3 Fitness Marketing Strategies That You Can Use Right Now

Gym Marketing Notes

You should always be looking for new ways to promote your gym or refining current campaigns. These three fitness marketing strategies are the backbone to all your fitness marketing efforts.

Key Points:

• People are looking for your gym – make it easy for them to find you
• When marketing your fitness program with referrals – think long term
• All roads lead to your gym’s website
• Your gym website id your fitness marketing hub

Action Steps: Fitness Marketing Strategies To Get More Gym And Fitness Clients

You now have three effective fitness marketing strategies that you can put into action right away. Be sure to optimize your gym’s google business profile, crate a BIG referral contest with a huge prize… and schedule a call with us to discuss your gym website design.

Action Items:

• Claim your Google Business Profile (GBP)
• Collect testimonials and add high quality images to your GBP
• Brainstorm and announce your fitness marketing referral contest
• Schedule a 1-on-1 call to get your custom gym marketing plan

Episode Transcript

– INTRO –

Hi gym owners, Omar Nasouri here with Gym Site Solutions and today we’re talking about three things that you can do RIGHT NOW to get more clients into your gym.

Sometimes, we get caught up in looking for those new and exciting marketing ideas. It might be a new fitness funnel or some kind of gym challenge… While those are valuable resources… You don’t want to neglect these three simple… BUT EFFECTIVE gym marketing tips.

It’s these simple strategies that act as the backbone to all your other gym marketing efforts. Get these taken care of and you’re guaranteed to get a lot more mileage out of any campaign you might run.

– GOOGLE BUSINESS PROFILE –

Let’s start by marketing to people who are already looking for you. They’re interested in your services… They know that they want to join a gym… and they’re actively looking for a local fitness program.

They might not know exactly which gym they want to join or what type of fitness program might be best for them, but they are sold on the idea and they’re ready to get started.

If someone is looking… Let’s make sure it’s your gym that’s being found… There’s one thing in particular that you can do to improve your chances of getting in front of these leads.

What I’m talking about here is optimizing your google business profile. This is the profile that pops up on google maps when people search things like “gym near me” or “fitness trainer in San Diego” or whatever city you might be in.

One thing you can do to improve your gym’s ranking and increase your chances of being seen before your competitors… is to ask for client reviews.

Encouraging people to leave reviews is fine but remember…incentivising positive reviews is against google policy and… might result in your profile being suspended… I personally wouldn’t risk it.

You basically can’t offer a reward for a positive review. You can’t say things like… “leave me a positive review and I’ll give you a free week of sessions…” Google wants these reviews to be as unbiased and organic as possible.

What you could do that works really well is leave a scannable QR code at your front desk, then encourage people to scan that code and leave an honest review of your gym.

Also, optimize your profile by being engaging. Respond to reviews (both good or bad) and answer any questions that come in. Add constant updates about your gym and post high quality images that showcase your services.

These are all little things that don’t take much time or effort but they do make a big difference in helping people find your gym. Remember, these are people who are actively looking for a local fitness solution. These are REALLY high quality leads.

– REFERRAL REWARD PROGRAM –

I want this episode to be as helpful as possible so I let’s talk about something that you can launch as early as tomorrow. Optimizing your google business profile IS important… but we can’t just sit back and wait for potential clients to start looking for your gym.

If you currently have clients that workout with you, you need to have a STRONG referral reward program.

I’m not talking about giving away a free session or even a free week of sessions… I’m talking about BIG rewards. The kind of rewards that excite people.

Look, I get it… Your clients love you, you’re amazing at what you do and they should be referring people just because…

The reality is, they may or may not refer on their own… Let’s speed things up by giving them a reason to talk about you and your gym.

Here’s what you do… Announce a referral reward contest and put together a REALLY nice give-away prize… something SUPER valuable… You can have fun with this and turn it into a local staycation package.

Maybe include a night at a local resort, a vouchere to a spa and an evening dinner for two.

Now, let everyone know about your contest. “The first person to refer 5 new clients within the next 30 days wins this local staycation for two”….. Super simple.

Let’s take it a step further, second place gets a new tablet and third place gets tickets to a local event or maybe… maybe a gift certificate to a popular restaurant.

You know what, we’re feeling generous… Everyone who participates but doesn’t win… they get a fifty dollar visa gift card for EVERY referral that they brought in.

That’s a generous program. That’s a program that WILL bring in referrals… Now, don’t let your mind wander… Don’t go down the path of “Well… Wait, how much is this gonna cost me???”…

It’s not going to cost you anything. That’s the beautiful thing about referral marketing.

