Last updated on April 17th, 2024
Fitness and gym centers have experienced a surge in popularity over the past year. A fitness industry analysis report for 2017 indicates that one out of every five Americans attends a gym or has signed up for fitness memberships.
Another major development for the industry has been the large increase in fitness choices that consumers now have: Yoga, Karate, Kickboxing, Martial Arts, Pilates, Spinning, Interval Training are some of the fitness niches that have established markets for themselves.
This growth in the industry has made marketing and promotion activities critical for fitness centers to succeed and expand their consumer base.
Here Are 12 Promotion and Marketing Idea to Sell More Fitness Memberships
1. Offer Free Gym Facilities:
People love trying things out without having to pay for them. An opportunity to visit the gym, experience the facilities and not having to worry about money will definitely get people to come to the fitness center.
This is also a chance for the center to show their sincerity and the quality environment. Once customers have sampled the facilities for free for a certain period and experienced the benefits, many will surely sign up for membership.
2. Leverage Your Customer’s Network:
Customers who have been visiting the gym regularly can be the best salespeople. A ‘Refer-A-Friend’ program can prove to be very effective. All that the center needs to do is ask a regular customer to request his friend to sign up for the gym.
In return, the regular will get a free membership for a month. This also has the advantage of not costing anything for the gym. The new member will pay for the month where the regular gets a free membership.
Once the free month ends, both pay the membership fee leading to added revenue for the center.
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3. Provide Quality Online Content:
In the digital age, it is important for fitness centers to work on their online presence to support existing members as well as attract new customers. One way of doing this is to provide videos of answers to questions posed by members.
This will serve to be a good resource for people to refer to and have their doubts cleared. Fitness centers can request e-mail ids from non-members who access this content and then send them information on offers and promotions.
Fitness centers can also host meal plans on their websites. For this it’s very important that your website design is user friendly and has relevant content. It is often difficult for people to gain access to quality meal plans.
A good selection of nutritional information that helps people in preparing tasty food and staying healthy will be a top attraction.
Non-members who access this information can be asked to provide their contact information and this would add them to the marketing database which would yield new members over time.
4. Use Flyers To Spread The Word:
Flyers can be a powerful and cost-effective means of drawing interest from non-members located in the neighborhood of the gym.
The flyer design should be well designed as done by Designhill and carry information that intrigues people who have not yet signed up for the gym. This information could pertain to free membership schemes, offers or partnerships with other fitness centers.
Fliers are a simple yet powerful gym marketing strategy. Businesses distribute thoughtfully designed fliers to spread awareness among the local community about a gym and attract new people to experience the benefits of fitness, potentially leading to new memberships.
5. Use A Fitness Ambassador To Create Buzz:
A great way for a fitness center to gain interest among people is through sponsorship of athletes and bodybuilders who work out at the fitness center.
They can be provided with free gym merchandise like t-shirts, tank tops, custom mugs and free food supplements which they would use. In case they ask for more incentive, they can be offered free classes or a free month of membership.
It is not critical for these fitness ambassadors to win the events that they take part in. Their use of fitness center merchandise will spread the word among the audience at the event and encourage people to visit the fitness center and gift them free logo print t-shirt.
6. Use Specialized Business Cards:
A well-designed business card goes a long way towards communicating a gym’s values as well as encouraging holders to stay active. The business card’s design, its shape, the colors used or the images chosen should communicate the kind of fitness-focused on at the center.
For example, soft colors and flowing fonts reflect a Yoga center while an equipment based gym would feature more rugged images and sharply defined fonts on its card.
7. Build Style Into The Fitness Logo:
An intelligently designed fitness logo will be at the heart of marketing activities. The variety of fitness options available today means that fitness logos need to accurately represent activities and also attract people to the fitness center.
Some examples of these can be seen in the work done by Designhill. Text-based logos work well for premium fitness services, and use of serif fonts adds an element of luxury.
A minimalistic approach to fitness logo design is aesthetic and also clearly communicates the idea of fitness to move customers. Companies like Adrenaline DNA also include shapes to give a sense of bodies in motion.
Others like Fitbit create a sense of movement by using shapes to show a heartbeat.
8. Make A Dent Through Social Media:
Social media has become one of the most prominent medium of marketing for a business. There are high chances that your potential customer may find you through social media and as such you need to maintain an active social media presence.
Therefore it is very important that you choose social media channels wisely, have attractive social media cover photo for your fitness center and post engaging content regularly.
9. Branded Merchandise:
People get fascinated on seeing a person with good physique and now if that person is wearing your fitness center t-shirt, your aim of marketing your center is successful.
You can always take help of crowdsourcing site like Designhill to get a professional t-shirt design, mug design, hat design, etc. for your business.
10. Business Partnerships With Other Fitness Centers:
Partnering with another fitness center can be a great way of providing variety to members and gaining new members. For instance, a partnership between a Yoga center and a Mixed Martial Arts center could mean that members of each center can access four free classes at the other center.
This would allow yoga center members to enjoy the benefits of intensive, muscle building exercise and MMA center members to learn yoga techniques for body flexibility and mind focus.
Eventually, the free classes would lead to more memberships at both centers as members would want to sustain this variety in workout routines.
11. Gain Members Through Corporate Partnerships:
Fitness has gained prominence in the corporate world too, and many companies actively make efforts to help employees stay fit. Fitness centers can enter into agreements with firms and provide memberships at discounted rates to employees.
If a 50% discount is provided to individual employees, then firms often agree to cover up the remaining 50%. This kind of partnership will certainly boost memberships and revenue for fitness centers.
12. Get Positive Review:
One of the first things that people do when looking for a fitness center in their city is search on Google. The center’s location is important as people usually prefer working out close to home or their workplace.
A powerful marketing strategy would be to give incentives to members to write positive reviews. A higher average rating and more reviewers correspond to showing up on the map.
The incentive could be a free class or a free month of membership at the center. Members could also be encouraged in a similar manner to review the fitness center on twitter, online communities, and blogs.
A successful marketing campaign for a fitness center needs to ensure that the promotional activities serve to attract people to the fitness center to experience its facilities.
It is important that the interest cultivated through marketing is backed up by the experience at the fitness center. If the marketing campaign is not in sync with the actual experience, then people will not sign up to be members and will go back home disappointed.