How to attract people to a sports club. Promotion of fitness clubs
Of everything marketing market Internet advertising is growing fastest, says the Association of Communication Agencies of the Russian Federation. Therefore, without at all detracting from the advantages of outdoor advertising, in our article we will focus specifically on online channels and answer the question of how to attract clients to a fitness club in the summer.
Advertising on social networks
Social networks contain a huge amount of information about potential clients, their preferences, locations, and so on. Therefore, they can be especially precisely configured (targeted) to whom and what will be shown. For example, if a person lives in your city and is a member of several groups dedicated to a healthy lifestyle - bingo! - he is your potential client.
An example of an advertising post from the VKontakte news feed. It differs from the usual one only in the “advertising post” marking.As an example of setting up targeting to find clients for a fitness club, we present the parameters that were used MarketArts agency in one of my cases:
Audience options:
● Located within a radius of 3 km from the club.
● Live in certain areas.
● Visit competitors' websites.
● Have in the interests of a healthy lifestyle, dancing, yoga, sports, proper nutrition etc.
● Age from 14 to 40 years.
● Visited your site but did not take any action.
contextual advertising
Here we will talk about Google Adwords and Yandex.Direct. We see contextual advertising in the form of links in the TOP of search engine results, as well as in the format of banners on websites. Once you google, for example, curtains, their advertisements will follow you on all sites :)
Examples of contextual advertising. On the left are advertising links in the top search engine results, on the right is an advertising banner between posts on the information and entertainment site “Pikabu”. Content Marketing
Another effective method attracting clients to a fitness trainer - share useful information with potential clients. First, they will read you and repost your texts, and then they will want to come to you for individual training.
What to write about? Texterra portal names 25 types of content suitable for a sports club. Among them:
● educational (articles, infographics, training);
● motivating (quotes, before/after photos, music selections);
● funny (jokes, memes);
● promoting content (service presentation, feedback, news).
Native advertising
Native advertising is the placement of affiliate articles on third-party sites. They are not purely advertising and although they contain mentions of the company, they are still useful and valuable in themselves. High-quality native materials increase trust in the company and attract more attention than classic banners.
For example, the Meduza portal published a useful text on how to protect children from dangerous sites. The article presented many useful methods, and only one of them mentioned that you can install special anti-virus software from Kaspersky. Here is a useful text that, without advertising slogans, arouses interest in a particular product.
New trends in fitness advertising
Attracting clients to a fitness club does not only happen online. The Biboss portal described 4 more ways to find them offline.
Word of mouth. 10 times cheaper than advertising in the media and just as many times more effective. Unsatisfied customers, of course, can spread bad reviews about you. But good service will help reduce them to a minimum.
Interesting events. These could be holidays, seminars, club meetings, master classes - the main thing is that they apply only to club clients. Make a schedule of events so that clients know about your plans and can schedule participation in an event that interests them. For example, if girls find out in advance that the club will organize an evening in honor of March 8, then in December they will be more likely to decide to buy another subscription for at least three months. Here's what that schedule might look like:
| date | Name |
| December 15 | Master class from a master of sports in rhythmic gymnastics. Stretching from a professional |
| December 30th | Party. Let's celebrate the New Year |
| January 15 | Lessons on the street. Cardio workout in the forest |
| 24 February | Party in honor of Defender of the Fatherland Day |
| March 8 | Party in honor of March 8 |
Buddy Referrals (friend invitation). One of the most effective tools for finding new clients for a fitness club. This method attracts more than 100 clients per month. At the same time, you need to encourage someone who brings a friend to your club. This could be one free session of a sauna or swimming pool, additional points, etc.
Attentive attitude towards clients. 68% of people leave fitness clubs due to the indifferent attitude of the staff. Therefore, communication between trainers and administrators and clients should be close. Your staff should be attentive to customer requests and never leave them unanswered.
We save found clients
We've figured out how to attract clients to a fitness studio, but that's only half the battle. They also need to be retained. We will tell you why customers come most often and how to retain them using.
Lack of communication
There are many clients, and everyone needs attention. To ensure that no one is forgotten, many fitness clubs are introducing special programs to automate processes. For example, a cloud CRM system will take on many routine tasks:
- promptly remind the client that it is time to renew the subscription;
- send the client an SMS with a reminder about individual training;
- record the call to the client so that you can listen to it again and clarify the details;
- add a client's email to the company's email mailing list - and more.
