Market size of the fitness industry is growing every day. In 2022, it saw an increase of 20% in revenue compared to 2021. Growth in market size means that there would be an increase in the competition. Being a gym or fitness club owner, it is vital for you to be able to promote your fitness club despite in this competitive atmosphere. Retaining your existing members and gaining new ones should be your main focus.
We have created a list of 10 strategies that can help you promote your fitness club so that you can retain your existing members and gain new ones.
Click on a strategy to view its detail:
Social Media has become a widely used medium for companies to promote their business. About half of the world uses social media, which means if you start using it for business, you effectively reach your potential members. Businesses hire digital marketing firms for this purpose and pay thousands just to promote their brand. You can set your own marketing budget for your digital marketing strategies. Read more on setting marketing budgets in our previous blog, 5 Steps To Setting a Gym Marketing Budget.
Major social media platforms include Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter. These platforms allow you to reach a wide range of potential members. You can engage your audience with your ongoing activities and promote your current offers easily. Social media makes interacting with your members easy and hassle-free. It is a great way to retain your existing members and get new ones as well.
Paid ads are one of the most effective ways to promote your gym. They can be used to increase your reach online, sell gear, attract prospects to become members and can generate a greater return on investment in a shorter period of time compared to organic posts. You can run targeted social media ads on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram and search ads on Google and Bing.
The ads you run on social media can be either in the form of static posts or videos. You can further define whether your ads will be for the audience in the awareness stage or decision stage. It would help if you also defined the goal of your ads, such as your goal can be to get new members or increase your sales. Ideally, your organic and paid strategy should be aligned for maximum impact.
Creating a blog page can immensely help drive traffic to your gym business website. Writing and publishing blogs which are relevant to your members is a great way to show potential members your worth and trustworthiness. You can link your blogs and your social media pages so that both can generate traffic online. You can write about different types of diets and how they affect the body, exercise tips, or even apps which your members can use to lose weight at home. There are many topics that you can write about on your blog and simultaneously promote your fitness club as well.
Make sure your blogs are easy to read and not too long as not everyone has the time to read a 10 min long blog post. 4-8 minute reading time is what you should aim for. You must include a call-to-action in the middle and at the end of your blog for your potential members to sign up for newsletters if they like your content. You can even offer them downloadable material which they can download and use for future reference. This will allow you to get their email address and contact number that you can use to connect.
Referral rewards are another great way to attract new members and retain your existing ones. Referral rewards benefit already existing members and motivate your new members to refer your gym to their friends and family. The best way to design a referral program is to consider the benefit it will give to your business, your current member, and your newly referred member. There needs to be a win-win situation for everyone. Talking about the rewards, you can reward your members with free access to your gym for a month, gym merchandise or even cash rewards.
You can host different challenges online and offline to create a buzz about your gym. Challenges are a great way to bring the fitness community together and also help promote your gym. For creating a challenge online, you can use your social media platforms to promote and host activities. You can also host challenges offline, within or outside your gym and can give members incentives to participate in them. These challenges do not have to be limited to your members, they can be open to anyone who wants to participate.
Your fitness challenges can be weekly, monthly, or a challenge which can be done in minutes. Challenges also allow your members to see which exercise or diet works best for them. Suppose you want to promote toned arms, the challenge can be “Get toned arms in 10 mins”. The lesser time is involved the more it will attract your members.
Collaborating or partnering with different businesses is another great strategy for promoting your gym. You need to make sure that the business you are collaborating with is related to your industry because if it is not then both of your members will not share a common interest. A collaboration is like a mutual agreement between two businesses, you need to see that the terms of the collaboration benefit both businesses and your members as well. The best collaborators for a fitness club can be health clubs, health food stores, or a yoga studio, from where you can get potential members.
Another great way to promote your gym or fitness club is to use professional trainers. Gym members put a lot of trust in gym trainers as they are professionals in that field and also because they are directly interacting with them. Gym trainers working at your facility can use their contacts, such as their friends and family, and can encourage them to sign up at your gym if they want to get into fitness. You can provide your trainers with bonuses or referral rewards to motivate them in promoting your gym.
Influencers have become a big part of marketing, especially after the popularity of social media. Influencers can promote your business as they have a loyal following and through their content, they can market and promote your gym. Influencer Marketing is not only posting content on social media pages, it includes targeting potential clients you didn’t even know of.
You just need to make sure that the influencer you are selecting has a good following so that their content may reach a larger audience. Also, check whether their engagement is real or not, as sometimes influencers buy followers just to show that they have a good reach but those followers are not generic followers and hence your collaboration with them will not be beneficial to you.
Meal plans are a great way of showing your members that you care about their fitness goals as they are a great addition to their fitness routine. Meal plans are basically healthy diet plans depending on the goal of the individual. Usually, people have a significant challenge in reaching their fitness goals just because they do not have a proper nutritional meal plan. So providing an overall meal plan lets your members be in control over their food choices. This strategy is great for retaining your members as they will only follow the meal plan you have curated for them rather than going to some other gym or nutritionist.
Offering discounts to members has been a tried and tested strategy for promoting gyms and clubs. Deals and offers not only attract new members but also retain your existing ones as well. You can promote your offers and discounts both online and offline. A discount doesn't always have to be in monetary form. Following are a few ways you can offer discounts to your members:
As the competition in the fitness industry has become tough, simply advertising your gym is not enough. You need to deliver the right message to the right audience and for that, you need to incorporate the right marketing strategies at your fitness club. If you successfully promote your gym it will not only increase your memberships but will improve the overall customer satisfaction and will eventually lead to an increase in profits. You can check our previous blog to learn more about Marketing Strategies for Gyms and Clubs.