Fitness technology platform iFit taps Ergatta to develop gamified racing content for its NordicTrack treadmills, rowers and exercise bikes to help retain members and spur them to exercise more frequently.  

Nobody wants the treadmill they own to sit in the corner unused; Least of all NordicTrack, which relies on customer membership as a revenue stream. And the more its members use their treadmills, the less likely they are to churn, said Kirsten Spittel-Sloan, Global Vice President at iFit, which owns NordicTrack, ProForm, Freemotion and the iFit app. 

“As a membership service, we really care about retention,” Spittel-Sloan said. “For us it’s how do we keep it fresh? How do we keep it consistent and keep it something that folks really want to use? We have folks who pay on a monthly as well as on an annual basis, and we want to make sure that they continue to love and use iFit and stick with us as a customer.” 

This is why iFit debuted a new gamified race experience for its top level of members to access on its equipment, which includes the NordicTrack treadmills, rowers and exercise bikes. All of these machines include a large screen where customers can access 10,000 outdoor workouts across the globe, on-demand workouts and personalized fitness coaches.   

Now, iFit members can race against themselves and other members on a treadmill, bike or rower, with its new partnership with cardio gaming content Ergatta. The experience is a bit like popular video game Mario Cart, Spittel-Sloan said, in which the consumer can see lanes, markers for people as they race and a marker of a previous time as the person goes along the course. 

Customers increase product use with new feature

The brand debuted the gamified feature in March for the NordicTrack treadmills. After an increase in use from members, in July the technology platform expanded the feature to its bikes and rowers.  

“We saw an uptick in repeat usage from the folks who were using races by Ergatta,” Spittel-Sloan said about when it added the feature to the treadmills. “It was meaningful enough. It wasn’t a 200% increase, but it was certainly something that made us think, okay, let’s make sure that we have this across the board.” 

The rowing races had strong adoption in its initial debut, with more than 50% of its members trying the racing feature within the first week of launch, she said. 

On average across all its machines, members use the equipment a little more than twice per week. So if this feature can help increase that use, then it is a worthwhile investment. Spittel-Sloan declined to share average membership length, but said it is a matter of years, not months.

“One of our core pillars at iFit is habit forming fitness and how we give that to our members and really create habits that stick,” she said.  

Feedback from iFit’s members 

IFit is letting its members know about the racing through its Facebook group, which is where it regularly announces new features to the audience of 80,000-plus members. It’s also messaging members directly on their equipment screens, as well as through its typical customer retention channels including email and its blog.  

For all of iFit’s products, the brand will conduct customer satisfaction surveys, and its customer insights team will interview customers to learn more about how they are using the product and what they like and don’t like about it. This helps the brand understand if they “hit the nail on the head” or if they need to go back and rethink some features, Spittel-Sloan said. 

When NordicTrack launched the racing content, iFit conducted roughly 20 interviews and learned that it underestimated how much customers used its treadmills for walking. 

“There’s just a lot more walking workouts that are in the mix today than we had really anticipated,” she said. “We have folks who are using the races feature but are walking. And so, what type of content do we need to then bring in? Do we create a race — maybe that word doesn’t resonate — but a race that is for walkers? Or do we create a different experience that is for walkers? So that’s one of the things that we’re actually working through right now.”

Developing the racing feature  

IFit decided to integrate racing into its platform after requests from its current user base, and because gamified exercising is a popular feature in the general market and could attract new members. Ergatta also has a connected rower and gamified content, but it created new content for iFit’s machines. IFit licenses the Ergatta content and in the future if will make a decision to renew that license based on how much its members are using the content.  

It took at least five months to develop the new feature with Ergatta. While iFit has developed its deep library of content, it decided to find a vendor to develop the racing content for speed to market.