. You simply tag the desired clients, and they will automatically start receiving your newsletter by email. No change notifications
Training has been cancelled, the pool is under renovation, the gym is flooded - these things happen. But if clients discover this when they arrive at the fitness club, they are unlikely to be satisfied. Thanks to integration with the service, it will be able to quickly, and most importantly automatically, send out alerts to everyone.
Of course, you need to report not only about problems, but also about the events that you are conducting.
Luca Ocevar, entrepreneur, fitness trainer in an article for jasonferruggia.com:
- This is one of the best lead generation strategies for such a business. We held a Sunday boot camp, the proceeds of which went to charity. Anyone could come and work out - and it was in demand, people brought friends to support something positive. No pressure, no sales, just a way for potential clients to try our service and get a feel for the atmosphere.
Schedule confusion
Even the most attentive administrators can make a mistake and accidentally assign several people to a trainer at the same time. This will no longer happen thanks to the built-in SalesapCRM, which allows you to sign up clients for services. Each employee has their own schedule in the calendar, and you can sign up clients in two clicks, indicating the date, time, type of service, duration of the lesson/procedure, etc.
In this case, a client card is attached to each entry. This means you can immediately view the entire history of interaction with him, including correspondence, call records, letters, payments, and so on.
And those who like to sign up for a gym online will love it for your websites. The client simply goes to your website, selects a club branch convenient for him, the time of the visit and the specialist he needs, leaves contact information and confirms the application. New entry In this case, it will automatically appear in the calendar of the hall administrators.
Problems with personnel control
The equipment in fitness clubs is the same, but the people are different everywhere. If you have competent and hardworking trainers who work well with students, people will come to you. SalesapCRM allows you to report online about your team’s work:
- how many cold calls did the administrator make,
- how many deals each manager concluded,
- how many services and for what amount each trainer provided, and so on.
As you can see, all the main problems of a fitness club related to customer retention can be solved using a CRM system. But you also need to choose it wisely. We recommend comfortable and functional. You can try it completely free right now!
Increasing the number of new clients and retaining regular ones is the main task of the manager of a fitness club, the successful solution of which will require answering several questions. How do visitors find out about the establishment? What is necessary for them to decide to come there for the first time? How to retain a client after the expiration of any type of subscription?
Using every informational occasion to remind yourself
Advertising, as we know, is the engine of trade. And not only goods, but also services. If the client is unobtrusively reminded that he has not attended classes for a month, and the fitness center has a favorable price for a ten-day course of back massage (he bought a similar subscription last time) and training from Vitaly (his personal trainer), then he will at least think about the possibility of spending this decade in the gym. This could be an SMS, a short call, or an email.
For beginners, free training days are held, messages about which are posted on social networks, in crowded places (shopping centers, clinics, bus stops, newspaper advertisements). The choice of advertising medium depends on the target audience: for students and teenagers - Vkontakte; for young mothers - posters in children's clinics; for older ladies - flyers near the metro.
Organization of client's leisure time
IN holidays the number of visitors to fitness centers is inexorably declining. This is due to the fact that the client did not find a proper replacement in the gym for lying on the couch or going on a picnic with friends. If you place an advertisement several weeks in advance about events held at the center and interesting to visitors and their families, the halls of the center will be filled during the holiday.
What can you offer the client?
- Dating and flirting evening (for young people)
- Weightlifting competition (for tough guys)
- Family relay race
- Photo session with city photographers (for young and old)
The habit of visiting the club regularly, familiar faces around, a pleasant atmosphere and free (they should be like this) entertainment will win the fight for the client’s attention, accompanied by the announcement of all kinds of bonuses awaiting the person who brings a friend or colleague.
How to attract clients to a fitness club for a long time?
Any place that bears the prefix club must have some intimacy. You cannot compare regular and one-time clients in their ability to choose the time of classes, the trainer, the day of visits and much more. It is necessary to think through compelling reasons to encourage a visitor to want to become a permanent one.
Arrangement of places for communication and relaxation
Few people visit fitness clubs exclusively for yoga or aerobics. Single people strive to expand their circle of acquaintances, married couples want to spend time together and profitably. A small cafe, cozy changing rooms with soft chairs, a spacious hall with an assortment of healthy juices - this is a short list of what will help create an atmosphere of comfort and friendliness in the club.
