How to Market Your Fitness Class or Gym
Handling a fitness gym business requires a lot of consideration regarding how you keep the customer turnover in a smooth flow. Unlike most businesses where you ought to sell your products, a fitness gym depends mainly upon the inflow of your customers and your network growth. For these reasons, having a smart marketing strategy for a fitness centre is essential for your business growth and survival.
Gone are the days when you were supposed to depend solely on banners and radio broadcasts for promoting your business. With a plethora of networking opportunities and globalisation through technology, using advanced modes like the internet as your tool for fitness marketing strategies is highly essential. If you have tactical approaches to make all components count, then it can leave favourable impacts on your business growth.
Top Marketing Strategies for Fitness Gyms
Now that you know that a marketing strategy for fitness clubs plays a vital role in the growth of the business, let’s see some top marketing strategies for your business.
User-Friendly Landing Page
57% of users don’t refer to websites on their devices if it is not well-designed. That is why creating friendly landing pages for your fitness centre is of paramount importance. You can do this in the following ways:
Create a website using WordPress or related web domains
Get a web developer or software to build a site from scratch
Either way, your intent should be to create a site with a design appealing for your audience. Not only this, but you should also be looking for features to include in your website that ensure better conversion rate for your site. Include ChatBots, automated Shopping Checklist, Checkout page, review page, and others. While you intend to project your services there, you should be laying a high focus on how your intended customers can communicate with you. So you see, when we are talking about websites being user-friendly, it must be covering all these aspects, including design.
You can make your website more user-friendly through the following setups:
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to reduce downtime
Build an engaging CTA (Call to Action) button
Use appealing and well-balanced graphics
Make your website free from adware and malware through an MSP (Managed Service Provider)
You can make these technicalities well cared for using marketing services as well.
Include an Effective OPT-IN Strategy
A fitness gym is all about being customer-oriented. It should be giving an idea that your mission goals centre on the wellness of your client, and not merely your monetary benefits. For building credibility and business – client sustainability, you need to require some OPT-IN strategy in your business.
“An Opt-in strategy offers value to targeted audiences in the form of valuable information, advice, or any other benefit for goodwill causes.”
The primary intent behind having such a strategy is based on building credibility with your clients – an essential part of running a business for the long-term. Some ways to improvise these strategies include the following:
Creating Pop-ups
Starting an email subscription campaign (also a part of email marketing)
Creating PDFs with informative content and sharing links on websites
Adding animation/real-time videos with links
Adding blogs based on information regarding health and fitness in your website
While all of these tactics add up to improving the credibility of your business for long-term goals, it is essential you take note that the idea of using pop-ups might not appeal to everyone. According to a survey, only a 32% conversion rate is improved using such an approach. The rest of the percentage finds pop-ups to be rather frustrating.
On-Site SEO
Search Engine Optimisation is one of the critical elements when it comes to fitness marketing strategies and online advertising. Let’s see how SEO is especially beneficial for businesses dependable on local clientele.
Google data suggests 76% of users who search for local businesses near them check out for services within a day. This means if people search for “local fitness gyms around me,” then they will be clicking those sites that appear on the top page of the search results for Google, Bing, and other websites. Considering this, you need to search for keywords frequently trending in the local area surrounding your fitness centre.
Pro tip: Always use keywords naturally in your content to create a flow. Use the main keyword in the upper and lower portions of a single blog post.
Business Hack: Search for a competent set of keywords used by locals and optimise your entire website using the set. However, keep in mind the natural flow.
OFF Site SEO
While adding keywords is something you can do while staying within your website to boost up conversion rates and customer engagement, off-site SEO is yet another factor that adds all the bells and whistles you need to maximise your fitness gym’s influence. For off-site SEO, you can do the following:
Create backlinks
RSS Feed Subscription Box
Forum and guest posting
Creating and publishing visuals (animations, videos, graphics)
There are a lot of other off-site SEO strategies, but some mentioned above is to get you started. Can’t see their importance? According to Google, more than 91% of websites fail to reach the required organic traffic through search results just because those don’t have any backlinks to support them. And this is just one aspect of off-site SEO we are talking about.
Make Social Media your Best Friend for Marketing
Social media comes as a highly impactful resource for businesses based on customer sustainability and engagement. This holds especially true for the health and fitness industry, where client sustainability is the core of the whole business.
Facebook: Maintain a Facebook page for business and keep posting regularly
Instagram: Showcase your club as a part of the marketing strategy for the fitness centre
LinkedIn: Create a professional portfolio to show your gym or fitness centre’s goal for improving customer’s fitness and wellbeing
Engage with Influencers
You can apply the tool for PR-ship for your business growth by requesting promotions using influencers and entrepreneurs on the internet. As a part of a marketing strategy for fitness centre, you can offer the influencers by giving them:
Free membership offer for your fitness club
Delivering them fitness-related equipment
Inviting them for special classes or exclusive offers
In return, they will be promoting your fitness centre, which will ultimately be beneficial for your marketing strategy.
Start Sponsorship Giveaways
You get two benefits for starting sponsorship giveaways:
Better customer engagement
Improved conversion rate
You can achieve a specific marketing goal by providing your customers with a sponsorship giveaway deal. The purpose of your giveaway should be reflecting on the methodology you adapt to run the plan. For example, if you want people to know more about the facilities in your fitness center, you can broadcast a video of a fitness trainer providing some tips on workouts. You can then ask your audience to tag their friends, comment on the information given in the video, or any other thing you find suitable. Then using the lucky draw method, give out a discount offer or free equipment with your logo on it.
These are just some basic ideas you can use to amplify your business growth and influence in the market, and you can be as creative as you want when it comes to creating and applying fitness marketing strategies - The sky's the limit!
Run Specialised Ad Campaigns
You can use Facebook Ad Manager, Google Ads, and others to run specialised ad campaigns targeted for your audience. Pay a subscription fee and select the targeted audience of your choice. For example, in a fitness centre, try adding the specific age range you want to attract. Most fitness club owners would exclude teens and the elderly and choose the adult range. However, this is only a pattern we see, and you can plan as you desire according to your business.
Two-Way is the HighWay
The most appreciable note for running a marketing strategy includes building pathways for strong, two-way communication. For this, you can add responsive boxes, emails, query forms and surveys, live Q&A sessions, and much more.
Email Newsletter
Apply email marketing tools for sending out weekly, monthly, or quarterly newsletters with all the important details and offers regarding your business.
Pro tip: Using their First Names in salutations make the email look well-thought and more client-oriented.
Retargeting Ads
Use analytical tools to assess client activity on landing pages and target them with your ads again through emails, newsletters, etc.
WhatsApp Marketing
Make a WhatsApp Business account and set automated response options for a better response rate for your business.
Final Word
These were some top fitness marketing strategies to get your fitness centre the talk of the town. Don’t forget to go with a client-focused approach as building a strong bond with your customers will not only help in maintaining your customers but also help your business spread by word-of-mouth to other people. As you follow with such an approach in your marketing strategy, whether online or offline, you will be maximising your business potential.
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