Danielle Pakradooni, the marketing director of Crunch, shares why they use internal marketing to promote their virtual offerings.
Virtual fitness has been a great way for gyms to continue to serve their members during shutdowns or for those who are not ready to return to the gym yet. However, members can’t participate in something if they aren’t aware of the option. It is key to properly market your virtual offerings.
Danielle Pakradooni, the marketing director of Crunch, a chain of over 300 franchised fitness clubs in the U.S., Canada and Australia, said they utilize internal marketing to get the word out about virtual offerings to their members.
Crunch’s virtual platform, Crunch Live, has over 100 workouts on-demand, and Pakradooni said they have been promoting this to their members through emails, push notifications and their website.
“In April, Crunch launched a weekly newsletter — Crunch Gym Shorts — to stay connected to our members while our gyms were closed,” said Pakradooni. “This has been an effective internal marketing tool to help promote Crunch Live, healthy recipes, at-home workouts and upcoming membership offers.”
Whether you are marketing your virtual offerings through internal marketing such as email, social media posts or your website, it is key to make sure you are continuously communicating with your members during this challenging time.
“The best advice I can offer is to keep members informed and engaged during this time period of uncertainty with COVID-19,” said Pakradooni. “We have openly communicated with our members through informational emails, a website page dedicated to our COVID-19 protocols and cleaning procedures, as well as launching new Crunch App features including discounts for some of our fitness partners.”
Following are four additional internal marketing tips for communicating about virtual offerings with members:
- If you have a mobile app, utilize push notifications to inform members of new virtual offerings or updates.
- Create a Facebook group for members only, and market virtual offerings in the group.
- Create a social media hashtag specific to your virtual offerings.
- Ask your biggest fans to be “brand ambassadors” to spread the word on their social channels about your virtual offerings.
No matter what strategies you use, a final tip is to create a marketing plan. Don’t just create virtual offerings, but take the time to sit down and plan out how you’ll strategically market them to your member base.