Narrow specialization of the club
The classic also warned about the danger of the desire to embrace the immensity. It is impossible to systematize and unite a crowd that is too diverse. It is not always pleasant for students to study together with curvaceous middle-aged ladies. They, in turn, will become embarrassed by pumped-up men who laugh at their plumpness. Choosing the target audience of a fitness center will help narrow down the tools of influence on the visitor when solving a dilemma: how to attract a client to a fitness club?
For young mothers with small children, morning and afternoon activity programs should be developed - while the children are in kindergarten or school. For families - evening hours, when everyone is already at home. On weekends, it’s a good idea to take into account the possibility of an influx of more clients, which is due to the mass of free time and the desire to spend it actively.
Nothing happens by itself. By thinking and acting rather than theorizing, you can find productive, low-cost opportunities to increase your gym's profitability.
Fitness clubs are a relatively new type of business in Russia, but competition is already high. In these difficult conditions, it is important to apply a combination of different ways fighting for clients. Until recently, people came to fitness centers mainly to lose weight. But today more than 50% of visitors sign up for other reasons, for example, to improve your well-being, enjoy physical activity, etc.. To attract clients to a fitness club, it is important understand their requests, arouse interest and remind them of themselves. Let's look at the basic techniques that will be useful to both owners of large centers and small halls.
8 real ways to attract clients to a fitness club
- Effectively plan group class schedules to accommodate time-sensitive sessions for different groups of people, from new mothers to business professionals.
- Create and maintain groups on social networks: VKontakte, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. You will need specialists in the field of SMM marketing who know how to compose a post so that it interests people with words and photographs. In the fitness club group you can place different posts:
- educational (articles about healthy lifestyle, infographics, training recommendations);
- funny (jokes, anecdotes, memes);
- motivating (music selections for training, quotes, before/after photos);
- advertising (information about training, club news, promotions).
Please indicate hashtags, so that your group can be found and do not forget to answer questions.
- Set up targeted advertising on social networks. Publications should be targeted at your current and potential clients:
- live or work within walking distance of a fitness center;
- interested in a healthy lifestyle, sports, dancing, yoga;
- average age from 15 to 50 years.
Ideas for attracting customers using a website
When thinking about how to attract clients to your fitness center, pay attention to the tools that you already have at your disposal. In other words, how much Your club website works effectively? Go to the main page yourself and try to answer these questions in half a minute:
- what services are available at your club;
- where is the hall located?
- how to sign up for classes;
- how to find out how much they cost;
- Do I believe that this club meets my needs?
Only if this important and convincing information is easy to find on the site will the potential client not close the page immediately.
It is especially effective if you can read on a website or in a social group reviews of trainers. This immediately increases the confidence of potential clients.
Another important point is the creation visitor registration systems. Often in fitness clubs, communication with the client ends after the first lesson, during which he determines whether he is satisfied or not. Therefore, it is important to record and control customer acquisition. You can do this using CRM system that saves full story visits each client with relevant information (what services are you interested in, when is it convenient to come, etc.). By saving contacts, you can periodically remind you of yourself, offering profitable promotions using SMS and email notifications.
How to implement it
To implement these ideas for attracting clients to a fitness club, you do not need to hire a large number of specialists or understand a variety of complex programs. All you need to do is install the cloud platform. This system already has a built-in system for working with actual and potential clients:
- online registration for classes;
- reviews of trainers;
- automatic client base;
- segmentation of visitors by category;
- sms and email newsletters;
- powerful analytics, etc.
The program is tied to the site and social groups, helping both visitors and fitness center employees. You can check its operation for free during the trial period.
A healthy lifestyle is a trend that is gaining momentum every year. A very useful fashion is to give up bad habits and develop healthy ones, engage in fitness and infect others with this movement. Everything that is trendy is sure to be reflected in business. We went to marketing analyst Maria Polyakova, who promotes several projects, including representatives of the fitness industry in Tyumen, and also leads an active and sports lifestyle.
Masha, tell us about your main project.
One of my clients now is a fitness club, which is located in the city center in an elite building: in a residential complex, but in a separate building. Total area - about 2 thousand square meters, more than 2,000 visitors. I have been working on this project since January of this year.
This is a fairly large and, at the same time, young fitness club (it is three years old). Now he is in a period of transition to a new level in everything: in marketing, in finance, in general consistency, in regulations, in promotion strategy, in building a clearer positioning.
