Increase Your Profits Without Spending Extra in Advertising

Differentiation, niche marketing and positioning, these and other related business buzzwords have no doubt crossed every health club owner’s ears in recent years.

But what do these words really mean to the average owner or manager? Usually, they mean that a club will attempt to sell memberships, services or programs that are somehow different than the competitions’ to a certain, specific kind of customer. In theory, this is a great idea. If you could just reach that one segment of the market with your great, new, innovative club, service or program.

Welcome to reality. If your club is innovative enough to develop or offer a truly unique service or program that is earning you a profit, the following inevitably happens: competition springs up from nowhere to imitate you, undersell your price and steal your market share. It’s immutable.

So, as your next line of defense, you choose to position yourself as the quality club, the low price leader or the service king. You soon find yourself in a battle with four other clubs all claiming to have the largest selection of equipment, lowest price and highest quality service.

A marketing free-for-all usually ensues. Each club tries in vain to shout with the loudest voice that their club is superior. Headlines get bigger, radio ads get louder and advertisers get richer. More importantly, customers begin to totally discount any claim made by any of the health clubs.

Is niche-marketing the way to go then? Obviously, different is better. Target marketing is more profitable than selling to the masses. The question isn’t whether or not to be different, but rather how to communicate those differences in a way that your customers will believe and embrace them.

Build your case.
Surprisingly, very few clubs really make more than a token attempt to distinguish themselves from their competitors. Consider an example; check out your local yellow pages directory, mine lists a whole 27 companies that are in the fitness business. Of those, 14 spend from $300 to $3000 a month for space ads in addition to the regular category listing.

Some advertisers claim to be the “best.” Most tell me in bullet points (menu board, like a restaurant) that they have various types of equipment, services, classes, and are open certain hours. None of them, however, give me a compelling reason why I should call them instead of their competitors. The unique claims of each club have become generic, non-appealing and meaningless to the prospect who is just waiting to be sold. Fortunately you can cash in on what your competitors are doing wrong. The most powerful tool you can use to stand head and shoulders above your competition is the articulated sales argument (ASA). Your ASA is the singular, unique benefit stated in specific, quantifiable and graphically illustrated terms that your customers can expect to receive when they favor your club instead of your competitor’s

Think of your ASA like an attorney’s case:

• Your prospects are the jury

• Your club is the defendant

• Your competition is the prosecution

• You are the attorney in charge….

• It’s a life or death sentence.

The purpose and strategy of the ASA (your CASE), as with any real legal case, is to develop all of the complex points upon which the decision to join is based, both large and small, in a logical progression. So in the end the jurors do not get confused by the overwhelming amount of information, they can finally see how everything ties together into one big picture, and they can say to themselves…I get it, I can see it.

Articulate your club’s cases.
The first step in building your ASA case is discovery. “If you want to know why John Smith buys, you’ve got to see the world through John Smiths’ eyes.” You need to ask questions that will help you survey the landscape from every angle before you try to draw conclusions about what your marketing should say. Try this list of discovery questions:

1. What things are important to your typical prospect when buying a health club membership? Survey past members, present members, happy members, unhappy members, future prospects.

2. What emotions or feelings might the typical prospects be having when considering buying a membership (fear, confusion, skepticism)?

3. What are the biggest frustrations and/or problems typical prospects have when doing business with health clubs?

4. Under what circumstances does a typical prospect start to think about buying a health club membership?

5. What would a typical prospect need to see/ hear in order to feel like they had enough information to make the best decision about joining a health club?

Using the information from these discovery questions will help you identify “why John Smith buys.” Then you need to make sure your marketing is saying what your prospect needs and wants to hear in order for them to make a decision about buying a membership. Identify the problem, hit the prospects hot buttons and then quantifiably articulate and educate, using the marketing equation (see July issue) and your ASA case.

Implement your ASA throughout:

• All advertising

•All marketing efforts

•All Internet media

•All sales efforts

•All business communications

The result of building your ASA case for your club is that you distinguish your club from the competition, you eliminate price competition, you make the prospects feel they are in control and are the experts, you become the obvious choice and your sales increase dramatically.

Gail Connaughton is the President of Powerhouse Marketing. She can be contacted at 410.562.8769, or by email atgcc43@aol.com.