10 Effective Marketing Strategies To Grow Your Fitness Brand

Last updated on January 30th, 2023

Today, with most people being health conscious, fitness training has turned into a booming business for those who know how to market it well. But, like all enterprises, your fitness business also has to deal with stiff competition in the market. Consequently, marketing strategies have become crucial for even fitness merch sellers, gyms and trainers to take their services to the target audience. In this fitness marketing guide, we’ll be sharing effective ways to promote your fitness brand. Have a look.

Are you a fitness freak? Or, are you in the business of selling fitness branded merchandise from an online store? In that case, you need to market your business amid target customers aggressively.

There are many online platforms that businesses explore to generate awareness about your business to drive customers.

Like other businesses, you must implement a marketing plan to reach out to your target customers. It would help if you enticed them with your unique marketing strategies to visit your online fitness merchandise store or club where you can convert your potential clients into loyal customers.

Your new online store to sell branded merchandise ideas to fitness enthusiasts may not be getting customers in great numbers. But, that does not mean you should stop making renewed efforts.

There is always a scope for driving more customers to your online store or a club. But before that, know more about various aspects of fitness merchandise.

What is Fitness Merchandise?

Fitness merchandise (fitness merch) includes all the clothing and accessories that people wear and use while exercising in a gym or outside. So, T-shirts, sweatshirts, sweatpants, hoodies, etc. and accessories such as custom hat are examples of fitness merchandise.

When you put a fitness company’s logo or its visuals on the clothing, it becomes a branded merchandise.

If you print some artwork, slogans, or motivating messages on branded T-shirts, etc. clothing, then also it will be known as branded merchandise. People want to wear clothes from branded companies.

Types Of Fitness Merch

If you wish to run a fitness merch online store successful, then sell all types of such merchandise to earn more. Variety is necessary.

There is plenty of clothing available for people to wear when they go to the gym for training or do exercise privately. These clothing include custom sweatshirts, sweatpants, racerbacks, sleeveless T-shirts, T-shirts, Long sleeve shirts, a sports bra, etc.

Such merchandise is available for both men and women in trendy and fashionable style. Make sure that your online store sells most of these clothes.

The demand for all types of fitness merchandise is fast increasing. According to a survey, the global fitness and health club industry generates above 80 billion U.S. dollars in revenue each year.

Any fitness business including your online store to sell fitness branded merchandise is bound to do well. But you must take steps to aggressively promote the brand.

Why is promoting your fitness brand important?

You may be running an online store to sell custom branded merchandise such as custom tank tops, fitness tshirt and jerseys to fitness trainees. Or, you have started a fitness training center, gym or club recently. Whichever may be your fitness business, you must promote it regularly to make it a success.

Here Are Some Key Benefits You Enjoy By Promoting Your Fitness Brand

01. Make A Decent Earning

It is when you take your fitness business to more people that they become aware of what you do. For instance, your online store for fitness merchandise reaches more potential customers on social media and drives them to your site. They become loyal customers of your impressive merch designs.

02. Generate Brand Awareness

You must promote your online store or a physical training facility on different online and offline platforms to create more awareness for your business.

03. Win Customer Loyalty

To earn more and run your fitness brand successfully, make sure that your customer makes repeat purchasing from your online store or club. Brand promotion helps in building a solid base of customers who always buy from your store

Now that you know what fitness merch is and why promoting it is important to find out the effective ways to reach out to the target audience.

Here Are The Major Marketing Tactics You Can Follow To Promote Your Fitness Brand

01. Use Conventional Advertising

In this digital age, you may ignore the conventional means of marketing. But, that is not a wise decision. Know that traditional advertising means such as print, television, and radio are still relevant and carry enough power to help your fitness training club, target customers.

These may not be the most powerful marketing platforms anymore. Still, they have their place in the marketing world.

Such traditional marketing platforms are particularly useful to promote your fitness brand at a local level. You can project yourself as the go-to expert in your field for local people as you advertise your club in local newspapers, radio, and television channels.

