With sunshine and warm weather going by the wayside in October, so does the time people dedicate to working out. Research done by Gold’s Gym shows that October has traditionally been the month where the gym receives the fewest check-ins throughout the whole year. That’s why Gold’s has dubbed October the “Fitness pitFALL” month.
“We started researching the numbers, and October showed the fewest check-ins throughout the year,” Dave Reiseman, the vice president of communications for Gold’s Gym, told Club Solutions Magazine. “People work so hard during the summer for those beach bodies and then once fall hits, there’s a lot of exhaling going on. They can wear extra layers and cover their bodies. We wanted to create awareness for this trend and get people back in the gym.”
Once this “pitfall” trend was identified, Gold’s Gym decided it wanted to help people avoid the lethargy that this season brings to their workout routine. Thus began the “Fitness pitFALL” campaign, both on social media and in the gyms themselves.
Gold’s announced it would open its gyms’ doors to the public every weekend in October. Anyone in the community can come to a Gold’s Gym and workout throughout the pitFALL month, free of charge.
“We thought that opening the gyms would be a fun way to bring everyone from the community into the gym this month,” said Reiseman. “We’ve printed out passes for members to give their family and friends so that they can come to the gym this month.”
This idea has now been featured on The Today Show and in Glamour Magazine. According to Reiseman, he knows of no other gym that has ever opened its doors to the public to this degree before.
“We wanted to do something promotionally for October when we were planning for the fourth quarter,” Reiseman said. “We wanted something fun and something different. We kind of spotted this trend and said, ‘How can we look at this as an opportunity?’”
Gold’s Gym also partnered with fitness expert Jamie Eason to provide basic tips on exercise and avoiding the kind of pitfalls that the gym is fighting against.
The “Fitness pitFALL” promotion is also spreading via social media. Gold’s has encouraged gym-goers to go to their Facebook page and offer advice and exercise tips. They also created the #NoFitnessPitFALL hashtag for Twitter and Instagram, so that the Gold’s Gym community could communicate and share their success stories and advice.
“We tried to add some guerrilla marketing and a social media layer to this promotion,” said Reiseman. “We want to break through the clutter. A lot of brands out there are talking, but for us, it’s about looking at the data and finding creative ways to promote the brand and get more and more people involved. It’s about getting them back in the gym.”
By Ashley Scoby
Stay ahead in the fitness industry with exclusive updates!
Rachel Zabonick-Chonko is the editor-in-chief of Club Solutions Magazine. She can be reached at rachel@peakemedia.com.
