You have a dropout cliff inside your female client base, and you have probably never measured it. It opens at confirmed pregnancy and it closes around twelve weeks postpartum, and the clients who fall through it rarely come back. Most operators do not see it because the dropout is not loud. It looks like a paused membership, a quiet six months, an unanswered renewal email. Then one day she is gone.
The women who train through pregnancy and return postpartum are among the highest-retention clients in fitness. They are focused on feeling energized through pregnancy, new parenthood, and every disruption that follows. When a studio supports them through that arc, the relationship is significantly more durable. When the studio does not, the relationship ends quietly and the operator never knows it was preventable.
Brittany Citron, founder of ProNatal Fitness, has spent her career training coaches who retain women at every stage of life.
“Most studios think of a pregnant client as a few months off. What they’re not calculating is how many of those clients never actually come back. Once a member replaces her old fitness habits with something else, whether that’s a stroller walk, a YouTube video, or a different studio that offered her better support, her previous studio may have lost her for good.
Many studios also don’t consider the potential for increased revenue from supporting their members during the perinatal period. This is a population where word of mouth spreads faster and farther than almost any other. These women are in group chats, support groups, and online communities, constantly sharing recommendations. Studios that serve them well win BIG. Studios that don’t get filtered out just as fast.”
— Brittany Citron, Founder, ProNatal Fitness
