Ditch the Aggregators – Owning Your Studio’s Customer Relationships
Fitness aggregator ClassPass has changed how boutique fitness studios attract clients, fill classes, and think about growth. On the surface, working with an aggregator platform looks like an attractive option—they offer you visibility, steady foot traffic, and new people who may never have visited your place of business. However, many studio owners eventually learn that convenience has its trade-offs. Revenue becomes increasingly difficult to forecast, loyalty diminishes, and control over customer relations is eroded. For those studios that want to plan for long-term sustainability, this has become a pivotal moment in time.
The boutique fitness industry has moved past the initial experimental phase. While competition grows and margins diminish, owning your own customer relationships has never been more necessary for sustainable, financially sound, and valuable brands.
The Aggregator Era and Its Shortcomings
Fitness aggregation platforms, like ClassPass, allow customers to access different studios through a singular app or subscription service. In this way, a customer using one of these aggregators has the benefits of convenience (to have one subscription service) and flexibility (to try many studios). For newer studios, the benefit is almost instantaneous exposure. Many studio owners credit these aggregator platforms for helping them get through their first phase of growth.
While these benefits are immediate, in the longer term, a ClassPass’s operating model exposes some structural problems with aggregate platforms. When a studio is paid less per visit from an aggregator than it would receive through drop-in or membership rates, which it charged before the introduction of the aggregator as a distribution channel, this leads to fewer revenues generated per class, especially when studios fill classes primarily with discounted rates. Studios will continue to incur operating expenses regardless of how many members book an aggregate discounted class.
Another concern with aggregate use affects customer fairness. Loyal members who purchase classes at regular rates often find it difficult to book classes at the studio with others who are using only an aggregator. Accordingly, these situations lead to a decline in customer satisfaction and trust levels, particularly among the most loyal and highest-value customers over time.
Loyalty pattern risk also creates scenarios for studios. Many consumers have little loyalty to the studios that they booked through aggregators and tend to change studios frequently, thereby creating retention and loyalty issues for studios.
The Importance of Ownership of Customer Relationships
By owning their customer base, studios can shape their business story. Having ownership allows you to establish your price, method of communication, and member experiences without being controlled by others.
With a direct form of membership (gym), you gain consistent revenues with more solid expectations. Members know what they are paying for and why it is important. Studios can convey a consistent message about the value of the service through emails, in-studio messages, and community outreach.
You also have the added benefit of owning the data of your fitness customers. With ownership of this data, you are able to analyze attendance patterns, class preferences, risk of cancellation, etc. This provides studios with the tools to make better-informed decisions regarding scheduling, staffing, and programming. Aggregators typically withhold fitness member data from the studio owners, making it difficult for them to improve their operations.
There are also branding benefits associated with owning your own customer relationship. By communicating directly with your member, you will develop loyalty to the studio, instructors, culture, and community instead of loyalty to the application. This creates an emotional attachment that cannot be reproduced through an aggregator.
When you rely too heavily on third parties, you are building on borrowed land. You may be successful today, but there is no guarantee of lasting success because of the volatility of the platforms. By owning your customers, you are providing your business with equity and protecting it from rapid platform changes.
Steps to Reduce Overreliance on Aggregators
Being less reliant on aggregators is best when done over time. Making an abrupt change to your approach may disrupt your traffic patterns while creating an opportunity for thoughtful changes to build your relationships.
Begin with an analysis of your most frequent aggregator attendees. They have already recognized the value of your classes. Encourage them to purchase from you directly by offering them a limited-time promotional incentive such as a discounted introductory membership.
Then, look at class capacity and remove some aggregator spots during peak hours to enhance full-paying members’ experiences. This will create greater value in bringing your customers to you directly through an enhanced experience and also create less friction for your customers.
At the same time, assess the channels that you can utilize to grow your business and the local economy through local SEO, referral programs, and local partnerships. This will generate customers who you can directly engage with, while contributing to an overall balanced gym/aggregator relationship that will help you maintain your core revenue base.
Also, you will need to provide value to your members that aggregators cannot provide. By providing members-only events, challenges, and wellness services, you create a member experience that is unique to your studio and provides more value to the member. Over time, as you create opportunities for members to engage with you directly, members will begin to convert from utilizing aggregators.
Also Read: Zero-Cost Marketing: How Local Partnerships Bring in Members
Establishing a Strong Direct Community
A strong direct community is essential for success over the long term. A studio that builds its own direct relationships with members will be able to create a community within its walls and turn those relationships into word-of-mouth advocates for them and their business.
Some examples of building community are offering loyalty programs, recognizing milestones or achievements, and holding social events. Studios can also keep their members engaged between visits by using digital methods, such as newsletters or branded platforms, to keep them in touch with each other.
Many studios have found that after they stop relying on aggregators for members, their overall visits may go down, but the quality of revenue improves, and their direct-member visits tend to produce higher levels of investment in personal training, workshops, and retail purchases.
This change creates predictability in income and improves margins, allowing studios to focus on building deeper connections with their members rather than chasing a new volume of members. Studios that are built around a community-driven model are also more resistant to changes in the marketplace.
How and When to Use Aggregators
Many people assume that aggregators are harmful, but they do serve as a means of growing a business when they are used on purpose. This is especially true when limiting aggregator booking to times of low volume to allow studios to fill unused capacity without taking away from the members of the gym. Also, not allowing booking for premium/special events or classes through aggregators will help to maintain the value of a direct gym membership.
Anyone who visits a studio through an aggregator should be treated like a lead. The aggregate visitor should be serviced to the highest quality possible and be served a path back to the studio through enticing opportunities. This also increases the opportunity for conversion.
By knowing what impact a fitness aggregator like ClassPass will have on your studio, you can stay proactive in your business, set boundaries, and continually assess your performance to stay in control.
Conclusion
The impact of ClassPass, which is one of the leading long-term fitness aggregators, has clearly demonstrated that having visibility over customers without owning the customer relationship is very risky. Although using an aggregator platform will provide studio owners with potential access to new customers, the success or failure of continued growth will ultimately depend on studio owners owning the relationship with customers.
Therefore, studios that place a higher priority on direct membership as their main operating model, keep customer data private, and invest in community will create stronger brands and develop a more consistent flow of income. By focusing on the building of direct member relationships, studio operators will position themselves for long-term success regardless of what happens with aggregator platforms or other trends in the fitness industry.
FAQ
What is a fitness aggregator?
A fitness aggregator is an independent, third-party service that lets the consumer book fitness classes at multiple studios for one fee and pays the studio a reduced amount for each visit.
Will cutting back on ClassPass hurt my studio’s overall business?
If you reduce your use of ClassPass gradually, there should not be an impact on your studio. Studios that typically have frequent users will convert them into direct members by either referral or local marketing, replacing the traffic lost from ClassPass.
Why is it important to have fitness customer data?
When your studio has ownership over its customers’ fitness data, you can tailor communications with them individually, retain them longer, and make better decisions for your business.
Can studios use both aggregators and memberships simultaneously?
Absolutely! But, as with any other project, there must be a good balance. Using aggregators should complement your business, as well as not replace your most significant source of revenue.
Are aggregators ever helpful long-term?
Yes, provided that the payout is reasonable and the capacity of classes is closely monitored. The ongoing evaluation of your strategy will tell you if it is still working for you.