Honestly, I despise doing series articles. If you can’t get all your points across in one article, you probably shouldn’t write the article to begin with.
However, as I was sitting down to write this week’s blog, I got an e-mail about last week’s blog — that’s correct, you should comment and e-mail me about my blog.
The e-mail was telling me about a club out West that said, even though it had a Facebook page, they still got most of their members from direct mail and door hangers.
I wanted to make something clear: I’m not saying you need to stop direct mail or any other forms to generate sales. (Please see our weekly Sales Tips for ideas.)
Facebook has its own purpose, and it’s not to generate new members for your clubs. If you are in the business of only generating new sales, don’t start a Facebook page. Although, if you are like 98 percent of clubs, and you want to stay in contact with your current members, start that Facebook page.
Use the page to communicate with those members. Tell them about upcoming events in your club. If you have a pool and it’s finally open, tell them. If you are having a “bring your friends day,” tell them.
The point is to use Facebook to keep in contact with your members. You can use companies like Constant Contact to e-mail members updates. However, let’s be honest with ourselves — what percentage of members’ e-mails do you possess?
Create a Facebook page and encourage members to “Like” you. All you really need to do is when a member checks in, have the front desk person say, “Like us on Facebook.” The member may not add your immediately, but certainly they will remember at some point while stalking an old high school crush and add you as their club.
Also, remember this: If Jacob doesn’t attend your club, but he has a crush on Sally at his office, and they are friends are Facebook, he will see that your member — aka, Sally — “Likes” your page and will push him to also become a member of your gym to spend more time with Sally.
The problem with Facebook is there aren’t any guarantees. However, you are going to miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take. It’s free, it’s easy and you can have your young front desk worker update it once or twice a day while she uses company computers to chat with friends.
Try and laugh a little, you can control whether she talks to her friends. But utilize her youthful skills and keep in touch with your members.
Tyler Montgomery is the Editor of Club Solutions Magazine. Contact him at tyler@clubsolutionsmagazine.com
