When it comes to recruiting new members for your health club nothing is better than word of mouth marketing. Consumers today trust peer recommendations more than ever and trust self advertising less than ever. This means that it is extremely important that your current gym members refer your gym to as many of their friends as possible. How can you earn a referral from a current member? One way is to give.
Fitness Marketing: Give to Receive
One of the fastest ways to sign up a new member is by having them come into your gym for a workout. Once you have a prospect in your gym and enjoying a workout you are extremely close to signing them up for a membership. How can you get new prospects into your gym? You can have current members bring them in that’s how.
Start by offering current members a free month’s membership for sponsoring a friend or family member to join your gym. This will do several things. First it will provide incentive for current members to recruit prospects to your gym which will lead to more members signs ups. Then it will help with member retention as current members will be excited to workout alongside their buddies. It is truly a win-win situation for your club so make sure you are implementing some type of referral program!
Fitness Marketing: Spin Wheel Contest
Think giving out a free month’s membership for referrals is a little steep of a reward? Try using the spin wheel instead. Purchasing or creating a spin wheel with several different prizes would be a sure-fire way to dish out less expensive rewards on average while still providing incentive for current members to give your club a referral. Simply offer each member a chance to spin the wheel for every member they refer to your club that signs up for a membership. Include on your wheel the prize of a free month long membership but mix in other less expensive prizes such as a branded t-shirt, water bottle, or gym bag. Not only will members be excited to spin the wheel but the branded prizes you give out will help to advertise your club even further.
A direct mailing campaign can work to do a lot for your health club. It can help to raise awareness of your existence, it can generate leads for the future, and it can recruit new members directly into
your gym. The success rate of a direct mailing campaign can be contributed to many factors as can a poor campaign. First things first, in order to coordinate a successful campaign you must first determine who your target market is. Are they women? Are they men? Are they middle aged men? Are they young female professionals?
Database technologies allow you and allow Advecor to determine demographic information about your current members and and those you wish to target. Targeting your market is the first step to creating a direct mailing campaign and is extremely important to the campaign’s success. After which you are ready to begin the design of your ad cards.
8 Tips For Designing Ad Cards For A Direct Mailing Campaign
1.) Clearly state on the front of your mailer the most direct benefit you have to offer. If your offer is made up of several benefits choose the one that is the best or most obvious and make sure that is easily seen.
2.) Carefully craft a headline. Your headline should flow with the overall offer of your mailer. The headline should grab the attention of your audience.
3.) Word your ad card in such a manner that it reflects your message. If you own a high end club then the wording of your offer should subtly reflect this. If you are an average health club then word your ad card as if you were speaking casually to a friend.
4.) State the price last. Unless what you’re selling is an unbelievable price, you should save the price tag for a location on the card below where you have stated the benefits of your offer. Your benefits should be so desirable that your reader will predict a hefty price tag to accompany the offer at the end. When they finally see the price isn’t over the top, they will be sold on a membership.
5.) Call to action. Tell the reader what you want them to do: Join today, call now, schedule an appointment, etc.
6.) Hit a smaller market, multiple times. Rather than one mailing campaign spread across a vast area consider sending your mailer two or three times to a smaller geographic area. More exposure to your target market will produce results. Also if you tailor your campaign to be within a very small radius of your actual health club’s location then location becomes another benefit to sell.
7.) Encourage interaction. Go with the mailing pieces that include a scratch and win, perforated coupon, or peel-away label. The more your audience plays with your ad card, the better!
8.) Extend that limited time offer. Although traditional advice tells you that a short time offer will encourage your target market to act fast, it often warrants your ad card to be thrown into the trash bin much faster. The busy lifestyle of the 21st century implies that people will only sign up for a gym membership when they have the time to commit to exercise. If your card catches them in the wrong month they will dismiss your limited time offer immediately. If your offer is good for several months then perhaps they will hold onto your card for when their schedule clears.
