Create A Winning Gym Marketing Campaign

Gym Marketing Campaign Notes

There are endless promotional ideas that you can use to promote your gym. If you want to get the mose out of all your gym marketing campaings, you’ll need to include these four key elements. Get these right and you’ll get much better results from all of your fitness marketing efforts.

Key Points:

• Create a strong fitness offer
• Your gym ad needs to get prospects to respond
• Schedule an appointment as soon as possible
• Don’t let potential gym clients slip through the cracks and always follow up

Episode Transcript

Hi gym owners, Omar Nasouri here with Gym Site Solutions and my goal for this video is to help you grow your gym and bring in new clients.

Here at Gym Site Solutions, we offer a unique combination of gym website design, print marketing material and fitness business coaching. We believe in helping gym owners by giving you multiple campaign options and strategies. We try not to be biased toward any one marketing method.

Regardless of how you plan on promoting your gym or what kind of campaign you might run, there’s always a flow that potential clients go through… To get the most out of this flow, we need to make sure that we REALLY optimize a few key elements.

In this session, we’ll be talking about what those elements are and what changes you can make to get better results out of ANY campaign you run. It’s these little changes that lead to big results. It’s these changes that will help you attract quality leads and convert them into paying gym members..

So, with that said, let’s talk about what those fitness marketing elements are and how you can use them when promoting YOUR gym..

Three Fitness Marketing Buckets

As a gym owner, you have an infinite number of marketing strategies that you can use. With so many options, I get it… marketing can sometimes seem… overwhelming.

The first thing I want to do is take a step back and really simplify things. I believe there are really only three main ways to promote your gym… You can use relationships, digital marketing or good old fashioned print.

These are the main three starting points for any of your fitness marketing efforts. I like to call these the three fitness marketing buckets. Again, the first bucket is relationships. The second bucket is digital marketing, and the third bucket is print.

Now, it’s not one or the other… There is some overlap. But, any campaign you run will most likely fall into one of these three buckets.

So, why is any of this even worth mentioning? Why are we talking about buckets???

Look, each of those buckets has different media options associated with it. For example… Relationship marketing typically uses word of mouth… This is usually in the form of either a referral program or a local networking campaign.

With digital marketing, you have options like email, social media, pay-per-click campaigns and even search engine optimization.

Then with print, you have direct mail, flyers, door hangers or local magazine ads. You’ve got endless options for each of those three buckets.

Now, here’s the thing… All you need is JUST a few winning campaigns in each bucket… Just a few winning campaigns and you’ll find yourself in a position where you’re constantly and consistently bringing in new fitness leads.

That’s what I want for you and that’s what I want to help you with today. I want you to be able to build out an effective campaign, drop it into any one of those buckets, and ultimately, get new members enrolled into your gym.

The Problem

So, what media do we use and which bucket do we drop it in? The answer to that is not the solution… That question itself… that question, could be a problem…!

We sometimes spend too much time worrying about the media and the bucket… YES, these are important BUT more important are those campaign elements we’re about to talk about.

When you focus strictly on what type of media you should use… you’ll find yourself jumping from one strategy to the next. From one bucket to the other.

Remember, it’s not a question of whether relationship marketing,digital ads or print promotions work or not… It’s easy to blame the media that we use. It’s easy to say “networking doesn’t work for my gym…” It’s easy to blame facebook ads… it’s easy to blame door hangers…

The focus should NOT be so much on how you distribute your campaign, but instead… on whether or not the elements and messaging of your campaign are actually designed to get a positive response.

The question is… Does your campaign get people to stop what they’re doing and does it get them to somehow interact with your gym.

Once you have a campaign that does that… once you have a campaign that converts, you can then pretty much use any type of media you want… and honesty, as long as it’s being seen by the right people… you WILL get new clients.

Elements Of A Winning Gym Marketing Campaign

Okay, now let’s get into the fun stuff… Let’s take a look at what goes into a winning campaign.

In order for your next fitness marketing campaign to be successful, you’ll need to optimize FOUR key elements. You’ll need a strong offer, an action, a commitment and a followup sequence.

You can think of these elements as a sequential journey that your potential clients go through. The first step of this journey is your offer.

Once someone sees and resonates with your offer, step two is getting them to respond… This is where they’ll take some kind of action. This is where they show at least some kind of interest in your offer and services.

Now, just because someone responds to your offer, that alone doesn’t mean they’re committed to anything yet.

The third step of this journey is to transform their response into a commitment. We want to get them to commit to a date and time and have them actually show up to your facility.

Once we get that commitment, we then want to minimize no-shows. This is done with the fourth step… a friendly follow-up sequence.

