Creative Marketing

The key to successful promotions for your club is tapping into the fun factor. Human behavior is a strange thing. What on earth could cause throngs of allegedly sane people to line up outside of stores at 5 a.m. on Black Friday begging for the doors to open? Understanding and channeling this admittedly embarrassing aspect of our psychology can have enormous impact on the growth of your business.

It’s not just what you have that matters, It’s what you do with what you have. Here’s a simple and very clear illustration: I used to be the lead sales consultant for a large chain of clubs. We were able to create a great degree of success by looking at the resources that surrounded us and leveraging them to affect human behavior.

During the hype surrounding the release of one of the Star Wars films, we created a simple and effective promotion called the Darth Vader Special. Success is about using creative thinking-looking at the resources you have and finding ways to use them to motivate people to action.

First I created the promotion, a simple flyer that essentially said “Darth Vader Special: Bring This Ticket Stub Within 3 Days and Get Zero Initiation and Free Nutrition for the Lifetime of Your Membership.” I tied the promotion to the ticket stub and the time limit, creating urgency for the special. Next came the logistics of getting the approval of the owner of the theater. That was easy: We offered a free one-month membership at the club for the owner and each of his employees. Of course we ended up eventually converting some of those employees into paying members as well. It’s always about the close. Finally, I had our sales consultants dress up in Star Wars costumes. Some of them enjoyed it more than others. They stood by the theater entrance, smiling, chatting and handing flyers to the people as they entered the theater. Many thought it was part of the show.

It was really that simple; however, the response was unbelievable. We signed up a huge number of new members with minimal investment. And we ended up having a lot of fun in the process.

Many facility owners avoid creating these promotions, thinking that they’re useless and silly. However, learning the mechanics of creating effective specials and promotions is absolutely key to creating dynamic growth for your business. Remember, it’s not just what you have that matters. It’s what you do with what you have.

John Peters is the VP of Sales at Vitabot. He can be contacted at 301/864.3886 or by email at jpeters@vitabot.com , or visit vitabot.com.