There is a lot of competition in the fitness industry, and if you are considering opening a gym or you’ve opened one already, making sure you find customers is a vital component of your success. Gym users may already have their own gym that they like to use, and those who are not yet gym users will need a lot of reasons to leave their homes and work out. You’ll have to work hard at convincing both sets of people to come to you.
This might seem impossible when there is so much competition and marketing costs a lot of money. However, the truth is that, with the right strategies and attitude, anyone can rise above their competitors. As for the cost, it’s true that trying to market your gym with no money won’t usually offer you the desired results. One thing you can do is use digital marketing, which is a lot more cost-effective than other methods. With that in mind, here are some of the ways you can use digital marketing to make your gym more popular.
Use Digital Signage
The days of a static billboard image are coming to an end. If you want to grab people’s attention in a big way, you’ll need to think about digital signage instead. This can be in the form of a billboard, as mentioned above, but it can also be in the form of bus stop advertising, in-store ads, or even on the front of your gym itself.
Because these ads will be moving, they will immediately catch the eye of anyone going by. Once you’ve done that, as long as the ad is entertaining, memorable, and informative, you’ll be doing a lot to ensure people know about your gym and, vitally, want to visit it.
The great thing about digital signage is that it can suit all budgets and you have complete control over it. That means you can change it at any time you want to, ensuring that the right message is given out at all times.
Partner With Local Fitness Influencers
There are many forms of digital marketing, and one is social media. This is actually a hugely important way to put your gym in front of the very people who are most likely to use it, but it can be hard to build an audience. Until that happens, you might find that only a handful of people are seeing what you have to say.
This is why it can be a great idea to partner with local fitness influencers. You’ll get a lot more for your marketing budget if you pay a social media influencer to come to your gym or talk about how much they like what you’re doing. Remember, these influencers want to make money – this is their job – so you’ll need to be prepared to pay. However, compared to standard social media advertising, having an influencer on board can give you massive returns, so it could be a wise investment.
Make Videos
Blogs are always going to be useful; they are what help with your SEO, to begin with, but they are also a great way for potential customers to find out more about you. However, something that can do all of that and be more easily seen and digested by your target market is a video. Or rather, a lot of videos.
If you can start a YouTube channel (as this is where most people will watch their videos, and it’s an ideal hosting platform) about your gym and about fitness in general, you’ll easily be able to advertise to thousands of people all at once. Plus, the content can easily be shared, but not directly copied. This means you can always be unique.
When making videos, you need to make sure that the information you’re offering your audience is valuable and entertaining, and the video itself should be a polished one. It might be wise to get some expert help to ensure this is the case, as you need to show that you are professional. Your first video can be a tour of your gym, so make sure you have all the right equipment and your background music for gyms in place so everything looks great.
Make It Easy For People To Connect With You
If you want your digital marketing efforts to be successful, you need to allow people to easily get in touch with you. There is no point in executing a fantastic campaign if the end result is a failure because you haven’t given people any contact details. This is a must, and you need to ensure you have a variety of different ways for people to get in touch because everyone has a preference as to how they communicate. You could include:
- Phone number
- Email address
- Social media (for direct messages)
- Chatbots
- WhatsApp number
The more options you can offer, the more chance there is that someone will contact you. Of course, you also then need to monitor all of these contact avenues, so don’t forget you have them, or potential customers will get tired of waiting and feeling ignored and go elsewhere instead.
Just as important as having the right contact details on your digital marketing is having a call to action. You might not think this is something you need to include because people will either contact you or not, depending on what it is you want, but the reality is that they often need a push. Having a call to action (CTA) is a simple way to give them that nudge and persuade them to contact you now rather than in the future, which, of course, they might forget to do.
The CTA does not have to be long-winded or complicated, and it’s actually better if it’s not. Something simple that encourages people to contact you will work fine.
Offer Incentives For Reviews
Having social proof on your website, social media, videos, newsletters, and so on is a great way to make your digital marketing work harder. Social proof will be in the form of positive reviews and testimonials from your customers. The more reviews you can showcase, the better an opinion of you new customers will form.
Some people are happy to leave reviews as a matter of course, but others forget or don’t realize they can. This is why offering incentives can work wonders, and you’ll get a lot more reviews. A review could result in discounted membership for a month, for example, or free healthy snacks they would otherwise have to pay for.
Determine what it is that your customers would want and use it to encourage reviews. Then use those reviews in your digital marketing to prove you’re as good as you say you are.
