A Different Type of Marketing

Think about how you have marketed your club this week. Did you send out direct mail? Did you run commercial advertisements on your local TV networks? Did you purchase billboard placements around your cities?

These are a couple of ideas that I believe can work and are crucial to the marketability of any fitness club. However, I don’t necessarily believe that they are the best. In my opinion, the best marketing enhances brand recognition. If a person lives in Fargo, N.D. and you own a fitness club there, fitness should be synonymous with your club.

Quickly think about Starbucks. When was the last time someone asked you if you wanted coffee and brought you Starbucks? People don’t ask if you want coffee, they ask if you want Starbucks.

Your club should be in the minds of the people in your community, both fit and unfit, enough that if someone asks someone to look into joining a gym, they actually say look into joining “Your Gym.” Here are three easy steps that you can use to integrate your brand into the mind of your community, very quickly:

1) Become Part of the Community: You want people in the community to respect your facility and come to you for all things health and fitness, right? Get active in the community by hosting non-member run clubs or fitness-in-the-park events. Try setting up a 1980’s flash mob and Rick Roll the entire community. As you do this, have everyone involved wear your club’s t-shirts to promote the event.

2) Speaking Engagements: Typically high schools and organizations in your community are searching for information related to health, fitness or wellness. Make a point to set up a speaking engagement each week for the Kiwanis Club or the business class at the local high school. It doesn’t always have to be the same organization, but find a couple that enjoy your presence and help get your name out to your community.

3) Kids First: We all know that kids don’t actually bring your club a lot of revenue. Typically, they are part of the family package that their parents purchased. However, when you do any speaking engagement or event where kids are present, create a special promotion that if a kid brings their parent into the club, the parents can join and add the kid for free. Throw the kid a free t-shirt (make it cool) after his/her parents sign up and he’ll wear it to school, practice or out with friends. Maybe the kid will start working out there and become a walking advertisement for your club — oh, and his parents will get fit too.

The point of these different marketing strategies is to have fun. Steve Jobs once said that you should find something you love and pursue it. You love fitness and you love your club. You want everyone to enjoy being in your club as much as you do. So, find some fun and innovative ways to tell them how much fun you actually have at your club.