Now management already knows who their audience is and understands what list of services they can provide - basic and additional. All this, experimentally worked out within the company, now needs to be recorded and looked at the distant horizons.
Do you work with them as a marketer?
Yes. My partner Alexandra Samoilovich and I have a joint project Marketing & Finance, where we work in a tight connection between marketing and finance. These are two inseparable things, but the vast majority of companies do not yet understand that these two areas do not live in isolation.
Why did you choose the fitness industry?
In principle, I am interested in the fitness industry. In addition, I do fitness myself, although I prefer training outdoors rather than in the gym. My profile is rock climbing, mountaineering and running.
My company has been engaged in research marketing since 2011. These have always been largely sociological and marketing studies. Gradually, sociology faded away, analytics and consulting were added, and then promotion appeared.
Mainly two types of clients apply for research: those who are expanding into regions, and those for whom something has gone wrong. Companies of the second type come like to a doctor: “We have this problem... Something happened... Why is this happening?” When we find out the reasons, the question arises of what to do about it, we find a solution.
This is how the service was born strategic planning, promotion and strategic marketing. When you have extensive experience in the market, when you begin to conduct research, you inevitably become immersed in the specifics of the area under study. Friends are often surprised: “How do you know everything? We talk about heavy equipment - you expertly pick up the conversation, we talk about the agricultural complex - you talk about herbicides and combines, we touch on the construction materials market - you’re on topic there too!” Often your head is simply boiling from too much information.
If we talk about the fitness industry, then in the current rather difficult market conditions this area is developing well. With overall income falling in many areas of the economy, income in the fitness industry is growing. The growth rate has slowed, but has not stopped. There are several reasons for this: the fitness industry market in Russia is growing, it is quite young, and its penetration rate is low, especially in the regions. And another reason: when the vast majority of people are in a state of instability, at the slightest opportunity they begin to improve themselves as a product. With the general trend healthy image the life that our president has set, with the high loyalty of the labor market to the younger and more active population, whether you like it or not, keeping in shape becomes one of life’s priorities.
Therefore, the fitness industry market is growing, it is attractive, and scales well. It’s interesting for me to see how he offers more and more new services and almost all of them are received with a bang.
Since you are actively involved in fitness, you didn’t have to dive in too much? You yourself are a representative of the target audience.
Yes, in this case, I immediately know what is valuable, useful and important to me as an internal client. When you see the picture both outside and inside, it becomes more complete.
Athlete, climber and simply beautiful Masha!
What are the features of promotion in the fitness industry? What should you pay attention to?
This is a service business. This is working with a client, with a person, but not with his primary desires and needs, but with his dream, intention.
This is both a simple and complex business. I help a person realize his dream. A person associates a lot in life with his appearance, health, and inner state of mind. The fitness industry interacts with all of this. It leads to the understanding that to achieve a dream you need to work hard and take gradual systematic steps. We can always “rip off the sleeves of the vest,” but this is of no use. I’m talking about those who buy the most expensive annual card, the most expensive fitness outfit, do three workouts and call it a day, they say, that’s it, their muscles hurt - “this is not for me.”
Or people want very quick results. But, as my grandmother said, “only cats are born quickly.”
There are many other nuances in this area.
Yes, fitness is a dream job. But it’s also fashionable, almost everyone wants to do it. But it’s not a fact that they are doing it. And here fitness needs to maintain a balance between, on the one hand, inaccessibility in terms of beauty, the final product (athletic physique: well-groomed girls and stately male athletes - for us, demigods who descended from Olympus), on the other hand, complete accessibility and openness, so that a person had a desire to come to the gym, start working out, and trust the trainer. It is in this contradictory combination that there must be balance.
Should those who have just started training be encouraged to exercise? And how does it work in the fitness business?
Previously, fitness managers thought that the main motivation was an element of additional sales within the club. Nowadays people are increasingly realizing that the key to success is a personal trainer. I would really like to be a personal trainer myself. This is interesting! So you set a task for a person: “So, Vasya, you need to run from here to lunch!” Vasya ran and ran and fell, his strength ran out. You think: “Hmm, I’m curious how it turned out... Apparently, it’s too much to begin with, we need to reduce the load” (laughs). Just a joke, of course. This is a very difficult and responsible job.
At the same time, a personal trainer does not allow you to sit still, he endlessly motivates, and keeps you within strict limits. This is exactly what many adults dream about today, realizing that without a competent mentor, results cannot be achieved. There are very few achievers who independently reach their goals. The rest are ready to pay money and spend time so that someone will “finish” them to the result.