Remember that advertising your club in local newspapers also is less costly as compared to many other means. Putting your ads in magazines is expensive, but the results are long-lasting.

Television, of course, is the most expensive medium. Still, you will reap the benefits due to its maximum reach amongst your audience.

02. Explore Social Media

Social media is undoubtedly the most effective marketing means for all businesses. Most of the small to big enterprises have faith in different social channels to promote their brands effectively. They can quickly reach out to the massive audience of social media.

For instance, Instagram has over 180 million users who use the #fitness hashtag daily. Where do you get such a staggering number of potential customers in one place?

Then, there are many other equally huge social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, with millions of users visiting them every day.

Just start a social media campaign for your fitness brand, and you will soon get the desired results. If you have planned the campaign judiciously, the number of visitors to your gym or your fitness merchandise selling online will go on increasing.

But spend your money, time, and energy to market your business on those social channels in which fitness enthusiasts visit more often.

Then, create useful blogs and other text and visual content for them on those channels. With high-value content such as a fitness blog, you can hope to drive customers to your gym in a big way.

03. Do A Lot Of Outdoor Marketing

There are wide varieties of small to big mediums available outside of the conventional and digital platforms.

So, how about taking advantage of the massive reach of various outdoor marketing means? Your newly established fitness brand can benefit from so many outdoor advertising activities.

For instance, distribute promotional products to people on the sideline of a fitness event. You can distribute fitness merchandise such as custom T-shirts, sweatshirts, sweatpants, and other men’s and women’s clothing that has your fitness brand logo.

Amongst other outdoor activities, you should put your fitness club on those larger hoardings that you see by the side of roads and in markets. Many thousands of people glance at those hoardings daily and notice your business.

Even if the friction of them remembers your brand, it translates to a great number of visitors coming to your club. You can even stick a banner on your vehicle, making it the most cost-effective advertisement of what you do as a business owner.

Even if the vehicle stands still at a place, it is advertising your brand.

Similarly, flyers are amongst the most popular outdoor marketing options that small companies so often explore. The printing cost of these thin leaflets is always within reach of small businesses like yours.

Then, all you are supposed to do is to distribute your flyers in a crowded place to the people. You can hire a mascot to distribute the flyers and coupons outside of some happening places such as shopping malls.

But, do not worry about ROI while using this medium. Since the cost of advertising is very low, you will be much pleased with the number of customers you can drive.

04. Leverage Your Professional Network

Are you a personal trainer who works on a freelance basis, or do you work as a fitness coach with an organization? If so, then you probably already have a lot of connections with the professionals in the same field.

Think of taking advantage of your connections with those people. You can turn them into your potential clients. Just meet them very often and talk to them to spread the word about your gym or club.

In this way, you generate some curiosity about your new business amongst your peers. Many of them will refer your brand to others who need your services. You need to create mutually beneficial bonds with fitness professionals.

Besides, find out the fitness influencers in your niche. They can help you spread awareness about your brand amongst their massive number of followers.

05. Adopt Guerilla Marketing Tactics

Guerilla marketing is about surprising people with something unique and unexpected. It is unconventional advertising that we are witness to in daily life. Sometimes you do not realize that you are being subjected to guerilla marketing tactics, and yet you are experiencing it.

The examples of this smart and attention-grabbing tactic include all publicity stunts, stencil graffiti, and viral videos. You get people’s attention based on creativity instead of a big marketing budget to get your message across.

For this type of marketing, you need to team up with street artists. They will create nice art pieces for your fitness brand. Then, display those exciting, and even strange looking art everywhere in markets. For instance, can you organize a flash mob in a shopping mall to surprise and entertain the public?

You should also try online guerrilla marketing, for instance, on your Facebook page by displaying something unusual to attract visitors’ attention. The intention here could be to have your visitors register at your fitness website.

06. Create Blog Posts And Videos

Blogs and videos are two of the most effective marketing ways to promote your fitness brand. Write blogs that provide help to the people who face issues in keeping their bodies fit. Make your blogs useful to the readers.