Facebook Places, Facebook’s location-based feature that launched in August of 2010, allows Facebook users to virtually “check into” a physical location using their smart phone. The purpose of a virtual check in is to share your physical location with your friends over the internet so that they might have a chance to meet up with you in person. Facebook Places is a competitor to other location based services such as Foursquare and Gowalla but has already proven itself to be much more powerful from a marketing standpoint.
Businesses have been quick to use Facebook places as a marketing tool because of its low cost to no cost operation fee along with its ability to help a brand go viral. Every user check in equates to a profile update and on average an opportunity for hundreds of Facebook users to see that update. In other words every user check in acts as an advertisement on Facebook for others to see. (Here is an example below)
In 2010 24 Hour Fitness decided to implement a Facebook Places promotion in which the health club chain would donate $1 for every member check in to one of their locations worldwide. The money raised was given to the charity foundation, KaBoom!
Then again in 2010 The University of Kentucky decided they wanted to test the social influence of using Facebook Places by encouraging students at their university to “Check in” at different locations around campus. The university went so far as to install huge wooden Facebook icons outside classrooms and the gymnasium that signaled an opportunity for students to check in. The university hoped that with every student check in that hundreds of the student’s friends still in high school would see the check in online and become interested in applying to the university for college.
Fitness Marketing With Facebook Places
Health clubs and gyms alike have a lot to gain from a Facebook Places marketing campaign. The biggest reason for a campaign would be for the sake of lead generation. If your health club members are telling all their friends online every night that they are at your gym for a fitness class then it is only a matter of time before their friends become interested in these classes as well. Just imagine that every night when you check your Facebook news feed that you see that three of your friends are at the gym. Aren’t you going to start feeling some pressure to get your butt to the gym as well? After all there is nothing worse then sitting on your couch with your laptop and realizing that people are out doing things.
Then there is the added benefit of pleasing your current gym members. It goes without saying that people who are fit and healthy are also confident. And they should be. After all, they put in hard work to stay in shape and naturally they are happier because of the correlation between fitness and brain activity. So of course avid gym members would love to share with their friends that they are at the gym. It’s a type of informative brag. (informative brag is similar to a backhand compliment in that it serves multiple purposes) It’s no different then how everybody else loves to share that they are in Vegas for the weekend.
Now there is even a way to reward members who check into your gym’s location with coupon vouchers and discounts sent right to their phone. Facebook’s Deals integrates with Facebook places so that coupon vouchers are sent to the user’s phone once they have checked into a specific location a set number of times. It is Facebook’s way of empowering businesses with the ability to provide incentive to their customers to use Facebook Places.
The last reason to start a Facebook Places marketing campaign would be because the service is free! There are no costs associated with the setup or consistent management of the campaign and nothing negative can result from trying out the service. Simply stated, the very worst thing that could happen is that nobody would use it. Anything else that happens is a positive gain. Consider that only one member checks into your gym, they are still advertising to all their friends that your gym is the place to be. And if you can figure out which members of your gym are the most social and have the largest social influence, well these are the members that you would like to use the service so that their influence is cast upon anyone else who is friends with them on Facebook.
Have you ever noticed how much influence your doctor has over you and your lifestyle? Really though think about the last time you visited your doctor and the advice he or she gave you. Did you do what they told you to do? I bet so. That’s because your personal health is the most important thing to you in the world even if you don’t recognize it on a conscious level.
Now consider how America is the most obese country in the world. A new report in January of 2011 shows that over two thirds of Americans are overweight! What do overweight people do? They get sick normally and then go visit their doctor. What does their doctor tell them? He or she probably advises them to take some medicine, to start eating healthier, and to begin exercising regularly. Will these patients listen to their doctor? Most of the time they will because as we noted earlier a doctor has great influence over his patients as well as people take their personal health very seriously. Where does this leave you as a health club owner? It leaves you with a golden opportunity to team up with your local doctor in order to help people start living a healthier lifestyle!