It has been scientifically documented that it takes 21 regular repetitions to develop a habit - roughly speaking, 21 days. This is true, but as soon as you cross the three-week mark and stop repeating, you quickly return to the starting point. And 21 days of non-repetition also fixes the habit. The habit of doing nothing.
How does the fitness club you are promoting position itself?
This is a family fitness club. A new model that was launched long ago in America, Australia, and Europe. In Russia, it is just beginning to take root - mainly in megacities - and is represented by federal networks.
In small towns it is difficult, since this format requires that all family members receive the services they need. For example, my client has a children's development club, which is located in the same building, it provides both children's fitness services (certified trainers work) and developmental ones. I come as a mother with two children, work out for 2-2.5 hours in the gym, and during this time the children jumped and jumped, sat, thought, and drew.
Nowadays, there is no longer such a demand for just a children’s playroom, where you leave the child to self-employment under minimal supervision. Nowadays, parents want to make the most of not only their time, but also their child’s time. My client offers just such a convenient model.
Do you think that a fitness club should have a narrow niche?
In any case, you need to segment.
If we are talking about a premium club, then for a certain price it provides a list of services that suits its target audience. If these are low-cost clubs, which are usually located in shopping centers, in the local area of residential areas, where there is no reception, fitness bar, massage, fitness testing and other goodies, where there is only a shower, then their own target audience goes there, and one target audience will be uncomfortable in the other’s club.
I am an opponent of discount promotions - when voting in rubles begins among competitors and dragging the client. This is complete nonsense, because at the level of a growing market you need to win new clients, and not pull ready-made ones from each other. Unfortunately, not everyone understands this. A premium club reduces prices, eroding the target audience, and those who do not appreciate the level of comfort, the qualifications of trainers, or the interior come to it. Or rather, he will appreciate it, but he will chronically not understand why he needs to pay for it. Gradually, the primary target audience is being squeezed out: the bank manager will not want to run on the next treadmill with his teller - such is the Russian mentality. And when the club returns prices - after all, comfort must be maintained - newly attracted clients begin to be indignant. In the end, they also leave. Unjustified discounts are a road to nowhere.
Playing with your target audience is like walking through a minefield.
Geolocation is also important, especially when talking about cities with a population of over a million. Your target audience is ranked based on where you are located. If it’s in a lake, then it’s clear that there are roaches and crucian carp. If in the sea, then there are bigger fish there.
What promotion channels work especially well in fitness clubs?
It depends on what stage of emergence and development the club is at.
If the club has just appeared, then for promotion you need to use all channels to notify the audience. Next, we look at what channels the target audience uses directly, and pay tribute to social networks.
There is a fitness club in Tyumen, which is segmented exclusively for a young audience - from 18 to 30 years old - and is promoted only through the VKontakte and Instagram communities. They are not advertised anywhere else. But they pumped up their group so well, they use all its capabilities so well that they don’t need other channels today.
How to organize a sales funnel in a newly opened fitness club? Where to begin?
We sell the client a dream and the understanding that we can bring him closer to this dream, this is the main task. Fitness is not a professional sport. Fitness is when you achieve something and are praised. And you achieve it if you treat your body with the utmost care, without setting any records. Professional sport is a test of the strength of the resources inherent in a person, his unique properties, and fitness is about keeping the body in good shape without harm to health. This is the main value that should be highlighted in the sales of any fitness center.
To begin with, the client should be accepted as he first came: usually not in the best shape, with embarrassment in front of the mirror and others. And only then he needs to show what he can become, and convince him that on the path to his dream he will be accompanied, supported, encouraged, that the coach will be a watchful eye.
And this is more about psychology than physiology. Often, oddly enough, people come to a fitness club for psychological support. If you only knew how much and in what detail clients tell their trainers! I think coaches should be paid extra for psychoanalysis! :)
Not every coach is capable of this!
Those who are not capable quickly leave. Every fitness trainer is, first of all, a good psychologist, good man- In principle, there cannot be bad people there.
Okay, so the trainer loves his client, works with him, improves him. But it also has the function of subsequent sales. Or should an administrator or manager do this?
It is the coach who offers many intra-club services to the client. And he must be taught intelligent sales so that he offers his client exactly what he considers necessary. You need to feel the fine line between the situation when a client trusts you, and when the client understands that they are starting to organize sales on his trust. It is very easy to step over this line and lose a client.
