Stop throwing garbage against the wall, wishing something would stick. Have you ever heard that saying? We notice this type of marketing every day in every type of gym. Marketing isn’t rocket science, but it’s easy to fail without a system. Don’t waste your money on marketing and follow these simple steps to achieve fitness marketing success!
Step 1: Allocate X% of the revenue to your marketing efforts
Don’t wait until you need to increase your health club revenue to start marketing. Never stop your marketing efforts. Marketing books will tell you that the average amount you should spend on marketing is thirteen percent of revenue. Income, not profit. You may be thinking, “I’m not even making enough money to give myself a paycheck!” Hmm, the age old question is which comes first, the chicken or the egg? You can’t spend money if you don’t have money and you can’t earn money without spending money! But if you take a closer look, you’ll see some places to cut costs or increase profit centers by several dollars. Start with two percent of your income, then five, then eight, and so on. You must allocate a portion of your income to marketing and you MUST decide how you will spend that money. You need a reasonable ROI to increase your marketing budget next month and the following month! But get a plan.
Step 2: create a marketing plan
Successful marketing is simply not one-time mailing or spending money on ad space because a salesperson came to your door with an incredible offer from ValPak. By doing on-demand marketing, you will never have a steady stream of potential traffic. It won’t take long to make a plan for success. Sit down on a Sunday and prepare a separate page for each month of the year. After reviewing your budget, you need to know precisely how much you can afford in marketing. Decide what types of marketing would work best during certain times of the year. For example, January is full of New Year’s resolutions, March is the time to get ready for bikini season, June is free summer, and August is the time to go back to school. Those are the most obvious. If you have a gym in the northern United States, your climate will turn much colder faster than in the southern states. If you’re in the south, people want to get out of the heat during the summer by going indoors to exercise. Or maybe your demographic will help determine what your marketing plan will be. If your health club is in a blue collar area, what better time to advertise than during tax season? Or if you offer childcare, is summer a perfect time to give their children’s parents a break while they exercise? Just schedule your health club marketing calendar, month by month.
Based on each month’s theme, what type of marketing will be the best for your prospects? Maybe a drop shipping in January? Participate in youth organizations during the spring and summer? Does your city have a parade or festival? Think of ways you can get involved or volunteer. Your plan may need adjustments as the months progress or if you are presented with unique marketing opportunities. As a gym owner, you are quite used to swinging and knitting.
Step 3: don’t try to do everything yourself
You already have enough responsibilities. Imagine trying not to let your marketing efforts slip through the cracks. Find someone else responsible for marketing your gym. And think about this … if your marketing efforts are successful, will you be the one to sell memberships? While a member increase is always great, is it worth your sanity? As well as managing your gym, handling member concerns, monitoring member billing and registrations, managing personal trainers and even training a few people yourself, keeping the club clean, training your staff, maybe even finding time. for lunch … Can you imagine trying to give prospects a tour and sell multiple memberships a day and keep track of lost guests? Wow, I’m exhausted just thinking about all this. Assign certain marketing responsibilities to your health club staff, outsource your printing, find a local boy scout troop or youth group to distribute door hangers and here is my favorite … Hire VMG to take care of everything!
Ignore that shameless plug. The point is this; you have enough on your plate. Obviously there is much more to marketing than I can cover in this article, but these are the fundamentals to successfully marketing your gym. Follow these three easy steps and you will set the stage for marketing success.
