In this guide, you’re going to learn unique gym membership marketing strategies so you can quickly get the word out about your gym.
Your overall fitness marketing strategy should contain methods to both retain existing clients as well as attract new members. Focus on high levels of customer satisfaction. Your happy customer base can be the single best marketing asset that your gym has.
Always consider the interest, entertainment, and satisfaction of your existing clients. Your recurring revenue and membership base are the lifeblood of your gym’s feasibility. Therefore, satisfying your current customers is equally or arguably more important than generating new leads.
That’s why you should read this guide. You’ll discover a handful of smart gym marketing ideas and strategies for your fitness business. You’ll also see how to make your current userbase more enthusiastic and interested in staying subscribed over the long-haul.
Let’s take a better look at these unique and even unusual gym promotion ideas.
#1 – Offer Deals, Promotions, and Specials
One of the most effective ways to attract new gym members is to make a deal that’s too good to pass up. Always remember that these days, people are busier than ever. As you know, everyone wants to enjoy better health, a better body, more energy, and better fitness. But nobody has the time to get started. (Or, at least that’s what they tell themselves).
That’s why launching gym promotions with a blatant scarcity element is a smart fitness lead generation strategy for your gym. This type of advertising can help to give your dream clients motivation enough to show up through your doors finally.
Offer a free trial. Throw in or raffle some bonus goodies or surprises to new and existing members.
Ensure that your promotion has some scarcity to encourage new leads to register today! Create a promotion that expires or offers a unique set of bonuses for a limited time. Try to experiment with different gifts, rewards, giveaways, or discounts to see what makes your prospects act.
For extra points, advertise your promotion online. Document and share your promotion on social channels. If you have a decent page building software, you can quickly build a landing page that promotes your deal.
You can also advertise your marketing page using Facebook Ads or Google Ads. Either of these options allows you to promote your special fitness offer to those who live near your gym, and may be less expensive than you realize. Facebook Ads has fantastic audience targeting features, so you can target the perfect prospect who may love your gym or fitness service.
#2- Differentiate Your Gym
As a gym owner, you’re facing stiff competition. Yoga studios, online courses, competing gyms, and digital fitness coaches are potentially trying to captivate the same audience as you.
That’s precisely why it’s never been so important to differentiate your gym. What makes the experience that your clients have at your location different and better than the offerings of mainstream gym locations and other fitness service alternatives?
What unique and special features can your gym offer that your customers won’t find elsewhere? How can you cater to your ideal demographic in a way that makes the gym experience special?
Here are a handful of ways to differentiate your gym:
- Offer free meal plans to any member who asks
- Offer free online fitness coaching to all members
- Offer free email lessons to all members
- Offer the best customer service possible! (This is huge)
- Offer free training sessions open to the public once per week
- Offer a fitness service for free to attract leads
- Consider streaming your fitness classes online via Facebook or YouTube
#3- Launch a User-Friendly Website
A user-friendly website isn’t a bonus anymore, now it’s mandatory if you stay in the competition. The good news is that creating a user-friendly website for your gym is easier than ever. You can accept online payments and manage your customers even if you aren’t particularly tech-savvy.
There are various page building tools and CRM (customer relationship management) software options that will enable you to accept payments, plus track, and manage memberships. If you’re stressed about tech, then don’t worry! Many modern marketing and sales tools don’t require you to know how to write code.
You can also launch and deploy a beautiful website using WordPress if you wish. There are heaps of premium ecommerce and CRM WordPress plugins so you can customize your website in a variety of ways.
There are endless free and premium WordPress themes that can help you to launch a very impressive, mobile responsive, and interactive website without being a tech wizard.
Here are a few exciting ways to enhance your gym membership website:
- Post “private” member-only workout videos that your members can only get on your website
- Create free fitness tutorials to both attract leads and entertain your members
- Answer frequently asked questions that your members and prospects ask
- Launch exclusive giveaways, raffles, and contests on your website
- Stream free exercise classes on your website to attract new clients and engage existing clients
#4- Feature and Promote Customer Testimonials
Testimonials and reviews are essential for the reputation and authority of your gym. Boasting an abundance of positive Google reviews can also make your gym’s search engine rankings improve.
A glowing testimonial can also be a powerful sales asset for your gym. A handful of your potential clients want to get in better shape, but they have anxiety about joining. That’s why friendly testimonials from your members might speak more than any sales pitch ever could.