An individual approach and adequately selected loads for the client are the main task of a personal trainer.
Now in the relationship with the client there should be much more humanity and subtle mental connection than there was before.
Does the new generation of coaches understand this?
Specialists in any field undergo natural selection. If a young trainer decides that his calling is to make other people more beautiful, better and stronger, and begins to work without trying to learn anything additional (at least the same interaction with the client), his road in the fitness industry is short. It will quickly cease to be of interest to clients, which means the fitness club will not need it either.
A trainer must constantly learn, develop, be in trend, know new tricks that the fitness industry is quite dynamically producing. The trainer should offer his client to know more about new trends than other people, offer to be in this very trend.
The state of expertise in a person is always relevant.
Speaking of promotion, we will not escape Internet marketing. What to rely on in fitness: social networks, website, fitness blog?
If we are talking about promoting a personal trainer and he has something to write about, then it is necessary to do so.
If we are talking about promoting a fitness club, then its presentation on social networks should be as interesting as possible. Let it be videos, announcements of events and subsequent reports about them, “bomb” photographs, news that addresses directly the representative of the target audience. It is necessary to conduct a personal dialogue with each user.
In my feed there is a representative of the “workout” fitness direction, Frank Medrano, he has developed a huge network of fitness clubs where people with disabilities work out. Frank shows a video in which 180-pound people come to training, and shows how they work out, how hard it is for them, how they do not give up. Or how a wheelchair user does push-ups with a multi-kilogram chain around his neck. Along with the stroller. There is no glamor in all this, you see the real, alive and very cool. Or the famous CT Fletcher “Plush Beard” - just that version of a motivating trainer with a sharp word and kicking, whose videos on YouTube break records in terms of the number of views. You immediately get into it. You no longer feel embarrassed in front of the fitness room, you understand that the same living people who strive for their dreams will come there.
Fitness promotion should be based on positivity, on broadcasting the energy of burning eyes. Fitness always means a lot of energy. Even static yoga is energetic, there’s just a charge inside.
A person comes to purchasing an annual card through emotions; it is an irrational purchase. And the website of a fitness center must be a sales tool; the client must enter it with already by decision buy club services. There should be the most convenient navigation so that the client can quickly purchase a card, sign up for an excursion to the club, create a card constructor from the conditions that interest him, calculate his body mass index - all these features need to be provided. The client’s contact with the club through applications and instant messengers should be as short and simple as possible.
Tell us more about the tricks that a fitness club can use to attract and retain customers.
For example, gamification in a club, when a client is awarded points. Only I am in favor of it being based on the client’s results, on additional services. And a fitness club should go beyond the club with its clients and travel.
Let's say I live in Tyumen and visit a certain fitness club. And so I came to Moscow - and I’ll stay at the hotel where my fitness club has a discount. Or my club recommends me hotels with an excellent gym and a cool pool.
A fitness club builds the infrastructure of its client’s existence. He is a friend.
You need to develop a partner network, carefully select partners for your target audience - this is very cool both for club marketing and for the partners themselves. Various areas, for example, HoReCa and fitness come into contact, which means that a common client will certainly be at the point of contact. The same goes for vacations and shopping.
Let's talk about small fitness projects: small centers or studios. What are their features of functioning and promotion?
Now this is a new trend - boutique fitness clubs.
In Tyumen, for example, we have a cycle club. This is the same micro business that needs marketing micro formats. Their implementation is even simpler. There are not too many clients there and it is easier to make a person’s stay in the club as comfortable as possible, to provide that very infrastructure of life.
I think that there will be more such formats, since the vast majority of clients do not really need a huge fitness center with its prohibitive number of services. Small studios create a special microclimate, you can organize master classes, attract healthy eating, natural cosmetics, lines of sportswear on the local market - all this is not put on an industrial footing, and at this level you can put together a good affiliate program.
You are planning new projects in Sochi. Are they related to fitness? And why Sochi?
I am planning to move to Sochi.
Today we have Krasnodar region, in particular, the Black Sea coast has a great infrastructure and serious resources in terms of resort business, organizing outdoor business events, but there is no saturation as such. The very pronounced seasonality today should be blurred by such events, and now this area is gaining momentum. A very dense network of large-scale events: Formula 1, football championship, planned for the fall International festival youth event, which will be attended by a large number of world-class personalities, including Elon Musk. In this regard, Sochi is developing very rapidly, but it is necessary to attract Russians, and not only for a banal resort vacation, but also for other types of activities.
