Feb 22, 2018
by Irina Linnik

How a 19 000$ mobile app can help you manage the gym and bring new customers

We have already spoken so much about the importance of mobile apps for modern businesses and the amount of people that are using apps in their smartphone on everyday basis.

It’s hard to imagine modern Dubai without common implementation of technology and off course mobile apps. This trend is promise to keep booming and everybody knows that.

However, we did not speak much about personalized fitness apps – the ones that thousands of people in Dubai and hundreds of thousands in the World use everyday in order to manage their lifestyle.

Such apps vary greatly and come in many forms: apps for workout, activity tracking apps, diet & nutrition apps and so on.

All of them serve one purpose: to offer personalized services for every user. But how can Middle East gym owners benefit from that?

Let’s briefly about the features and benefits of mobile fitness applications.

Such apps vary greatly and come in many forms:

  • activity tracking apps.

The main idea behind such applications is to provide users with information about their activity throughout the day. This may include distance walked, steps made, calories burned and so on.

You can build a fitness app that can connect to wearables and provide even more data - like the heartbeat rate.

  • nutrition & diet apps.

It can include daily food habits, a number of calories burned and taken throughout the day, the water balance of the body, weight changes, creating grocery lists, a barcode scanner, food logging and others.

  • workout and exercise apps.

The members of your gym would be able to create your own calendar of workout sessions, track the number and difficulty of exercises and learn how to perform them in a correct way.

Why gyms need their own apps

Like any other business, gym is a place that offers certain services to people and obviously, it’s a good idea to stay in touch with clients and be able to immediately contact them via notifications, for example.

However, mobile apps for gyms can include certain features that would help the gym stand out among the competitors.

First of all, loyalty card feature in the app.

All people love to get all sort of discounts and “special offers” – so why should you ignore that?

By adding loyalty card feature to your app, you will enable people to track their visits down, receive rewards and discounts based on that and much more.

As well, such feature will add a bit of “feel special” experience to the user, strengthening their connection with the gym.

Secondly, your app can serve as a useful tool itself by having video and photo tutorials

This will additional value to the users even outside the gym and refresh their memory on certain activities.

And of course, don’t forget about social media buttons!

Because who would not want to share their progress with friends?

Do you know what kind of app you need?

Create an application that is unique to your club. You can include all types of applications into one or add the functions you need to any of the application types.

Let's look at some of the features that make the application useful and help the gym stand out from the competition.

User profiles.

In the profile the client of your gym get information about his burned and gained, about water balance of his body, about his sleep and help to create a perfect workout for him.

The social login feature.

It allows creating a profile by extracting needed information (name, photo, date of birth) from social networks.

This is a great source of remarketing possibilities, because you can always use this data to reach you customers after and carefully remind them about your gim.

Loyalty card feature.

All people love to get all sort of discounts and “special offers” – so why should you ignore that?

By adding loyalty card feature to your app, you will enable people to track their visits down, receive rewards and discounts based on that and much more.

As well, such feature will add a bit of “feel special” experience to the user, strengthening their connection with the gym.

Video and photo tutorials.

This will allow clients to practice even outside the gym and refresh their memory on certain activities.

Push notifications.

They’ll remind users about their upcoming training, planned food or water intakes, the best time to go to bed and other activities. As a result, it will increase engagement and encourage to use your app more often.

Ecommerce feature.

If you have sports gear and clothing that your gym sells (or you are thinking about that), mobile app is a perfect place to offer such products for your clients.

Maybe they want to buy something after leaving the gym but don’t want to go back – and that’s the moment where the app comes for help and allows them to complete purchases from any place.

Reward your customers.

Turn your application into a game with the client. Encourage his success with virtual rewards. Then give him a discount or a prize. This function will help to stimulate your user to your mobile application and your gym.

Integration with wearables

As well make sure your app can integrate with multiple devices, like smart watches or smart wristbands – you don’t want your app to be ignored because it’s not compatible with devices that are popular among users.

The functions listed above will help your application to be successful. Do not forget about the implementation of the functions of nutrition planning, the calendar of personal lessons, realize the ability to track the activity and key parameters of your client and you will succeed.

Management software

Behind any app there’s a backend system. It can be simple and meet only essential needs, or may be advanced and help you to cut operating costs and serve as a great management tool.

You may want to automate some processes, like managing online payments, validate subscriptions, creating agile schedules and receiving statistics and analytics through you own custom administrator software, made specially for your gym.

How much does it cost to make a gym app?

The costs of the application development depends on the features you may want to implement. The app can be simple and elegant to make your gym stand out or it can be advanced tool helping your business to become scalable enterprise.
In any way the best option is to build MVP (minimum viable product) first, give it to your customers to see how it goes, and then work on improvements based on customers needs.

The average cost of such applications both on Android and iOS platforms may come at around 19 000$, but you can start with less budget as MVP, after consulting with a mobile app development company.

It’s important to understand, that whatever you start with, you can (and you should) always work on adding new features and improving the users experience with your application, and your app will grow together with your business.

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