You may have different visions and opinions on why people come to your fitness center. You may think it is only the matter of proximity and localization, trusted and well-known gym brand, special and unique services you offer, competitive pricing or super famous training personalities. But in order to let people know why they should come to your place you have to do a lot of marketing – putting it in very simply. Effective gym marketing ideas are the key not only to attract new customers but to build and maintain your relationship so that they keep coming back. I have collected a few ideas from the gym owners and marketing specialists whichhave caught my attention lately while researching the fitness industry.
1. Don’t underestimate the power of SEO
Many specialists across the globe are strong advocates of search engine optimization as it allows local businesses to get that slice of the lucrative cake of consumers that would otherwise be inaccessible. To make it sound more obvious, approximately 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine and 72% of consumers who did a local search visited a store within 10km range. Underestimating the power of SEO would be really harmful to local businesses who wish to expand their customer base.
2. Boost the number of reviews
One of the best things and very intuitive one you can do to promote the gym is to have it seen in Google maps when someone searches for a gym in their city. In order to make it happen you have to have higher average rating and number of reviewers as they are correlated with being visible on the map. Simply speaking the goal is to get more reviews. This can be done by adding an incentive for leaving an honest review of your fitness center. A good example could be any service or snack from a fit bar in exchange for an opinion on your Google My Business page.
3. Think of retargeted ads on Facebook
First things first- what are retargeted ads you may ask? They’re ads that are based on a target audience’s interaction with your previous Facebook ads. For example, if you buy a Facebook ad for a post entitled “How to get those perfect ABS in 30 days”, you can retarget the people who reacted to that ad with likes, clicks or shares with a second ad that promotes your club in more direct way. This could be an ad endorsing afree consultation, an open day, or a completely new class introduction that will encourage potential customers to learn more about your place.
4. Referrals work miracles
Enhance your business to be ready to bring more referrals. When you are a small and local entity, you typically can’t allow yourself to spend a lot of money on advertising. The best form of marketing in this case is to use your existing members to spread the word of mouth. You can either build a referral reward system or use “bring a friend” days, but one thing stays for sure - your existing happy members are the best sales tool you have.
5. Use an online enrolling system such as PerfectGym
Nowadays people are far more used to book appointments online if only they have such an opportunity. With a scheduling software such as PerfectGym you let your clients sign up online easilyfrom their own homes or wherever they are. Each of them also get a unique customer profile where you can track their visits and offer designed promotions and products. Once having such a management system, the benefits are countless and the enrolling system is one of many.