Video is king these days. We don’t read the book because we wait for the movie to come out. A visitor to YouTube plans to watch one video, but ends up watching three. Even Google gives more weight to keywords if there is a video involved.
So why aren’t you using video to connect with your customers and prospects? Perhaps because you don’t have time; you don’t know how; it scares the bejeezus out of you; you don’t think you have anything anyone would want to watch?
You have nothing to worry about. In just a few short steps I’ll teach you how to record video, what type of video to record and what to do with it. Video will allow you to connect with your prospects and members like no other medium can.
Before we discuss all of that, here are some ways in which video will benefit your health club:
• Tour of Your Club: Instead of telling your prospects about your facility, show them!
• Exercise of the Week: Get your members coming back to your website or Facebook fan page with a video of a new exercise they can try at the gym this week.
• Member Testimonials: Including social proof in your marketing efforts is HUGE! Get a few of your most loyal members and clients to tell the camera what they think of your club. Then tell everyone else about it.
• Education: Your members shouldn’t look to you as a place they simply come to work out. They should count on you to provide them information on wellness, nutrition, fitness and other health-related issues. Video provides a great medium in which to educate your clients on these topics.
The easiest way to create video is to buy a Flip Video camera or a Kodak Playtouch. Both cameras are no bigger than your phone and can upload to YouTube and other video sites with the click of a button. Amazon should have both cameras for around $100-$130. Trust me, it is well worth the price. Though it might not have some of the cool features, your smart phone probably has a decent on board video camera you can use, but in my opinion you should get your hands on one of the two mentioned here.
I Have My Camera, Now What?
1. Create a YouTube Channel. All it takes is to create a user ID and a password and you’re ready to upload.
2. Create a Facebook Fan page. If you haven’t created a Facebook fan page, create one. It takes less than two minutes to create.
3. Upload Your Video to YouTube. You can adjust the title of the YouTube video to whatever you want. I recommend you change it to something your prospects will be searching for on Google. If you’re a health club in Springfield, Missouri, you can name your video, “Springfield, MO health club testimonial” or something similar. That way when someone searches for health clubs in Springfield, Google will give your video more “juice” in the rankings.
4. Promote Your Video. Once your video has been uploaded to YouTube, you can do a number of things to promote it. You can e-mail the link to your members, you can embed the video on your blog, you can add it to a CD and give it away as a gift and you can upload it to your Facebook fans.
5. Upload Your Video to Facebook. To upload to Facebook, simply click the little camera icon at the top to add a video. By the way, you can also upload your video directly to Facebook from the two cameras mentioned above if you decide to skip YouTube altogether.
6. Do it Again . . . and Again . . . and Again. I’d like to see you posting at least one video per week, preferably more. It should take you less than an hour to record a video and upload it to both YouTube and your fan page.
Curtis Mock is the host of www.FitnessBusinessTelevision.com the TV show for fitness entrepreneurs. He is also the executive director of gymsuccess.com. Curtis can be reached at curtis@clubsolutionsmagazine.com.