Leverage Those Businesses and Individuals With Influence
Your local doctor has influence over all his patients, his patients family, and their friends. So why not approach him/her with an offer they can’t deny. You will provide your doctor and his/her spouse with a free membership to your gym granted that he will recommend to his patients (that are in need of exercise) to become a member at your gym. The key here is to make sure your doctor understands that you don’t want him to become a sales representative for your gym. No unnecessary recommendations for your club are wanted. However patients that do need physical activity should be recommended to your club rather than left to motivate themselves to workout on their own.
Extra tip* Provide your doctor with free personal training passes to give out to his patients. This will help motivate patients to visit your gym even faster and begin a new and healthier lifestyle!
Researchers suggest that every day the average person is exposed to thousands of advertisements and different brands as they go about their daily routine. However if I were to ask you right now how many advertisements you have seen today you will probably respond with under 5 that you can remember. This makes sense. If your brain were to make a conscious note of every message that was directed at you on a daily basis then you would experience sensory overload. As it turns out your conscious brain decides which messages to pay attention to and which ones not to. So the question become how do you craft a marketing campaign with a message that will be consciously seen by your target market?
Example pass found online.
Strategic Referrals
One of the most efficient ways to get your message heard is by way of referral. Sure your brain can choose to ignore billboards and radio commercials but it has been programmed to listen carefully and absorb information that friend or family member tells you. By providing incentive to your current members to refer a friend to your gym you can activate one of the best marketing strategies known to health clubs.That would be marketing by referral.
Strategic Local Partnerships
Another great way to deliver your message to your target audience is to partner with local businesses. This will do several things for you. One it will help you to make healthy ties with in the community. Second it will serve as a great technique for landing new clients.
Start by locating 5 to 10 local restaurants or shops that you feel would be a good representation of your brand. Let’s say you choose to approach the local Subway. Approach the local Subway and negotiate a deal that allows you to leave a drop box for a free 7 day club pass by their register in turn for hosting a Subway drop box at the front desk counter of your gym. Perhaps you take the negotiation a bit further and settle on the agreement that Subway will provide your gym members a discount for showing their club ID when they purchase a Sandwich. No matter what the deal is you agree to, what is important are the terms you settle on. The goal here is to provide something of value in turn for allowing your gym to post some type of advertising material at this business location.
Once you strike up a partnership with ten or twenty local businesses you can imagine how powerful of a lead generation tactic this becomes. No matter what people are doing after work or on the weekends they are going to run into a shop in town that has your drop box at the register. Or they are going to be questioned at the local bookstore by the store clerk if they workout at the local gym before checkout. When customers ask the importance of a gym membership, the store clerk will explain that gym members receive a discount at their bookstore. Now all of a sudden you have your target market’s attention. Now they are consciously aware of your existence and will begin to notice other marketing material of yours throughout town. At this point it is only a matter of time before they use their free 7 day pass to visit your club. After that it is up to your sales department to make the close.
One of the biggest reasons why business soars for health clubs in the months of December and January has to do with the concept of a new year’s resolution. Almost everybody sets a new years resolution for themselves and the most common resolutions tend to relate to fitness and weight loss. For health clubs this presents an ideal opportunity to run a promotion in hopes of selling 
a great deal of new memberships to families and individuals who are ready to start living a healthier lifestyle in the new year. However while most health clubs are focusing on the opportunity to land new clients many are neglecting the opportunity to retain current members.
New Years Resolution Board
One of the best strategies for keeping member retention levels high is to keep members motivated to achieve some type of new personal fitness goal. The best way to keep motivation levels high is to encourage all members to share their personal fitness goals with their friends and family. Statistics show that you are several times more likely to keep a goal and achieve that goal if you have shared your goal with several people. As a matter of fact the more people you share a goal with the more likely you are to achieve that goal. Why is this? Well it begins with accountability. If you are telling people that you plan to lose ten pounds in 6 months then you are going to want to do so in order to avoid the disappointment of failing in front of your peers. As a result you will do what is necessary to meet your goal and prove to your peers that you can be held accountable for your words.