This will help you project as a fitness expert, which is crucial to win the trust of your audience. Blogs are thus a great means of turning your business into a trustworthy brand. But make sure that you post blogs regularly so that loads of targeted traffic comes your way.

Before you set out to write blogs, research your niche fitness market to know which are the customers you need to target. For instance, you may be writing about females who are in their 30s and looking for ways to reduce body fat.

Then, write blogs to address and solve their issues. Talk about their struggles and challenges in your blogs so that they relate to what you are discussing. This is the way to create high-value content for them.

Make sure that you deliver your expert advice consistently to engage the readers. Do not forget to ask for their feedback.

Explore video marketing, as well. It is not an expensive tool to get customers’ attention. Start your video channel and post fitness related useful videos regularly.

Make videos that resolve people’s issues such as the ways to reduce body fat and how to get a trim and slim body with an exercise routine.

If you can make some of your videos go viral, nothing is better than that to drive the attention of people in massive numbers.

07. Launch Fitness Contests

People love contests. They either want to actively participate in a contest or be a witness to such an event. Contests are all about challenging people with their skills, which generates interest.

You can set the contest or challenge either at a place or online. Those who wish to join the online contest, ask them to register their name along with an email address with your website of the fitness brand. But, announce enticing prize money.

That is the way to grow your email list. You can then use these email addresses to mail them your brand message regularly. Even a better approach to launch the contest or challenge is to do it offline at your fitness facility. You can easily check and control the activity there.

08. Use Other Brand’s Popularity

Another effective marketing tactic to promote your fitness brand is to piggyback on the immense popularity of other brands.

You take advantage of the massive traffic and followers they already enjoy. When you use piggyback marketing, your brand also reaches to their huge audience, resulting in visitors flooding your fitness website.

A way to explore this marketing type is to use trending fitness hashtags. Find out those hashtags on Twitter and Instagram. You can also make good use of popular memes to advertise your brand, which ensures better engagement with your brand.

09. Create A Referral System

Referrals are surely amongst the effective marketing tactics that many brands now frequently use to drive traffic.

These are realistic promotional methods that businesses use to engage their target customers. Under this tactic, you showcase client recommendations and get customer referrals.

But, first put in place a referral system that is integrated well with your website of a fitness brand. In this way, you can track the activities of the people whom your clients referred to. When you locate them, you should then reward them as an encouragement to visit your fitness club.

10. Get Involved In Community Activities

Sometimes we all should be thinking outside of marketing and business by giving the community back what we take from people. Indirectly, in this way, you can win the hearts of the community people.

They appreciate your selfless contribution to the development of a certain section of the population. Although there may not be an intention to market your fitness brand here, the kind gesture also results in winning them in so many ways.

For instance, you can hold seminars and workshops on the issues that interest your clients. This helps in building a community feeling and engages them with your fitness brand even more.

You should organize the seminars online via Facebook live videos, webinars, podcasts, or locally at your gym.

When those joining your seminars at your gym, invite other friends, you should engage them with some discussion over a fitness issue. Provide your valuable tips to them at that time to make an impression.

Give them your website address for more information. After they have left, do not forget to send them personal emails reminding them of the hearty discussion you had and invite them to be your club members.

These are the major steps you should take to promote your fitness brand. But have patience as your marketing strategies will take time to result in more people visiting your website or fitness brand or your gym.

You should invest money, time, and other limited resources wisely to get the maximum out of them.

Bonus Tip: PrintShop

Promoting a fitness clothing brand becomes much easier when you start your online store with PrintShop, which is run and operated by Designhill, the leading creative marketplace.

This print-on-demand platform lets you create your T-shirts etc. merchandise. Then, you can ask the site to print it on a T-shirt or other fitness clothing of your choice. The site will also deliver the merchandise to customers on your behalf.

Wrapping Up

Your new fitness brand needs effective marketing plans to make it visible to more people so that they visit your website and club. But, you should explore all conventional and modern marketing tactics. Take advantage of traditional TV and newspaper advertising plus the modern social media, blogs, promotional product distribution, etc. strategies. Explore your professional network and piggyback on other brands’ popularity.

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