How "sticky" are your clients?

How "sticky" are your clients? As in, how likely are they to stick around after their first class at your studio?

Many yoga studios don't see 50% (or more!) of their clients after only one visit.

This is huge for boutique studios like you, and me. We are not in a position to let them get away these days! But with just a few small tweaks to your business processes, you can increase retention to create BIG results.

Y'all should know by now that I am a math nerd, but check this out.

Assuming the following for a yoga studio (your stats may differ, but the point is the same):

  • 30 "new to the studio" clients per month

  • 50% (15) of first visits are via the introductory offer vs. a drop in (intro is $59 drop-in is $28)

  • Retention from intro offer to membership is 30%

  • Average time on membership is 4 months

  • Auto-pay membership price of $99/month

Small, but focused attention on acquisition and retention strategies can create the following increases in revenue over 12 months:

  • If you increase your new students coming on an intro offer vs a drop in, (say from 15 to 20) your revenue would increase 24%

  • If you increase your conversion of new clients on an intro offer to membership to 40%, you revenue would increase 19%

  • If you increase your average time on membership to 6 months, your revenue would increase 28%

  • If you increase your membership price by just $20, your revenue would increase 11%

  • If you did all of these, you would see an increase in revenue over 12 months of a WHOPPING 128%

Your mileage may vary, but as you can see, the impact of these small changes, either on their own or in combination with other changes, is a POWERFUL shift in your business revenue. And you don't have to spend one dime on a ad. None of these tweaks are about bringing in more people, they are about doing a better job of retaining the ones who are already coming.

So often, studio owners presume that to increase revenue they need more students in the door. But for most, it is not an issue of getting more in the door, it is keeping them from sneaking out the back.

Think of your new client offer like a bucket. You can get lots of clients in the bucket with flyers, word of mouth, advertising. But if they fall out of the bucket in a week or two (or after the first class!) then you have to keep spending money and time to fill up the bucket with more clients.

What if you just kept them in the bucket?

There are some really easy ways to work on keeping more new clients around for longer:

  • make your intro offer irresistible to create a time and financial commitment

  • offer a best in class experience and make the new client feel like the amazing soul that they are!

  • have several touchpoints in your sales journey (AUTOMATIONS!!!)

  • and an amazing upsell that make membership a no-brainer when their introductory offer is up

These are just a few....but much easier (and cheaper!) than yet another Facebook ad campaign.

Pick one of these and give it a try this week. Let me know how it goes!

Kristin Abel, VP Finance