, recovery and overall wellbeing.
Alternatively, leaderboards provide a way for customers to compete, a popular and easy approach to driving performance through data integration.
“We often see personal trainers and group fitness instructors using leaderboards to motivate clients by having weekly, monthly or even yearlong competitions,” says Beckman. “Between leaderboards and group challenges, you get a good mix of engagement options that appeal to a wide variety of customers.”
A New Level of Communication
Perhaps the greatest advantage of being in the Garmin Health ecosystem is how it changes the conversation between fitness provider and client. Suddenly, a gym can understand what its members are doing to stay active and healthy outside of its walls. This maintains a level of communication critical for long-term retention and relationship building.
Traditionally, a gym might send an email or message through its app based on how many times a customer came to work out. Someone who went every day could receive a message encouraging them to keep up the good work, while a person who did not come for a week might get a message saying they were missed.
A Garmin Health integration changes the script and allows an employee to correspond based on metrics, not attendance. For example, a client might be on vacation for two weeks and not in the gym. But because the personal trainer sees the out-of-towner is hitting a step goal every day, the customer is congratulated on maintaining a consistent level of fitness. This shows the business cares about the person beyond when they are using machines or taking a class.
“As gyms become more enmeshed with wellness, generating communications around things like injury or illness prevention, stress and sleep can become important touchpoints that, ultimately, help drive performance in the gym,” notes Beckman. “Garmin devices are much more than activity trackers and have been used in over 1,000 academic research studies. They have the long-lasting battery life and sensor accuracy to be 24/7 monitoring devices and, therefore, can provide fitness operators with a nuanced understanding of their customers that was previously unavailable before third-party data integration options like the Garmin Health API existed.”
As technology continues to revolutionize industries like healthcare and fitness, personalization fueled by data remains a notable way businesses, large and small, can enhance the customer experience and stay competitive. And with over a decade of experience and thousands of collaborations worldwide, the Garmin Health team is positioned to deliver the products, services and integration options needed to push the boundaries of this new digital frontier. To learn more about how gyms and fitness providers can utilize high quality data to bolster communication and community, visit the Garmin Health Gyms & Fitness page, sign up for the Garmin Health newsletter, or email Andy Beckman, Director of Garmin Health B2B Sales for the Americas.