I will be organizing business events using the resources of the Black Sea coast and Krasnaya Polyana, organizing educational and fitness tours. This is all what I want and know how to do, which brings me incredible pleasure. I think that we will sound in unison with Sochi.
Do you have any technology for implementing plans?
Of course, there is production technology. I really like how Natalia Frankel and Dmitry Rumyantsev work in this direction, and I have my own extensive experience in organizing events.
Are there any specifics to promoting a fitness trend in Sochi?
The specificity is that the Olympic legacy inherited by the resort city is a very big responsibility. Now the city has a huge Olympic park, amazing infrastructure, and Sochi residents simply have to immerse themselves in a sports-active state, stay in it and set an example for the rest of the country. The bar is set high, and the mentality of local residents needs to be brought up to it.
According to the mayor of Sochi, over the past two to three years, about two hundred thousand people have moved to the Black Sea coast for permanent residence, and the city population has almost doubled. Now this population needs to be healed, brought into a state of love for an active lifestyle, sports, and here there is absolutely everything for a healthy lifestyle to spread by leaps and bounds. Therefore, the fitness industry should hold as many events here as possible, both local and large-scale, and invite as many people leading an active lifestyle as possible.
Thank you, Maria, for the cheerful interview, interesting cases and advice. Are there any fitness project managers among our subscribers? Share the features of your business, tell us how you are doing with promotion.
Interviewed by Nadezhda Merkusheva
After launching a fitness business, the main task for a long time to come remains to attract the maximum number of new clients to the club. This is achieved through a well-thought-out promotion strategy and allows you to promote a fitness club.
It's no secret that a marketing campaign requires careful development and is a labor-intensive process that you, as the owner, will have to deal with. But with the right approach, you actually get automated system fitness marketing.
Firstly, you should understand that all successful fitness clubs operate with the same goals and concepts in their marketing campaigns. Based on these components, a system is built that in the future attracts clients to the fitness club “automatically”.
When forming a strategy for promoting a sports club, remember that there is a huge variety of gyms and sports centers. Your task is to provide the potential consumer USP(Unique Selling Point) – strong offer, which will make it clear that your club stands out from the crowd, that you can provide it with something that your competitors do not have. This message is formed based on several considerations that relate not only to marketing, but also to the organization of the club’s work as a whole.
Read about the new concept of fitness marketing in the article:
1. Choose a Niche
The first step is to determine the niche in which your club will operate. Being a specialist in a particular area is much better than trying to squeeze in among other large halls. Moreover, do not hope that they will give you their clients just like that.
By choosing your niche, you can also present your product to the audience in a better and more targeted manner.
To more accurately target the desired segment, ask yourself 4 questions:
- Are the basic selection criteria covered by your competitors (for example, the availability of the necessary equipment, a swimming pool, certified coaching staff, and so on)?
- Are secondary selection criteria covered by your competitors (for example, specific equipment, a pool with a countercurrent, a coach with an international diploma, and so on)?
- Are your competitors using fitness innovations?
- Are there competitors in the market that use “pull” positioning? (for example, specialized fitness studios)
For an existing fitness business, the following questions will be relevant:
- What services are your competitors already providing and what can your club do better?
- What audience lives or works within walking distance of your fitness club?
- What services do your specialists provide that are unique to the local market? (perhaps you can quickly train/hire such specialists?)
- What promotion tools can you use more effectively than your competitors?
The answers to these questions will help us not only determine what we will convey to the audience, but will also automatically distinguish our fitness business from the stream of competitors.
2. Analyze Competitors
Also, don’t be afraid to analyze your competitors’ work. Sometimes other fitness clubs have great ideas that can be implemented in your fitness business. Now we are not talking about plagiarism, but about the introduction of ideas.
Using the appropriate software You can easily analyze the work of your competitors (www. similarweb.com)
Today, the realities are such that the Western fitness business market has stepped far ahead of ours, so this is simply a huge treasure trove of knowledge that can and should be applied here.
Foreign fitness entrepreneurs were able to destroy one of the main stereotypes, namely: opening a fitness club in the center or in a residential area is good, opening on the outskirts is bad. Of course, location matters a lot for a fitness business, but how do you ensure that customers are motivated to visit your fitness center no matter how far it is from their home or what the weather is like?