Remember, for a referral to count towards this contest they have to ONE be a new client… and TWO enroll and pay for at least their first month of training.

At the end of the day, your new referrals are paying for all your contest prizes. Even if you break even on your first month (which is 100% okay by the way) by month two, you’ll have a nice group of new paying clients… Also… Your current clients had some fun and won some prizes.

Everybody wins, everybody’s happy.

– ALL ROADS LEAD TO YOUR WEBSITE –

The last thing I want to talk about today is the importance of your gym’s website. Yes, I am biased since that’s what we do here at Gym Site Solutions… but I can’t emphasize enough the importance of having a client converting website.

Your website is essentially your fitness marketing hub. It’s often overlooked and underutilized BUT, when done right… Your gym’s website can be a fitness marketing gamechanger.

Think about this… Regardless of how you promote your gym… All roads lead to your website…

If you run a word-of-mouth campaign (like the referral contest we just talked about) people will want to learn more about you by visiting your website… If you have an event that you want to promote, you should have a way for potential clients to register… on your website… Digital ads will most likely be going to a landing page on your website… And of course, Print ads should have both a URL that someone can visit or a QR code that they can scan… and of course end up on your website.

Sure, some people would rather call or text… some might email or even just show up and walk right in… Today, the reality is, MOST people prefer to visit a website before contacting a new business… And, your gym… Your gym is no different.

Remember, your website is not just an online brochure designed to collect cyber dust. Your website needs to have a purpose. It needs to take visitors through a very specific journey.

Your website needs to showcase your offer… It needs to set your gym above your competition. It needs to get people to respond and ultimately, commit to an appointment.

Whether you have us build out your gym website, you hire someone else or even attempt to do-it-yourself, your website needs to be optimized to convert visitors into clients…

Once you have that in place, once you have a website that converts… I promise you… I guarantee you… You’ll start to get so much more of a return from all your other fitness marketing efforts.

– WEBSITE ACTION STEPS –

Since we’re talking about your website, I want to leave you with three common mistakes that you should avoid. Just fixing these will help your website perform better:

The First Mistake Is – Your website is not focusing on your offer. Remember, your website is not an online brochure or catalog. You need to be laser focused on being able to keep people’s attention… on your offer.

Mistake number TWO – You’re sending visitors AWAY from your site. You work hard and in most cases you’re paying money to get visitors to your website. I get it, you want to build a social media following… that’s great, but there’s a time and place for that.

The idea is to get people from social media onto your website… Not the other way around. Once they’re in your environment, keep them there. There’s no need to link away from your site.

Number THREE and I see this one a lot – Long forms. The last thing you want to do is scare off a visitor with a long contact form. Don’t ask a potential client to fill out a PAR-Q or health history questionnaire as their first step. Handle that AFTER you book your first session.

For now, It’s just… first name, email address and phone number on a simple form that aligns with your offer.

That’s it… we don’t need to ask about their fitness goals… There’s no need for a comment or message box… And, as important as it might be, don’t ask them who their favorite ninja turtle is… Just get the lead… first name, email address and phone number. That’s it. All that other stuff, you can get later…

By the way, adding a phone number to your form typically decreases your conversion rate by about 50%. YES, that’s huge BUT I personally think it’s worth having a phone number that you can use to follow-up with a lead instead of just an email.

– RECAP –

So, now you have three things that you can focus on and each is important in its own way. Optimizing your google business profile will help you show up when people search for a local gym.

Launching a referral reward contest is huge and can potentially bring in new clients almost overnight. Remember, be super generous with your rewards… it’s not about making money that first month, it’s about bringing in as many new long term paying clients as possible.

Then, turn your website into a fitness marketing machine. That’s what we specialize in over here at Gym Site Solutions and we’re more than happy to help.

If you’re interested, use the link below to learn more or visit Gym Site Solutions dot Com.

– BLOG OUTRO –

I hope you found this episode helpful. Again, my name is Omar Nasouri and my goal is to help gym owners attract and convert leads into new paying clients.

I recently put together a gym marketing kit where I share some of my favorite fitness marketing campaigns. Use the link in the description below to get your FREE gym marketing kit.

You’ll get instant access to my fitness marketing video library, a digital copy of my book “Proven To Work Fitness Marketing Strategies” and a printable quick-start guide.

This kit will give you all the tools you’ll get new gym members right away.

Use the link in the description or visit Gym Site Solutions dot com to get instant access… Again, this kit is 100% free and designed to help you get new gym members right away.

Grab that kit today…. Chat soon…