I lived in a town of 15,000 people for five years. As far as I knew, there were only two gyms to choose from. Not long after moving out of that town, I discovered there was a gym just two miles away from where I used to live that I had never heard about. They had even been open for ten years. I would have been interested in checking them out… if I had ever known they existed! Their marketing, or lack thereof, had failed them.
Gym owners often think that if they provide an outstanding fitness facility, the customers will come. However, if nobody knows you exist, they will never step foot into those doors and realize what a perfect gym you have on your hands.
You may have the gym part down, but without the marketing behind it, it won’t do much good.
Difference Between Marketing and Advertising
Marketing and advertising are often thrown about as interchangeable terms. They aren’t. Marketing is the overall strategy of positioning your business to become profitable. Advertising is one specific tool within marketing, and it costs money. For instance, you may advertise online, in newspapers, or with a giant sign outside your business in an effort to drum up some interest.
As gym owners who are constantly watching the bottom line, advertising can quickly get expensive. Save your money. Here are five groundbreaking free marketing ideas that can bring more eyes to your business.
Use Your Own Data to Fill Classes
Fitness classes can produce good profit. And most of the time, you only have one fitness instructor leading the class for dozens of people. It is low-cost and possibly high-reward.
With the data you already have, go back and look at which members and non-members have been taking the various classes and create new ones that they might be interested in. Then send out a text or email promoting it to them, and before you know it, you have newfound money on your hands.
Boost Memberships Dramatically Through Referrals
If you do not currently have an incentivized referral program in place for your gym, then you are doing a disservice to your bank account. According to Nielsen’s Global Trust in Advertising report, 92 percent of consumers around the world trust word of mouth reviews more than any other type of marketing and advertising.
There are several sources stating that referred leads have a conversion rate of anywhere between 30 and 50 percent. Create a strong referral program for your gym by incentivizing your current members for help. The deals you put in place are up to you, but make certain your current members know about them. If I loved my gym and knew I could bring in a friend for a week to try it out for free, and in return I could receive ten percent off of my yearly membership fee if they signed up for a membership themselves, I would have a new friend with me every week!
TikTok Could Make Your Gym Famous and Yourself Wealthy
Short-form video content can be done completely free in your gym, and bring big money back in return. TikTok is the most popular short-form video content provider with over two billion users. And according to Statista’s research during 2023 and 2024, the most popular length for these videos with TikTok accounts that have more than 50,000 followers is about 55 seconds long.
This means you won’t have to spend an hour every day making a video and hoping it goes viral. You can do this in mere minutes. And while your own account may not have many followers, others may share your videos with millions of other people.
All you need to do is figure out how to make your little gym videos stand out from the rest. Perhaps ask a few of your members for their gym success stories about how fitness changed their lives. Or create something funny. Humor always sells! In any case, make sure your members know you have a gym TikTok account, and they just might lend a hand.
Host a Sidewalk Fitness Challenge to Market Your Gym
We have all seen those videos where normal people are participating in pull-up or push-up competitions at an outdoor challenge event. Some are rewarded with cash for reaching a certain goal. And it seems pretty effective. Everyday people just walking around, going shopping, or getting a bite to eat stop and try their hand at these fitness competitions.
You could do the same thing with permission from certain businesses. Set up camp, encourage people to compete, and perhaps the winners could get a free membership. In any case, the people competing or just walking by will remember you and your gym. They could all turn into future members down the road.
Partner Up with Others to Increase Membership
I was an educator who taught in three different school districts back in my teaching days. In one of the districts, the local gym offered special rates for teachers at about a 25 percent discount on yearly memberships. I would calculate that half of the staff took advantage of it. Even a few of the ones who had never stepped foot in a gym before.
Do a search online and document all the schools within ten miles of your gym. Create a flyer, newsletter, or email offering the discount and present it to the administrators of the schools. Administrators love to act like they are going above and beyond for their staff, and if you do all the work for them, there is a very good chance they will present it to all of their teachers.
But don’t stop there. Do the same with the hospitals, the police departments, the firefighters, and whoever else you deem worthy. And don’t worry about the 25 percent discount. These people are professionals, usually quality individuals, who you should want in your gym anyway. They will be the ones causing the least amount of trouble and offering the most assistance if something goes wrong.
About Gym Insight
We are a gym management software company that does it all. We write our own software and create what you need. Member management, digital keytags for 24/7 access, easy POS optimization, schedule fitness classes, and manage your books, all through the same Gym Insight software.
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