Tips to adapt your custom home screen

Due to the current Coronavirus crisis, members are likely to navigate to your app to get new information on your policies, as well as additional content and expert advice. Within your Virtuagym portal, you can easily adapt the content and design of your custom home screen to answer these needs.

Benefits of a custom home screen

If you are not convinced yet on the benefit of having a tailored home screen, these are the reasons why this feature is so important:

• Your custom home screen is the online business card of your brand. Updating the design and content is a practical way to meet the changing needs of your members.
• Regular updates show your members that you’re involved with their experience, and striving to improve on your product offering.
• Not all members use the community module as a tool to stay engaged. Updating the home screen allows you to expand your reach to anyone that opens your app.

Online Memberships

With physical locations unavailable, you may be concerned about the number of membership cancellations. Online memberships may provide a solution for remote members and will generate revenue for your business. You can use the PRO functionality in Virtuagym to segment your member base into basic and PRO users. Aside from the default PRO benefits, such as access to all workouts, meal plans, in-depth progress tracking and more, you can create added value by making certain tiles accessible to PRO members only.

Make sure you stay on top of your reporting - if members do cancel due to the current situation, you can always reach out in a month to see how they are progressing with their goals, and if they would like to consider rejoining.

How to update your app

Follow these steps to easily update your app and personalize it:

• Navigate to your portal, go to ‘System settings’ and select “Mobile App Design.”
• In the first section, select up to three colours for headers, bars, accents and buttons. Make sure your colours aren’t too light, or the menu options won’t be visible.
• The “App logo” image is displayed above your tiles, and is the eyecatcher of your custom home screen. This can be your brand logo, but can also be a logo created specifically for your app.
  • • If you use tags or handles on social media, you could include these on the logo within the app, to generate more awareness.
      • If you use challenges or temporary hashtags, you can periodically update your logo to generate additional engagement.
• Scroll down to the “Custom Home Screen” section to further customize your app and content.
• Play with the background, colours and tile distribution. Make sure to save any changes you want to make, otherwise the app won’t be updated.
• Click the ‘+’ on the app screen to create a new tile, or use the pencil icon to edit an existing tile.
  • For your tile image, you can choose any of the Virtuagym default icons, or upload a custom design.
  • Choose a title for your tile, and define the visibility:
    • All users
    • PRO-users only
    • Non-PRO users only
  • Add a URL for both Android and iOs, which will direct the tile to the correct module within Virtuagym, an alternative app, or to an external webpage.
• Drag and drop tiles within your app screen to change their placement.
• Save your design, and re-synchronise the app on your phone to review the update.

Suggestions for tiles

• A tile can directly link to your YouTube videos
• Instead of connecting the tile to your YouTube profile with an overview of all videos, you can also link directly to a video or livestream. By updating these on a weekly or daily basis, members will always know where to find your latest content.
• Members will look for guidance and information during these uncertain times. By adding a tile with a direct link to this info on your website, you can keep them up to date without ever having to look further than their home screen.
• Link to a Google Form or Typeform, for polls or as a tool to gather member feedback.
• You can link to your social media pages to encourage social activity.
• Add a tile with a link to a new email draft, directed to your team. Once a member clicks the tile, this will open in the default mail app on their device.
  • iOs example: virtuagym://app.virtuagym.com/fitness/app/mailto:info@virtuagym.com?
  • Android example: mailto:support@virtuagym.com

Updating your banners

Another customizable component within your home screen are custom marketing banners. These carousel banners are not just to promote, but also to communicate. Use them to highlight new tiles and other noteworthy content. Websites like Canva offer free and premium accounts with a huge variety in templates, graphics and images.

To update your banners, go to “System Settings,” and “Marketing.” Within the Promotional Banners section, upload your image and add the URL it should direct to.