Booming Fitness Franchise Burn Boot Camp Ditched Their Whiteboards for Digital Signage to Better Communicate with Members

How Burn Boot Camp fitness gym remotely controls communications with members using digital signage.

Burn Boot Camp is a fitness franchise of no-equipment gyms throughout the USA. Comprised of high-intensity camps that focus on using bodyweight or free weight rather than treadmills or weight machines, the sign on their wall reads “I don’t use machines, I am one”.

Initial digital signage aims

• To replace the method of placing important communications on whiteboards.
• To be able to manage announcements, promotions, deadlines, and client highlights remotely.
• The ability to share information regularly and to update messaging in response to emergencies, or member notices.

Here, we speak to Stephanie Drew, franchise partner and owner of Burn Boot Camp North Durham, on her experience using ScreenCloud to power their digital signage.

Digital signage journey

I own one of 150+ Burn Boot Camp locations, a franchise of boot camp gyms open in the US. My location in North Durham, NC is two hours from where I live so I’m considered a remote owner. I have a full-time staff onsite, but I handle all of the marketing, client communications, and promotions behind the events.

What we had been using in the gym was a whiteboard which staff had been writing announcements and updates on, but it was really hard to keep track of that from a distance and for me to get what I needed on the board in real time. Placement was also an issue because the whiteboard needed to be reachable for staff, but then it was in the way and taking up valuable wall space (clients do handstands and human chairs against the walls taking up every square inch in the more crowded camps).

I knew there had to be some sort of digital solution where I could update a screen from afar. Our Director of IT said he had heard of ScreenCloud so I decided to give it a try.

Digital signage used

I’ve been using ScreenCloud for four months now and it’s been amazing! I can put announcements and events up on the board at any time day or night. I can update camp times, announce any changes to the schedule, run ‘flash’ sales on retail items, congratulate clients and staff - basically any communication that members or trial members need is on the screen.

In the gym there’s a small lobby, but people don’t really linger there. So I have a 65” screen in the main gym area which is around 4,000 sq feet. We have 9 camps throughout each day, so between 200-250 people view the screen daily. The screen is mounted 8 feet up (no interference with wall handstands or human chairs) and is positioned on the wall that everyone faces for at least 10 minutes per camp during the warm up and cool down.

I create custom graphics scaled to fit the screen using our company’s branding software and can also include promotional videos from Burn Boot Camp headquarters. Since participating in ScreenCloud’s free webinar recently, I’ve also added the apps for Countdown Timer, Clock, Facebook Reviews, Weather, Facebook Page Likes and Yelp Reviews to my playlists. I schedule content into playlists by month.

Results using ScreenCloud

Everyone loves the screen. As soon as I put it up I had rave reviews from the staff who work onsite and are in touch with the clients every day. The clients love to have something to focus on, and since it’s playing throughout the workout they’ll look at it during the warm-up or during different stations and they really enjoy having the information up there. I’ve found that it is a great complement to our other communication methods (email, text, social media, and end-of-camp announcements) and catches those who don’t follow social media regularly but attend camp daily.

We just had Hurricane Florence that was going to hit the coast, so before the hurricane we put a graphic up that told people to text their name to our gym text line for updates on weather emergencies. We had 50 people text their name from seeing it on ScreenCloud.

Next, I’d like to use polls to get some more interaction from our members and also use the screen for different seminars and presentations.

I’ve shared my experience with the other franchise partners at Burn (a large number of which are remote owners like me) and several have implemented or plan to add ScreenCloud to their gyms as an alternative to iPads mirroring or dry erase boards. To have a system they can use from afar is exciting.