McFIT stärkt mit Yext seine digitale Fitness

Mit über 250 Niederlassungen und mehr als 1,7 Millionen registrierten Mitgliedern ist die McFIT Global Group GmbH der größte Fitnessanbieter Europas. Neben anderen Marken der Bereiche Lifestyle, Fashion und Fitness gehören auch drei Studioketten zum Unternehmen: McFIT, High5 und JOHN REED. Derzeit verfügt die Marke über Standorte in Deutschland, Österreich, der Schweiz, Spanien, Italien, Polen, Ungarn und der Tschechischen Republik. Kontinuierliche Innovation heißt das Geheimrezept, das diesen enormen Erfolg begründet: Als erste Fitnessstudio-Kette schaffte McFIT kostspielige Zusatzdienstleistungen ab und konzentrierte sich voll und ganz darauf, seine Mitglieder beim erfolgreichen Trainieren zu unterstützen. Zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt entwickelte das Unternehmen auch einzigartige Trainingskonzepte, etwa das unter dem Namen CYBEROBICS® bekannte digitale Kursprogramm.

McFIT ist zudem ein Vorreiter des digitalen Marketings. Gerade in Großstädten herrscht ein enormer Wettbewerbsdruck zwischen Fitnessstudios. Und wer ganz vorne mitspielen will, muss von potenziellen Kunden schnell und unkompliziert gefunden werden können. Aus diesem Grund ist ein hohes Maß an organischer Sichtbarkeit für jeden einzelnen Standort äußerst wichtig. In Anbetracht der hohen Anzahl an Standorten war es jedoch für McFIT eine zeitaufwendige Herausforderung, sämtliche Informationen auf allen relevanten Plattformen von Drittanbietern stets auf dem aktuellen Stand zu halten. Erst die Einführung von Yext ermöglichte dem Unternehmen, alle diese Daten zentral aus einer einzigen zuverlässigen Datenquelle zu verwalten.

At the beginning of the collaboration, McFIT wanted to update its listings. Furthermore, all the location data that had previously been separately managed, as well as attributes such as offered courses or social media links, were imported into Yext so that the McFIT marketing staff could centrally manage them. Through the Yext Publisher Network, they are synchronized with all of the important digital channels – from search engines, map services, and social media platforms through to rating portals, language assistants, and address directories. By integrating Yext into its website, McFIT also ensures that the data on its own location-specific subpages is always up to date and easy to process for visitors to the page. Additionally, the social media team uses Yext to carry out competition and rating analyses.

With Yext, McFIT can systematically monitor and evaluate this immense amount of data for the first time. Yext reveals the categories in which individual McFIT branches perform better or worse than their local competitors. The solution also provides content analyses. Using keyword lists, it identifies recurring topics in the reviews and compiles summaries. This makes it possible to quantify problems and support internal discussions (e.g., about the need for new course offerings) with data.

"These days, a consistent brand experience and streamlined search experience are key factors in positioning yourself against local competition at different locations," says Martin Meyer, Head of Marketing at JOHN REED.

After almost one and a half years, McFIT now has 9,500 managed listings. In addition, about 40% of the address entries listed online were incorrect and have already been corrected.

"Digital marketing was already important to us when many other fitness studio chains were still recruiting new members offline. That's why we have always seen ourselves as a pioneer in this field. When Yext approached us, we quickly realized the solution's added value — and went on to buy the full range of functions," says Hauke Hagen, Senior Digital Marketing Manager at McFIT. "During the initial check for false or misleading brand information inventory, we found that 40 percent of the addresses stored on third-party platforms were incorrect, and 12 percent of the entries didn't have a link to the website. Both could be corrected with very little effort. However, with its local search feature, Google remains the most important platform for us. Thanks to Yext, we were able to increase our visibility here." Since launching with Yext, they experienced 26% year-over-year growth in clicks on their listings, which includes direction clicks, website clicks, and phone calls clicks.

"We are very proud to have the European market leader in fitness as one of our customers," says Michael Hartwig, Managing Partner, Central Europe at Yext. "McFIT has long been outstanding in digital marketing and recognized the importance of managing and verifying their brand information at an early stage. Together, we have succeeded in making the management of the brand's information more efficient, ensuring consistency on all platforms and increasing the organic visibility of the company locations."

For the fitness studio market leader, however, it's not only about current challenges, but also about the future. Nico Hartwig, Head of International Marketing at McFIT, makes this clear. "We are now witnessing the rise of new technologies such as voice search," he says. "These will change marketing in many ways, and companies need to prepare for this."