With the growing popularity of fitness, your business needs to be able to offer more than just a standard workout regimen. The best way to increase client engagement is by offering an experience that they can't get anywhere else. One of the most popular ways is through personal training sessions. While this may seem like a daunting task at first, there are plenty of benefits associated with adding this service.
This blog post will give you some tips on how you can make sure that your clients stay engaged and keep coming back for more.
How Do You Attract And Keep Your Fitness Clients Engaged?
Congratulations. So, you've just started a fitness studio. You've hired the best fitness professionals in your circle. You have a gym equipped with all the latest machines, but now you need clients. How do you attract them?
It's a tough question to answer for most new gym owners but here are some marketing strategies to follow.
Step 1: Address your customers' needs
Every gym owner knows that the first rule of running a successful fitness business is to figure out who your target audience is and then provide them with services that they need.
For example, suppose it's an older demographic with chronic health conditions like arthritis and osteoporosis. In that case, the best way you can come in handy is by providing them with appropriate equipment and exercises that will help improve their quality of life. Conversely, prospective clients in the younger age group will want a gym that's more fun and exciting with a lot of equipment to choose from.
Once you've figured out the demographic, it becomes much easier for you to develop marketing strategies to target them better. For example, suppose your customers are primarily active women in their mid-20s to 30s. In that case, you can offer personal trainers or class offerings on yoga, spin, pilates, boxing, and other trendy fitness services in the market today.
Step 2: Put your business online
While marketing through traditional means such as placing ads in newspapers and magazines can still work to a certain extent, the most effective way is by getting your business online. This means that you need a mobile responsive website, social media accounts, and a landing page for promotions and other online marketing strategies that you'll need to market your business through.
Step 3: Establish a strong social media presence
The best way to attract new clients is by ensuring that your studio is the best place to train. If you are able, hire a professional photographer who specializes in fitness shoots so that you can have some great images on your social media accounts. Then without hesitation, do so. This way, you can immediately stand out among your competitors because most of them don't even bother to invest in images.
Once the pictures are done, start scheduling some posts, encouraging existing clients to engage, and share their success stories. User-generated content is one of the best ways to attract clients because they trust word-of-mouth more than anything else. Ask them to share their fitness goals on their social media channels, tag you, and use your hashtags to create brand awareness.
You can also run a social media contest or giveaway to attract new prospects, increase engagement, and generate leads.
Step 4: Offer free introductory classes
What's the best way you can entice potential clients? Offer free introductory classes.
This is a great way to get people in the door and give them an idea of your studio's atmosphere. You can also use this marketing strategy if you're just about to launch or update your website since it will help build buzz among new and existing clients.
For example, offer one-on-one consultations with free fitness sessions for the first three people who sign up. This way, you'll get to meet them and see what kind of fitness services they need, which can help you expand in the future.
Step 5: Use loyalty programs and implement a referral program
Another great way to attract ideal clients is by using loyalty programs or rewards systems that can be integrated with your membership.
For example, your fitness business can run a "Referral Rewards" program where existing members can earn credits for referring friends and family to join your gym or take up any of your fitness classes.
On top of this, you can also offer first-time clients free classes as an incentive if they refer a friend or family member who ends up joining your gym. This is another excellent way for you to increase brand awareness and strengthen relations with existing gym members.
Step 6: Utilize digital marketing strategies
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing strategies. In fact, more than half of all adults in North America get their daily dose from emails, according to a report by Marketing Charts.
In short, email marketing works because people check their inboxes regularly, and marketers can use this as an advantage when it comes to attracting and engaging potential clients.
For example, you can start by creating a newsletter that contains health-related tips and tricks from your personal trainers to keep fitness enthusiasts informed about the latest developments in the fitness industry.
You can send out emails of birthday greetings to your clients and offer them a special discount or incentive that they can only available during their birth month.
Either way, you can use this as an opportunity to promote new services or special deals, which is great for growing your customer base.
Push Notifications
Another great digital marketing strategy is through push notifications.
Push notifications are messages that pop up on your phone's screen whether you're using a mobile app or a website. The best thing about push notifications is that they can be used to send personalized offers and deals, which can be more effective than email marketing in attracting new clients, according to research from MediaBrix.
How Can You Grow Your Fitness Studio?
Once you've got a stream of new clients coming in, high customer retention rates, and enough capital to grow your business, it's time for an expansion. But first, how can you grow your fitness studio?
Well, there are several ways you can make the big leap.
Develop a marketing plan with goals in place so you can measure success and failure rates
Once you have figured out the logistics, such as your new fitness business's location, the equipment you will need, and the staff you need to hire, it's time to develop a sound fitness marketing strategy.
Identify your sales and marketing goals, such as how much foot traffic you aim to achieve, how many new members per week you want to reach, and how much revenue per month you want to generate.
Your marketing plan should have a set of goals to enable you to understand the profitability of your fitness business, how best to reach out to more leads, and which social channels to utilize for fitness marketing strategies.
Double down on your marketing strategies
Once you have your goals in place, it's time to double down on your marketing strategies to align with your business goals.
For example, if you're expanding into a new location, this means you will be competing with other fitness businesses in the area. However, you can use your existing client base as a tool to help generate interest and buzz. Ask your existing customers for referrals in your new location. For instance, offer special discounts and incentives such as a free class for anyone who refers three new members.
On the other hand, you can also revisit your referral program and offer an additional incentive such as a discount for group sign-ups at your new location.
Do cross-promotion with local businesses
Cross promotions is a marketing strategy where you partner with other fitness studios or clients in your area and offer a special promotion for both of your services.
For example, if you're running a new class on boxing or taekwondo, then ask the local sports shop to promote it on their social media accounts too while offering discounts at each other's businesses. This way, you'll not only attract leads who are already active in the community but also convert prospects who are looking for new activities to try out.
Upsell other fitness services to increase your customer's average order value
Another key point to keep in mind is that fitness businesses should upsell other fitness services. For example, you can offer complimentary personal training or boot camp sessions to your current members. This will increase the average order value of each client and allow you to build long-term relationships with your fitness clients.
Rethink How You Want to Grow Your Business
Building a thriving fitness service requires different marketing strategies to engage clients and grow your business. Nonetheless, through the developments in technology and the various marketing channels available today, it's been more accessible than ever before to find success in the industry.
If you're looking for ways to grow your fitness studio, we recommend rethinking how and where you market your business. Strategies such as asking existing customers for referrals, upselling services, leveraging social media are just some of the effective ways you can grow your fitness business.
By implementing these principles into your own strategy, you too can have an engaging and profitable business that will stand out from competitors.
Now, the next step is up to you. Which of these techniques has worked well for growing your fitness studio? Let us know in the comments.