So, that’s the basic flow of most campaigns… let’s talk about each of these four elements in more detail.

Your Fitness Offer

The first… and probably most crucial part of any campaign… is obviously the offer.

Without a compelling offer, even the best marketing strategies won’t get you new gym members. Just like your clients can’t out-train a bad diet, you can’t out-promote a bad offer. Your marketing efforts will always be limited to how attractive your offer is.. Your offer alone is going to set the pace and dictate the potential of any campaign you run.

Your offer needs to attract, engage, and convince potential clients to take a very specific action… all this needs to happen within a matter of seconds. Think about how people consume information today. They’re on social media, scrolling through countless posts…

They’re watching more videos now than ever before. Videos are getting shorter and shorter and they’re being consumed… one after the other after the other.

What’s worse than how fast content is being seen is how fast it’s being forgotten.

Your offer needs to break through all of that noise. It needs to be bold and it needs to grab someone’s attention. Unfortunately, the reality is… The industry standard of a “free fitness consultation” as your primary offer, just doesn’t do any of that..

When promoting your offer, try to think in terms of making a promise… make a bold promise that adds value to someone’s life… Remember, it’s not just about providing value… It’s about promoting your value.

The more value you provide, the more likely people are going to respond, show up, and engage with you and your gym.

One of the reasons people no-show on gyms is because at some point along the way, some point between the time they responded to your offer to the time they were supposed to come in… they felt like what’s being offered is no longer worth their time.

As is, your current offer might be a goldmine of fitness resources… I mean, you’re basically giving someone the tools that could potentially change their life. Fitness is powerful, you and I both know this…

You know how valuable your time is, but if you’re not promoting the value in your offer or you’re just promoting it as another “free consultation,” … then people won’t understand the value of what you’re giving them… they’ll have no idea what they’re possibly missing out on.

I can’t emphasize this enough… You really want to make sure that they know exactly what they’re signing up for, what they’re getting and how it’s going to benefit them.

Sample Fitness Marketing Offer

Let’s put together a quick sample offer.

The key to a successful offer is being able to speak to a specific demographic.

This does NOT mean you should only serve one demographic… This does not mean you need different programs or different offers.

It’s the same offer you’re promoting, but if you have a campaign that goes out to a specific demographic… try to use messaging that resonates with that audience..

For this example, let’s talk to that busy mom between the age of 30 – 40 years old who wants to get in shape but doesn’t feel like she has enough time.

When writing an offer, I like to think of it as making a promise… Let’s start with something like…

Look and feel 10 years younger and 20 pounds leaner with the only local fitness program that guarantees fast results with just three quick (but highly effective) workouts per week!

We made them a promise… a very clear promise… now, let’s add some value. Let’s tell them exactly what they get…

Join our quick-start fitness makeover program with zero cost or obligation. Here’s what you get you enroll:

Access to our Body Makeover workshop where you’ll learn the secrets of getting in great shape regardless of how busy you might be

A one-on-one Q-and-A session with a master personal trainer

Our meal plan guide that shows you healthy meals that you can prepare in less than 20 minutes

Printable workout templates

Two weeks of unlimited group classes

And, an entry to our giveaway contest where you’ll have the chance to win valuable fitness prizes.

It sounds like a lot (and that’s a good thing because it adds value) but really, all that doesn’t really take much more time effort or energy than a typical “free consultation”

The difference here is in the messaging. Besides the two weeks of group workouts, you can probably go through that entire process and give out all those tools in less than half an hour with someone.

Most of you are already doing body composition measurements, you’re giving away handouts, you’re answering their questions… give each of those elements a catchy name and bundle them into a promise… That’s your offer…!

Most people don’t want to sit through a “ free consultation”. A consultation sounds like a sales pitch. It sounds like paperwork or an interview. Make a bold promise. Add a ton of value, give it a catchy name and get people excited about taking the next step.

Getting Fitness Leads To Take Action

The next element is the ACTION. If your offer does a good job creating enough value, then the next step is to get them to take some kind of action. This could be… calling your gym, clicking a link… or maybe even scanning a QR code.

If you’re asking someone to call, you NEED to have someone available to answer every single call that comes in.

If you’re directing traffic to your website (either your home page or a landing page)… your site needs to be designed and optimized to capture their contact information.

The worst thing you can do is spend money on an ad, create a strong offer then missout on a potential client. Once that opportunity is missed, they’re probably not coming back and honestly, they might even end up finding one of your competitors at that point.

Here’s one important thing about the action step… You want to be very specific and very clear about WHAT you want them to do and WHY you want them to do it.

Call us today… WHY?… To set an appointment and claim your free body makeover kit.

