There are really only two sides to your business: the inside reality and the outside perception. The biggest problem with health clubs today is that these two entities don’t match.
Your inside reality is the value that your club brings to the marketplace. It’s based on your facilities, your equipment, programs, staff, operations, etc. It is about improving and innovating your business from an operations and management standpoint. If you have created an outstanding inside reality, it is inevitably because you have built your club on the needs and wants of your members and prospects. You have listened, and you have innovated. You are good at this.
The other side of your business, the outside perception, has to do with the way your club is viewed by your prospects. And this is based on your communication to them. Advertising, marketing, sales and public relations all form the outside perception.
This is the difficult part for health clubs. You have built the better “mousetrap.” Now, how do you let your prospects know?
Marketing should do the following:
1. Capture the attention of your target market.
2. Facilitate the prospects information gathering and decision making process.
3. Lower the risk of taking the next step in the sales cycle.
Because human nature demands that we always want to make the best decision possible, buyers want to have total confidence and trust that they are making the right choice. Your job is to help/ facilitate them in doing that.
Solution: The marketing equation.
The process for accomplishing what marketing is “supposed” to do is exactly the same, every single time, for every single club. Just like 2 + 2 always equals 4, the marketing equation always produces the right answer.
Interrupt + Engage + Educate + Offer = Results (the right answer every time)
Interrupt.
Almost everyone is familiar with the interrupt component of marketing. This is where you get qualified prospects to pay attention to your marketing usually through headlines. Powerful headlines identify and hit your prospects hot buttons and use hot buttons based on your prospects problems, annoyances or fears. This will trigger an emotional response that prepares them to be engaged. Hint: your club name is not a hot button.
Engage.
The second component of the equation should give the prospect the promise that if they keep reading or listening to your ad they will get information that will facilitate their decision making process. This is done through the use of sub-lines.
Educate.
The third step is to give your prospects the information that you promised. You need to identify the important and relevant issues that prospects need to be aware of when considering buying a membership from your club. You need to become the facilitator of information, the expert. The information needs to be quantified and specific. You need to build a case for your club much like an attorney would do for their client that would lead your prospects to the conclusion, “I would be an absolute fool to join any other health club but yours, regardless of price.”
Offer.
The fourth component, you need to give the prospect a low-risk way to take the next step in the buying process. Not a free guest pass, not calling for more information. something totally riskfree, where they do not have to talk to a salesperson or come into the club. Instead, put more information into their hands and allow them to feel in total control of their decision. Example: The “Exercise, Health Clubs and You” brochure from IHRSA or a report you have done about surrounding clubs or personal training etc.
It doesn’t matter how good your club is if you can’t communicate it to your prospects. And, it doesn’t matter how brilliant you are at communicating and advertising if your club is not worth talking about. So, innovate and use the marketing equation for all of your marketing and match your inside reality with the outside perception.
In the next few issues, we will discuss how you can use each component of the marketing equation to produce powerful results in your marketing.
Gail Connaughton is the President of Powerhouse Marketing. She can be contacted at 410.562.8769, or by email atgcc43@aol.com
