Curves For Women Cost Of Membership

The Curves For Women cost of membership dropped this week when they rolled out a national ad offering "Get 2 Free 2-Week Curves Memberships". In short, Curves is offering one two-week membership for you, and one for a friend.

So is this a smart move on the part of Curves, or has the 900-pound gorilla in the fitness industry finally made a mistake?

The short answer is "no", Curves has not made a mistake by offering literally millions of free guest passes. Let's face it, the folks at Curves are SMART. You may not like their business model. You may not like their workout. You may not like their machines. But the one thing you cannot dispute is that they know what they're doing. Curves didn't get to be the biggest health club franchise by being stupid.

By offering so many free guest passes, Curves is simply playing a numbers game. They know that for every x number of women they get through the door, y will join as full paying gym members. By offering these free passes, Curves is simply increasing the number of tours their clubs will give (x) which will in turn increase the number of women joining the club (y).

Some fitness center owners are, believe it or not, afraid to offer free guest passes. They fear that offering a free trial pass will "cheapen" the membership somehow. They fear that it devalues the health club membership.

To answer that objection, just consider the facts:

CostCo is well known for offering free samples of the food items they sell. Is CostCo stupid? Of course not. CostCo is one of the most successful retailers in the world.

Car dealers offer you the opportunity to take a free test drive of any car, at any time. Why do they do that? Doesn't it "cheapen" the car? Of course not! Car dealers know that the free test drive is a proven method to increase sales.

Retailer Bed, Bath and Beyond provides a display of most items. In other words, they take the item out of the box and set it up so you can mess around with it and check it out. It's the coffee-maker equivalent of the free sample, and IT WORKS. Customers are much more likely to buy a product when they can feel it, see it and "kick the tires", so to speak.

So, did Curves make a mistake by running a newspaper insert offering "Get 2 Free 2-Week Curves Memberships"?

Nope.

Savvy gym owners will follow their lead and crank up their distribution of guest passes. It's a proven business method that works. Need some ideas on how to get more guest passes into the hands of potential customers? Check out our articles titled "Health Club Advertising Ideas - Guest Passes" and "Health Club Marketing With Free Passes".