Every fitness entrepreneur needs marketing to establish and maintain a successful business. Because if you can’t attract AND retain customers, you won’t make anyone any fitter, healthier or happier.
To help you optimize your marketing strategy, so you can grow your business even in uncertain times, here are three tips to keep the right priorities in sight.
1.Chances Don’t Approach You, It’s You Who Approaches Chances.
The beautiful (and challenging) thing about marketing is that it is ever-changing. Channels come and go. Twenty years ago, flyers were still the standard. Now everyone focuses on the digital mailbox, which is overflowing every day as a result.
Whereas in the early days of e-mail marketing you could easily achieve opening rates of 70 percent (!), now you have to be happy when you even hit the 30 percent. But instead of thinking about how you can increase that open rate, you can also focus on less saturated channels.
Because everyone has dived into e-mail marketing, there are much more opportunities in the analogue channels. That doesn’t mean that you have to go door-to-door with physical flyers - the fight against unaddressed mail is still going on - but it does mean that you shouldn’t turn a blind eye to what the competition is doing.
While they’re focusing on their e-mail campaigns, you might be able to achieve a lot more success with print ads or a fun stunt. For example, Dutch gym chain Saints & Stars achieved success by picking people up with a Hummer limousine for a sports session at their gym **t****o create buzz and organic traffic because people went to their social media channels to share this unique fitness experience.**
The ups and downs of marketing was also evident during the first months of corona. Many companies lowered or completely cut their marketing budgets. As a result, there was much less bidding on advertising spots on Facebook and Google. Whereas before the crisis you still had to offer big bucks to get the most visible spot, during the crisis months you could stretch that dollar a lot further.
This is an important marketing skill that comes directly from entrepreneurship: “The Entrepreneur Always Searches For Change, Responds To It, And Exploits It As An Opportunity.” – Peter Drucker
2.A Bird In The Hand Is Worth Two In The Bush
Many professionals still focus their marketing too much on attracting new customers, forgetting an essential lesson for entrepreneurs: existing customers always come first. Customer marketing ensures higher retention at worst, and excellent word-of-mouth advertising and referrals at best.
The corona crisis has once again underlined the importance of customer marketing. There was no way around it. Recruiting new customers was not an option, and you needed to do everything in your power to maintain the relationship with your existing customers as much as possible.
Maintaining your customer relationship can be done using traditional marketing methods such as newsletters, but especially during times of crisis it pays to think outside the box. A Friday afternoon drink after work, but with sports instead of alcohol. Or fitness monopoly - pay with (a lot of) push-ups instead of cash, especially when you land on Mayfair or Boardwalk.
This takes time, but is greatly appreciated by your customers. You can see that the gyms and trainers who invested their time in customer marketing during the lockdown are now much better off.
Do you have customers who have continued to support you during this difficult period? If so, set up a thank-you campaign to offer those members some extras or give them a rock-solid discount. That too is customer marketing at its best.
3.The Most Important P in Your Marketing Mix
Marketers know very well that they have to send their message through the channels where their audience is located. They know perfectly where and when to offer discounts for maximum effect. But the most important P in your mix really remains your product: your service. Price, place, and promotion always follow the lead of your product.
Over the past few months, we’ve seen that the stability of your service can change overnight like your marketing channels. If your entire audience moves from Facebook to Instagram, you move with them. If there’s a second lockdown (we of course hope there won’t be one), your services should be as flexible as the rest of your marketing strategy.
Fortunately, we live in a time where we can do everything remotely or - even better - in hybrid form. Just like Zoom became a big winner thanks to COVID-19, the corona-proof Peloton also saw their turnover increase. Now you don’t need to develop high-tech systems to set up a digital business model. Make use of the systems currently available on the market!
For example, Zoom is not only used to facilitate meetings, but also to teach yoga. In addition, there is plenty of fitness coaching software and software for gyms on the market that makes it easy to set up digital services.
Because while it is still uncertain how long we will have to deal with social distancing measures, and existing members are still reluctant to return, a solution for online coaching and retention is very much needed . Not only to guide more customers than are allowed to be present at your physical location, but also to have a backup when everything has to be temporarily locked again.
Again, think in opportunities and think outside the box. Are your customers not coming to you, for example? Then you just go to them! How about a boot camp in the backyard? With the right tools a lockdown also offers new possibilities to make your business stronger.
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The tips in this article are straight from the very first FitNation Lunch & Learn webinar - a new series of free knowledge sessions in which Virtuagym will discuss a hot topic with industry veterans, which takes place every other week to help fitness professionals with their entrepreneurship.
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