Forbes contributor Bridget Brennan says if consumers had a sex, it would be female. 70 to 80 percent of all consumer purchasing is done or influenced by women.
With that knowledge, does your marketing lean to the female perspective, but not so much you alienate your male population? Are you limited with your marketing simply due to not having a variety of information to share? Consider the possibility that your ideal customer is uninspired to take notice of your marketing efforts because you aren’t speaking the right language to her. That would be a wasted effort and marketing expense.
With boutique, $10-a-month and single modality fitness clubs opening up all around us, defining who you are, who you serve and how you can provide the 100 percent solution for them has never been more important. Millennials are looking for an experience, seniors want to be surrounded by various age groups and the majority of moms are looking to lose some weight. Can you speak to all of them at once? Do you want or need to? If we are marketing to the majority of folks who make the financial decisions, and we know that is likely the moms, it might be wise to speak mainly to her.
It is reported by the majority of clubs in today’s market that eight out of 10 people join a health club today to lose weight. If you’re not offering a scalable lifestyle approach to nutrition, you might consider how this one addition can change the way you’re able to market to a much broader audience. Essentially, you’ll be opening the door to an entirely new customer who may have been intimidated to join your club previously. This can change the landscape of how your club is perceived within your community.
Additionally, the opportunity to gain new customers rises exponentially from the introduction of nutrition programming, a non-dues revenue opportunity that has already been identified as something the majority of the population needs and wants. With the diet industry failing their customers time and time again, the fitness industry is in an ideal position to consume this business. To quote Jeff Bezos of Amazon, in regards to the diet industry’s lost consumer, “Your margin is my opportunity.”
Know your ideal customer, know what they want and need, and prepare your business to service them in ways that not only benefit them, but your bottom line as well. Being in the position to deliver an overall experience that improves multiple aspects of someone’s life is the right step to take to speak to a broader audience.
These are the elements of that great overall experience for members:
- Excellent fitness services with your team of pros
- Awesome and clean facility
- Scalable nutrition programming delivering results
- Excellent client retention
- Community brand recognition
- Multiple thriving profit centers
Carolyn Fetters is the founder and CEO of Balanced Habits, based in Southern California. She can be reached at Carolyn@balancedhabits.com or 657.231.6779.