This is where a New Year’s resolution board comes into focus. It begins by encouraging current members to participate in a friendly new year’s resolution contest. Each member should be given a half sheet of paper to record in pen exactly what their fitness goal is for the new year. They should write their name on this piece of paper in big letters and then they should post it to a massive bulletin board that hangs in the front lobby area of the gym. This board should be full of member’s individual fitness goals and it should generate a lot of buzz around the club.
What will happen is that members will glance at this board as they are entering or leaving the gym and will compare goals on the board with their own. They will discuss their goals with their peers and will encourage each other to continue training. As a rule on its own, member’s will feel the obligation to meet their personal goal since they have publicly addressed the community of their intentions to lose weight. As a direct consequence members who would have perhaps quit on themselves and their fitness routine if they hadn’t committed to the new year’s resolution board will in fact stick with their routine. A six month resolution party can be held in June as a reminder to all members of their fitness goals and to re-inspire everybody to finish off what they have started!
As a health club owner it is essential that you are consistent with your public relations efforts. The more exposure you can land your health club the better. The best way to end up with a great amount of exposure is to go out and create it yourself! You know that saying… if you want something done right
do it yourself. Well that is a very true statement when it comes to PR. So here are three ways for you to increase the familiarity of your brand with potential clients around town.
Sponsor Local Sporting Events
One of the best ways to create a good image for your fitness club while simultaneously increasing brand visibility is by sponsoring a local sporting event. No matter where you live there are guaranteed to be local sporting events that need your support. It may be a high school sporting event, a collegiate sporting event, a professional event, or it may simply be a recreational event. No matter the level of athletic competition all these events are great opportunities for you to get involved with the community and to build your local brand image.
Speak at Local Events
On a similar level to sponsoring a local sporting event we recommend you speak at as many types of local gatherings as possible. Speaking in front of large crowds is a great way to get your message out to a large volume of people quickly and cost efficiently. Plus speaking to a local crowd of residents in p
erson about a new promotion that your club is offering is more enticing then a newspaper ad.
Also people like buying from people they know. By speaking to a crowd in person you are giving them a chance to know who you are, what you look like, a bit about your personality, and what you do. This in turn will have your audience members feeling more comfortable about the idea of forking over cash to you on a monthly basis for a gym membership compared to if your gym had no “face” associated with it.
*Note* When you do present to a crowd of people it is important to remember not to be in “selling mode” the entire time that you are on stage speaking. It is best to give a quick and fresh ten minute speech relating to a new fitness diet or exercise that could benefit those members of your audience. Aim to give valuable information in your speech and close by saying that your gym is offering a special membership price. Then hand out complimentary free passes at the event exit after your presentation.
Contribute to Local Papers and Magazines
Another great way to create a public relations opportunity for your health club is to reach out to local newspapers and magazines and offer to contribute on a weekly or monthly basis. Have one of your personal trainers be responsible for writing an article about a new fitness exercise or diet every other week. Then take these articles and submit them to local papers that are in need of a story. Most local magazine companies or online publications would be thrilled to have a guest contributor with expertise in an area such as fitness. This will in turn will build brand awareness as well as helps to demonstrate what your gym has to offer.
Spark Notes Summary of Facebook Advertising
Facebook advertising is a very powerful tool when used correctly and to its full potential. But in order to understand why it is so powerful we need another medium for which to compare it by. We will use search engine advertising as its comparison.
