I’m going to start this article with a conclusion – Marketing is an Art not a Science. I think this statement sets the scene for the rest of it. I am not going to be prescriptive because what works (and doesn’t work) for Gym Alliance and Gym Passport will not necessarily work for you in your club; for a start your target market tends to be different from ours that is the reason we can work together so well. What I will do in this article, the first in a series of four, is to explain the different marketing options which are available to us in the fitness industry based on what I have learnt over the last few years.
The ways in which you promote your club will depend highly upon factors such as the catchment area for you customers, their demographics and the price point at which you sell your memberships however it is likely that you will use many if not all of the following at some point:
Direct marketing through on street canvassing, corporate HR canvassing, inbound and outbound calling and mail outs. This medium is great because you can be extremely targeted with your marketing and you get instant feedback on the marketing messages you are putting out. On the downside finding the sales staff especially for corporate sales can be very difficult and the costs per sale are always going to be relatively high.
Print Advertising using print adverts in newspapers and magazines, billboards and editorials. Print advertising can also be a very expensive medium with results which are very difficult to track. The success is dependent upon the quality of the advert so design costs are a significant portion of the overall costs and it is important to provide a compelling offer. Plan your print adverts well in advance and make sure you post the ad at the end of the advertiser’s sales period as this will ensure you get yourself a significant discount.
Sponsorship is very prevalent amongst the larger players in our industry however it shouldn’t be the preserve of the biggest. A specifically targeted sponsorship of an event which attracts a large number of potential target customers can be a great way of appealing to a captive audience. Consider sporting events, corporate events and any local charities which will create goodwill amongst the community towards your business. Gym Passport sponsors and has a presence at a number of key events so feel free to contact us if you feel there is an event which we should be cosponsoring.
A relatively new promotional tool for your club is the Gym Alliance. We market and sell Gym Passport which enables our members to use any of the Alliance Partner clubs in the network. In return for you opening your doors to our members we pay you for each visit. In this way we take care of marketing your club to a national member base – one in which customers want the freedom and flexibility to use multiple clubs. There are no costs involved for you so it’s free marketing.
The final category I will discuss in this article and the one which will be the focus of my next article is Web Marketing. This is a relatively new phenomenon but one which promises to revolutionise the ways we promote our clubs. More and more people use the web as their first port of call when looking to buy therefore it is imperative they can find us in amongst all of the other sites vying for their attention. Within web marketing there are three ways to generate additional traffic to your site and hence additional sales. Firstly search engine optimization or SEO for short is the process of improving your sites ranking in the major search engines. Referrals via major providers such as Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing is the next somewhat costly (if you don’t do it right) web marketing tool the final form Web Marketing takes is via Banner Ads which are displayed on prominent web sites and link back to your web site. I will delve into Web Marketing more deeply in the next article and let you know about some of the providers we use.