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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
ā INTRO ā
Hi gym owners, Omar Nasouri here with Gym Site Solutions and today weāre 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 challengeā¦ While those are valuable resourcesā¦ You donāt want to neglect these three simpleā¦ BUT EFFECTIVE gym marketing tips.
Itās 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.
ā GOOGLE BUSINESS PROFILE ā
Letās start by marketing to people who are already looking for you. Theyāre interested in your servicesā¦ They know that they want to join a gymā¦ and theyāre 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 theyāre ready to get started.
If someone is lookingā¦ Letās make sure itās your gym thatās being foundā¦ Thereās one thing in particular that you can do to improve your chances of getting in front of these leads.
What Iām talking about here is optimizing your google business profile. This is the profile that pops up on google maps when people search things like āgym near meā or āfitness trainer in San Diegoā or whatever city you might be in.
One thing you can do to improve your gymās ranking and increase your chances of being seen before your competitorsā¦ is to ask for client reviews.
Encouraging people to leave reviews is fine but rememberā¦incentivising positive reviews is against google policy andā¦ might result in your profile being suspendedā¦ I personally wouldnāt risk it.
You basically canāt offer a reward for a positive review. You canāt say things likeā¦ āleave me a positive review and Iāll give you a free week of sessionsā¦ā 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 donāt 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.
ā REFERRAL REWARD PROGRAM ā
I want this episode to be as helpful as possible so I letās talk about something that you can launch as early as tomorrow. Optimizing your google business profile IS importantā¦ but we canāt 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.
Iām not talking about giving away a free session or even a free week of sessionsā¦ Iām talking about BIG rewards. The kind of rewards that excite people.
Look, I get itā¦ Your clients love you, youāre amazing at what you do and they should be referring people just becauseā¦
The reality is, they may or may not refer on their ownā¦ Letās speed things up by giving them a reason to talk about you and your gym.
Hereās what you doā¦ Announce a referral reward contest and put together a REALLY nice give-away prizeā¦ something SUPER valuableā¦ 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. āThe first person to refer 5 new clients within the next 30 days wins this local staycation for twoā….. Super simple.
Letās take it a step further, second place gets a new tablet and third place gets tickets to a local event or maybeā¦ maybe a gift certificate to a popular restaurant.
You know what, weāre feeling generousā¦ Everyone who participates but doesnāt winā¦ they get a fifty dollar visa gift card for EVERY referral that they brought in.
Thatās a generous program. Thatās a program that WILL bring in referralsā¦ Now, donāt let your mind wanderā¦ Donāt go down the path of āWellā¦ Wait, how much is this gonna cost me???ā…
Itās not going to cost you anything. Thatās the beautiful thing about referral marketing.
Remember, for a referral to count towards this contest they have to ONE be a new clientā¦ 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, youāll have a nice group of new paying clientsā¦ Alsoā¦ Your current clients had some fun and won some prizes.
Everybody wins, everybody’s happy.
ā ALL ROADS LEAD TO YOUR WEBSITE ā
The last thing I want to talk about today is the importance of your gymās website. Yes, I am biased since thatās what we do here at Gym Site Solutionsā¦ but I canāt emphasize enough the importance of having a client converting website.
Your website is essentially your fitness marketing hub. Itās often overlooked and underutilized BUT, when done rightā¦ Your gymās website can be a fitness marketing gamechanger.
Think about thisā¦ Regardless of how you promote your gymā¦ All roads lead to your websiteā¦
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 websiteā¦ If you have an event that you want to promote, you should have a way for potential clients to registerā¦ on your websiteā¦ Digital ads will most likely be going to a landing page on your websiteā¦ And of course, Print ads should have both a URL that someone can visit or a QR code that they can scanā¦ and of course end up on your website.
Sure, some people would rather call or textā¦ some might email or even just show up and walk right inā¦ Today, the reality is, MOST people prefer to visit a website before contacting a new businessā¦ And, your gymā¦ 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 clientsā¦
Once you have that in place, once you have a website that convertsā¦ I promise youā¦ I guarantee youā¦ Youāll start to get so much more of a return from all your other fitness marketing efforts.
ā WEBSITE ACTION STEPS ā
Since weāre 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 attentionā¦ on your offer.
Mistake number TWO – Youāre sending visitors AWAY from your site. You work hard and in most cases youāre paying money to get visitors to your website. I get it, you want to build a social media followingā¦ thatās great, but thereās a time and place for that.
The idea is to get people from social media onto your websiteā¦ Not the other way around. Once theyāre in your environment, keep them there. Thereās 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. Donāt 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, Itās justā¦ first name, email address and phone number on a simple form that aligns with your offer.
Thatās itā¦ we donāt need to ask about their fitness goals… Thereās no need for a comment or message boxā¦ And, as important as it might be, donāt ask them who their favorite ninja turtle isā¦ Just get the leadā¦ first name, email address and phone number. Thatās it. All that other stuff, you can get laterā¦
By the way, adding a phone number to your form typically decreases your conversion rate by about 50%. YES, thatās huge BUT I personally think itās worth having a phone number that you can use to follow-up with a lead instead of just an email.
ā RECAP ā
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 rewardsā¦ itās not about making money that first month, itās about bringing in as many new long term paying clients as possible.
Then, turn your website into a fitness marketing machine. Thatās what we specialize in over here at Gym Site Solutions and weāre more than happy to help.
If youāre interested, use the link below to learn more or visit Gym Site Solutions dot Com.
ā BLOG OUTRO ā
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.
Youāll get instant access to my fitness marketing video library, a digital copy of my book āProven To Work Fitness Marketing Strategiesā and a printable quick-start guide.
This kit will give you all the tools youāll get new gym members right away.
Use the link in the description or visit Gym Site Solutions dot com to get instant accessā¦ Again, this kit is 100% free and designed to help you get new gym members right away.
Grab that kit todayā¦. Chat soonā¦