Once you have a video testimonial, you can share that testimonial on social media. You can also post testimonials on your website, or you can even post them on YouTube for the world to see.
Of course, getting people to review your gym or offer a testimonial can be an uphill battle. Luckily, there are a few powerful tricks that you can try to help tip the scales in your favor.
How to get your members to leave reviews and testimonials:
- Ask your clients to give a video testimonial after an excellent group workout session
- Offer a reward, discount, or gift for anyone who leaves a review on Yelp or Google
- Periodically ask your members if they would offer a testimonial in exchange for a reward
- Incentivize reviews and testimonials by providing unique gifts to anyone who writes a review
#5- Know Your Unique Value Proposition
A unique value proposition can help to create a unique experience that your customers feel when they visit your gym. How do the unique qualities that you offer make your customers feel?
Ask yourself what unique services you can offer to your gym and fitness clients that they would find helpful. Are your customers interested in the ketogenic diet, yoga, cognitive health, meditation, self-defense, or any unique activity that can help you differentiate yourself from competitors?
Spend time brainstorming so you can develop unique health services that would be valuable to your existing members, and dream prospects.
Remember that your customers and clients are continually changing and evolving. Therefore, the list of services that you offer should change with their demands!
#6- Network with Local Communities
In our era of social media and online advertising, it can be so easy to overlook the intricate value that our local communities offer. That’s why it’s smart to brainstorm and find the networking power that may be hiding in your local area.
Networking your fitness business or gym is all about offering something of value to an existing community, partner, or audience. Take a close look around your gym’s hometown and surrounding area to see if any blatantly untapped opportunities exist.
Here are some powerful networking questions to ponder:
- Are there any athletic groups that could benefit from your gym and fitness service?
- Are there business associations in your area that meet up or host networking opportunities?
- Are there any communities in your local area that would appreciate a free fitness class?
- Would a local group find value in free diet plans or other services that you could offer?
- Are there any local networking opportunities hiding right under your nose?
#7- Partner with Local Businesses
There are two ways your gym or fitness business can partner with local companies. The first way is to approach a non-competitive business to ask if they would like to launch a cross-promotion. Maybe you could offer their customers a significant discount, free classes, or other health-related goodies. The partnering service could provide something of value to your customers in return.
That way, you both get to tap into one another’s audience, and hopefully, you both benefit from the added exposure. The best part about this type of alliance is that it’s very cheap (or arguably free) to carry out.
Another way you can partner with a business is by offering free health services to its customers, employees, or clients.
Maybe you could find local small business owners and offer to provide free health consultations, free fitness classes, or any other free fitness service. This way, you can provide massive value, while at the same time, you will hopefully generate new leads, and upsell your newfound prospects.
#8- Stay on The Cutting Edge of Gym Tech
One of the best ways to attract new gym members while keeping your existing customers happy is by having innovative equipment in your gym that everyone loves.
Live streaming is also popular these days in the world of gym and fitness tech. Streaming can be a smart way to show off your awesome fitness tech! A properly configured live streaming strategy allows your gym to provide value to your existing customers and attract clients.
You could even feature the Edge in your facilities, our innovative neuro-fitness service that your customers will love. With Reflexion, you can offer a useful and fun cognitive training system that your prospects and clients will be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. The best part is that Reflexion is wildly entertaining to use, helpful, and will amp your customers up.
Reflexion can help your clients exercise the following:
- Memory
- Reaction Time
- Peripheral Vision
- Hand-Eye Coordination
- Pattern Recognition
- Decision Making
Reflexion is ideal for athletes who want to keep their coordination super-fast. It’s also perfect for your members who want to warm up and stay energetic between sets, keep their minds sharp, and have a positive impact upon their neuro-fitness.
#9- Offer Personal Training and Coaching
One of the fastest ways to generate more revenue in your gym or fitness business is by offering upsells! In your case, perhaps you could offer personalized one on one fitness coaching or diet/health consultation to your clients.
Increasing the quality and value that you provide to your existing clients is one of the main things you can do for your gym business. Launching customized coaching services with personal trainers might be the smartest way to generate more revenue, offer more value, and improve the viability of your gym.
#10- Offer Engaging Group Fitness Classes
Group classes are one of the most intelligent fitness marketing strategies for your gym. A group fitness class helps to introduce your team to your existing members, and they can also be a powerful branding mechanism to attract new leads.