Scan this QR code… WHY?… To reserve your spot and to get instant access to our home workout series… Whatever it is, tell them exactly what action you want them to take AND, just as important… Why they should take that action.

Also, give them options. Some people prefer to call or text, others would rather scan a QR code, and some will visit your website by typing in a url.

Once they take that action, the next element is the commitment. If they filled out an online form, the next step is to get them to schedule a time to come in… If they’re calling or emailing you, you want to get that commitment as soon as possible.

The best case scenario is having them commit to a date and time right there on the spot. Here’s the thing… whether it’s a phone call, a web page visit or a direct message on social media…you need to get a confirmed appointment… and honestly, the sooner, the better.

You need to quickly transform that action from “I’m interested” to “Yes, I’ll be there.” That’s what the commitment phase does.

I like to do this with a very simple two step process. The first step is a short online form for anyone interested in the offer. It’s just three fields… It’s first name, email and phone number.

Once they take that action, once they fill out that form… they should then be taken to a page where they can now commit to a date and time. I like this two-step approach because IF, for whatever reason, they don’t commit to a time… You at least have their contact information and now, you can follow up…

Follow Up With Fitness Leads

Allright, the last element of your campaign is the follow-up sequence. There are actually two different spots where you’ll need to have a follow-up process.

First, you’ll want to follow-up with everyone who takes an action but doesn’t commit to a time. These are still important leads… They’re motivated, they responded to your offer… They are potential clients.

These are the leads that sometimes get neglected and these are the ones that sometimes slip through the cracks.

They might have filled out a form on your website but skipped your booking step. Maybe they sent you a text or called to ask you a few simple questions but, for whatever reason, they didn’t schedule an appointment..

You one-hundred percent need to have a follow-up sequence for everyone who took an action but still needs to commit…

Also, once you have that confirmed appointment, unless there’s a financial commitment involved… you still have a lead and not a client. There’s still no guarantee that they’ll show up.

That’s where the second follow-up sequence comes in.

You want to have a follow-up sequence for all your booked appointments. This should be a simple reminder about the offer they signed up for. The goal is to keep them excited about all the value they’ll be receiving.

At the very least, you should send out a confirmation email with the appointment details. Use this email to confirm the date, time and place of their first session… Also, try to make them feel comfortable by telling them what to expect.

Try to call or send out a text either the night before or the morning of their appointment. If you are sending a text, make the text engaging by asking for a simple response… Do NOT ask if they’re still coming in or if we’re still “on” for today’s session.. This gives them an out and we don’t want that… Instead, try something like…

“Hi Sarah, I’m looking forward to our appointment today at three thirty.” then ask them a simple question “You know where we’re located right?”… Or even… “I’m working on your food guide, do you have any food preferences?”

Now, she’s engaged and now she’s less likely to disappear on you.

Regardless of whether you’re following up to confirm an appointment or to book an appointment… always go back and remind them of the value they’ll be receiving.

Once someone does show up, as long as you provide the value promised, as long as you make them feel comfortable… you have a really good opportunity to convert them into a paying client.

Now, there is one last thing I want to say about your follow-up process. It doesn’t matter how consistent you are with your emails, phone calls or text messages… You can say all the right things at all the right time and people will still somehow no-show on you.

Two things you need to remember here… One, don’t get upset about it… It’s just another part of the business… And two, don’t assume that the person is either inconsiderate or is no longer interested.

Be patiently persistent and keep following up. They did respond to your ad, they did show interest… Follow up… I promise, consistency pays off… It’s a lot easier, and less costly, to follow-up with a no show than it is to get a new lead to respond to your offer, take an action and commit to an appointment.

Quick Recap Of Gym Marketing Campaign Elements

Now that you know the elements of a winning campaign, it’s time to fill those marketing buckets. Before I go, I want to leave you with a few tools and resources that are guaranteed to help you grow your client list.

I recently put together a gym marketing kit where I share some of my favorite fitness marketing campaigns and strategies.

Use the link in the description below to get your FREE gym marketing kit and 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.

While you’re there, be sure to schedule a one-on-one strategy call. During this call, you and I will chat about your fitness business and we’ll develop a customized marketing gameplan that’s specific to you and your gym.

Yes, I will introduce you to how Gym Site Solutions can help scale your gym… But, even if we don’t end up working together… we’re a value first company… Either way, you’ll leave with a ton of value, a few bonuses that will help you grow your gym, and a custom client getting strategy.

Use the link in the description or visit Gym Site Solutions dot com to learn more about how we help gym owners attract qualified leads and convert them into long-term paying fitness clients.

Chat soon and don’t forget to grab your FREE gym marketing kit.