It’s very simple – give them a unique user experience.
Does everyone provide a free guest visit? – And you will provide the potential client many times more during the first training session. Let it be a workout with a personal trainer after which you treat him to a protein shake.
3. Automate the Work
The next step is the introduction of automation systems for the Club’s work, namely:
- Sales management system;
- Customer service system;
- Personnel management system.
Log books and notepads are a thing of the past. A fitness room loses a huge number of regular and potential clients when the administrator is simply unable to find the necessary information in the mountains of waste paper.
Using software not only simplifies the management of a fitness business, but also allows you to work with potential clients with the highest quality possible.
4. We work through Referral Marketing
Referral marketing is a very powerful method for generating leads that doesn't cost much.
True, most fitness clubs attract referrals only by offering discount services for existing clients. For example: “25% Discount on the Purchase of a Subscription for Friends of Our Regular Customers.”
Try to create a product or service that does not require additional incentives for your current client to talk about it. Then your main task will only be to provide a convenient mechanism for disseminating positive information about you. Nowadays the most convenient way to do this is via the Internet.
Always consider each of your clients as 10 new ones - with the right strategy, members of your club, without knowing it, will begin to sell your fitness services to their acquaintances, friends, and employees.
Read more about methods for expanding the club’s client flow in the article:
5. We work with the Affiliate Program
How to promote a fitness club through an affiliate program with other business entrepreneurs? Let's say you know that your club is visited mainly by women. You can offer the owners of local hairdressing salons or spa salons, provide their clients with a 10-20% discount on a gym membership, or pure barter: You advertise a spa salon in your club, the owner of a spa salon does the same in his studios.
6. Generating Leads Through Direct Marketing
Sending out flyers by mail is a very popular marketing trend in the West and it really works. In our case, you can send mailings to commercial enterprises, through affiliate programs with other business entrepreneurs, and distribute flyers directly into your hands.
In addition to the informational part, the flyer must contain some creative idea. It's easy to post information about a club or a promotion. We need to “hook” a potential client. Remember the last time a simple advertising melody or phrase was spinning in your head - viral advertising can work as well as any other and its great advantage is that it allows you to interest even an indifferent layman.
An example of a creative approach in fitness marketing
In practice, an option that works well is when you send out not a regular sales flyer, but a personal letter from a fitness trainer or fitness business owner. At the moment there is a serious trend associated with personification! This fully applies to offers that you send to your potential clients by mail.
7. Promoting on the Internet
The first thing to start with is to create fitness club website. But for it to work, it’s not enough to just create a website and mark it as “completed” on the task list. You need to work with him constantly. Your website is like a store window. It must be of high quality and optimized for specific tasks, namely attracting new clients.
You can often see a picture when a visitor lands on a fitness resource and does not understand where he has ended up - downloaded pictures from the “search” instead of live photos of the gym, a lack of reviews and cliche phrases that initially hurt the ear. Essentially, instead of answering the question “Which gym should I go to,” the client receives tons of useless information.
Stop investing your time and money in such work. Provide potential clients only with high-quality visual and informational content.
Instead of sending letters to clients individually, send them using software (we recommend the GetResponse service).
Constant communication with visitors via e-mail will allow you to build trusting relationships already at the initial stages of attracting clients to the club.
Third, targeted fitness advertising on social networks. Social networks are direct access to the target audience. Coverage for advertising campaign simply colossal. However, you should be prepared to invest a certain amount of resources and most likely hire a specialist to advance in this area. Just “post” pictures in social media everyone can. Attract real clients who buy fitness services - only a few.
+1. Let's Focus on What We Can Do
Delegate your authority. You don't have to be able to do everything. If you need a quality website or flyer, hire a qualified professional to perform these tasks. This is much more productive than spending time learning everything yourself. Focus on your strengths and hire people who understand areas in which you are not so strong. As a result, you get a powerful team of specialists to develop your fitness business.
Bottom line. We work “On Automatic”
The implementation of the above ideas for promoting a fitness club in practice provides you with an automated... There is no need to sit and rack your brains about how to attract new clients - the mechanism has already been launched and is working “automatically”.
Go here right now to receive 17-page instructions for setting up a Fitness Marketing System in your club.
How to Promote a Fitness Club or Gym and Forget Forever About the Problem of Attracting New Clients
4.5 (89.09%) 22 votes