Search engine advertising provides an amazing opportunity for businesses to reach their target market. For health clubs search engine advertising could promise a great ROI because you can pay to advertise only to those individuals who are actively searching for a health club to join in your area of business. For example lets say you own a health club located in San Diego. If you pay to advertise for the keyword phrase, “gym membership in San Diego” then every time somebody types that phrase into Google or Yahoo, you will be a top search result. In other words you are paying to advertise only to those people who are already interested in the service you offer. It can’t get much better than that? Or can it? 
Now lets consider Facebook advertising. Facebook advertising is similar to search engine advertising except that it is several times more specific and therefore several times more powerful. With Facebook advertising you don’t pay for a top search result instead you pay to advertise to a specific type of person. With Facebook ads you can advertise to people based on their gender, age, location, marital status, interests, and friend affiliation! Advertising by friend affiliation may be a marketers favorite tool of the bunch because you can essentially advertise to Ron’s friends. (For this example Ron is a member of your gym) Having the ability to market to Ron’s friends is a huge bonus because consumers are likely to trust the products and services that their friends also use. With Facebook advertising you can use this social influence as a means to creating new leads for your health club. No other advertising medium can offer you anything similar. So to summarize, Facebook advertising tops all else because it allows you to reach the exact type of person (age, gender, interests, marital status, friend affiliation, and location) that would be most interested in joining your gym. It is truly a great source for lead generation!
In an era where people continually take their health for granted and continue to eat more and exercise less it was only a matter of time before a health club became overly aggressive with an ad campaign. In 2009 Fitness First, a health club in Amsterdam, Netherlands went ahead and decided that if people weren’t finding the motivation themselves to hit the gym that they would help to find it for them.
Insert a scale into a public bus stop bench and turn the bus stop shelter into a gigantic scale reading and what do you get? You get your weight displayed publicly every time you decide to sit down while waiting for the bus. Talk about motivation to lose a few pounds! Just goes to show that with a little creativity their are an infinite amount of lead generation strategies for your health club!
The importance of online marketing for any health club is tremendous, however for smaller clubs or family owned gyms it is even more crucial. It seems many of the larger health clubs or franchised gyms don’t invest a 
great deal of money or time into search engine marketing and for good reason. They don’t have to. Larger clubs and franchised gyms tend to land on the front page of Google for almost any keyword because they have a lot of online reviews and a name that stretches the country. This is not the case for the smaller gym. They do not have as many online reviews nor as many outside websites directing traffic to their homepage and therefore they rarely land on the front page of Google. So what can the smaller guys do to end up in the same ranks with the big players where they can fight fairly over clients? They can start blogging.
Blogging For SEO
Although blogging is often associated with a younger individual endlessly documenting every single little detail of their monotonous life, blogging can serve many practical purposes for just about any business. To begin with a blog is the true hub of any search engine optimization strategy. It provides a location on your website for new content to be rest. With new content comes new search engine crawlers and new keywords. Blogging on a daily basis helps to keep your website towards the front page of Google because Google’s algorithm for determining the order of results is largely based on how up to date a website is.
In general it seems that most franchised gyms and the larger chain health clubs decide to skip blogging all together. This may not be the best decision considering it provides an opportunity for smaller health clubs that do blog to catch up to their Google ranking but franchised gyms have their brand to help them where smaller gyms don’t. So blogging if you are a family owned gym is extremely important to help land you a spot on the front page of search engine results where you can compete with the big players.
Blogging A.K.A. Specialty Training
The other reason to have a company blog is to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise of the industry yo
u serve. Most company websites do one thing. They tell the visitor about their services and products and then they prompt the visitor to sign up or buy. This just isn’t the winning formula for converting sales. Companies need to show interested clients what their services can provide and they need to demonstrate their knowledge of the industry. A blog allows them to do both. It allows for the company to creatively demonstrate what they are capable of and what they have done in the past. Blogging in this manner is really a form of specialty training i n which the company is teaching the framework to do something that perhaps their clients would be interested in understanding. If blog posts are carefully crafted and well written then they will work to build credibility for your business along with helping your company website to reach a higher Google ranking.