If you want to establish rapport and goodwill with your gym membership, then group classes rock. If your group fitness classes actively engage your clients, then remember the power of streaming on YouTube, Facebook, or your website.
You can take your group fitness classes a step further. Why not offer free group fitness classes to the public periodically so you can attract new leads? That way, you can hopefully get new prospects in the door to sample your facilities without any stress or risk. After the fitness class, you could offer a free trial to your gym, a special discount, or other promotion that you have in mind.
#11- Engage with Your Ideal Clients on Social Media
Never forget that the feedback of your gym members is valuable and that’s why you should not only ask for member feedback at your physical location but also on social media.
If you’re on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, or any other social media channel, ask your audience for their feedback. Ask them what they want to see at your gym. Ask them if any potential feature or group class is helpful and valuable to them.
Invite your clients to submit feature requests! That way, if your customers or prospects need a health service or fitness instruction, they can ask your team for help. You’ll know for a fact that any proposed facility is in demand, and your prospective (or existing) client will appreciate that you took the time to ask.
#12- Launch a Worthwhile Referral Program
If you strive to offer the best customer experience, then there’s a chance that customers will tell their like-minded friends and colleagues about your gym.
A referral program can be one of the smartest ideas for your gym. The entire fitness marketing strategy is to offer a fantastic service that your members want to talk about anyway. With an effective referral program, you give your best clients even more motivation to help spread the word about your gym or fitness service.
#13- Create Engaging Website Content Frequently
Try to make a list of helpful tutorials, videos, recipes, success stories, and fitness tips that you could post on your website. If you decide to use WordPress to build your website, then updating your site with frequent blog posts is easy to do. Blogging is a recommended gym marketing strategy. You can even give away free coupons and surprise gifts on your website to keep your customers and prospects engaged.
The best part about blogging is that all the content you create could also make excellent social media content. So, you can craft helpful content on your blog, and then share that content across all your social media channels. This way, you can provide value to your existing customers who follow you on social, and you can also aim to attract new clients.
You can invite your members to ask health questions that they have. You can post the answers directly on your blog or website afterward. Answering questions can be a neat benefit that only your gym members get so that you can add as much value to your membership as possible.
Here are some powerful blog topic ideas for your gym membership blog:
- Video Fitness Tutorials
- Written Fitness Guides
- Fitness FAQs
- User Testimonials/Reviews
- Surprise Coupons and Promotions
- Healthy Recipes
- Group Fitness Schedules
#14- Use Targeted Email Marketing to Its Fullest Potential
Email marketing allows you to promote your exclusive deals, and to also share compelling content with your prospects. Try your best to build a powerful brand by sharing excellent health-related content.
Once you begin to generate email marketing leads, think about different fitness marketing strategies to test. Develop promotions, gifts, and other deals to turn your hot leads into hopefully happy, long-term customers.
Never stop thinking about building your email list of targeted prospects. Your email marketing game plan won’t matter one iota if you don’t have email marketing leads.
Here are a few powerful email lead generation methods for gym owners:
- Advertise your lead capture page to local prospects using Facebook or Google Ads
- Launch a campaign where new leads get a free 30-day trial when they subscribe
- Collect email addresses from students who register for your free group classes
- Launch a social media contest and offer a 6-month complimentary membership prize
#15- Use Weekly Newsletters to Generate Leads and to Engage Clients
A weekly newsletter can be one of the best ways to provide real value to your existing members. One of the best ways to populate your newsletter content is by polling your customers to see what they want to learn.
Here’s a list of potential newsletter topics:
- Share fitness tips that your audience has requested
- Answer popularly asked questions in the fitness world
- Share upcoming schedules for your group classes or individual sessions
- Advertise your advanced coaching and consulting offers
- Consider cross-promoting supplements or other related products
Conclusion
Remember that fitness marketing is all about creating a fantastic experience for your existing customers, so they stay subscribed and even help spread the word. If your marketing budget isn’t the biggest in the world, then customer retention is even more critical.
The topics in this guide can help you to offer more value so you can provide a better gym membership experience for your amazing clients. Hopefully, your members will be so happy about your service that they can’t help but write stellar reviews and tell their friends.
To learn more about how your gym can feature the fantastic benefits of Reflexion, click here to contact our team.
