Promoting Fitness Business: without relying on “Beach Season”

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After months of closures, social distancing and destroyed fitness regimes, now is the time to get people back to your gym or fitness centre. But what’s your handle? With travel restrictions still in place, people still fearful of a second wave and not wanting to get stuck in quarantine when they come home, the promise of a beach-ready body will not do much to incentivise your clientele. Even though you want to get people to your business, whether that’s into your training programme, through your doors, or signing up online, promoting fitness is your primary goal. The secondary aim is to get people to achieve that fitness with you.

“What beach? They cancelled my holiday!”

Promoting fitness and sports through your fitness business is a delicate balancing act between encouragement, motivation, and exploiting people’s desire to look gook good, and feel good. Meanwhile, don’t be afraid to get creative and use whatever contacts and partnerships you can foster.

Find a Handle to Promote Fitness

While summer fitness business usually focusses on the creation of a body beach-goers can be proud of, you need to find a new handle for getting people into your gym this year. It’s a good time to focus on long-term goals for sustained fitness levels. 

You need not centre all of your efforts onto a single focus. Still, one of the most prominent aspects of the 2020 fitness business will be getting back into a regular exercise regime after being barred from the gym for months.

Some other handles you can choose for this year are:

• Weight loss – how many people have come out of lockdown and quarantine several unwanted pounds heavier?
• Strength Training & Muscle Building – few people have all the equipment at home for good strength and muscle building. That’s why most of use a gym – that stuff is expensive.
• Mobility and Posture Improvement – After months of staying at home and camping on the couch, or working on a laptop at the dining table, posture and mobility are likely to have become impaired by less than ideal conditions. 

Your handle needs to hone in on your target demographic. Make sure you know your target clients and how best to draw them in and promote the regaining of fitness they might have lost (or never had). Whatever handle you use, you need to use a hefty dose of motivation, a lot of encouragement and just a tiny sliver of shame. 

Content Marketing for Promoting your Fitness Business

If people are looking for a gym, a trainer or a fitness regime/class that will get them back into the fitness groove, they will search online at the different providers and options available. The content you provide will help to fan the tiniest of embers into a roaring fire of determination. Remember, promoting fitness and the desire to achieve it is just one step in getting people to sign up to your fitness business offering. 

Some ways that you can encourage people to get excited about your fitness business is to talk about how fitness can improve their lives and addressing any current pain points in their lives.

• Fitness regimes to relieve back pain and improve flexibility.
• Weight loss tips – *see collaborations below if you aren’t qualified to offer dietary advice.
• Case studies of successful fitness or weight loss clients – some might not be willing, but others might feel empowered by your desire to showcase their success. Play it by ear on a case-by-case basis.
• Home workout routines to supplement gym attendance, or when they can’t get to the gym. We all know someone who works shifts or travels for work.

The diversity of content you put out for your current and potential clients will help to promote fitness and your business without being obviously promotional. Three critical areas of the content you provide should be to inspire, educate, and motivate with valuable information.

Don’t ignore guest posting on other websites and inviting others to guest post for your website, you get to expand the information you can give and the reach of your posts. When you guest post for others you establish yourself as a voice of experience and expertise. When you let others post on your site, you expanded the range of information you can distribute.

Introductory and Continuation Offers

Everyone has known for a long time that introductory offers can entice people into investing in a long-term membership. I need not tell you this, you probably already use it. This year you will probably want need to grab the attention of some existing clients. Potentially those who have lapsed during your enforced closure. 

If we’re perfectly honest, you need to get more clients, and you need to ensure you keep your old ones. So you need to engage with the clients you have (and until recently still had) to ensure they stay with you rather than looking in other places for a better deal. 

You can’t ignore the fact that many people have suffered from some financial detriment this year, so ensuring that your offers apply equally to old clients and the new ones you snag could be the key to ensuring people stay with you. 

Encourage your existing clients to renew their membership now and tag it onto the end of their existing term. Maybe even add a couple of months for that extra push. Packages for personal training session could also help boost your revenue and highlight an extra service for your gym.

Cooperation for Fitness Promotion

Health and fitness businesses can also include those that run along parallel lines. Some examples are:

• Health food and supplement stores
• Activewear and fitness gear stores
• Nutritionists & Dieticians
• Fitness Apps
• Holistic Health Practitioners

If you want to increase the reach of your marketing strategy, you could approach some of these other businesses and professionals in a collaboration or cooperation deal. Potentially a case of mutual promotion. 

Some examples could be:

• a nutritionist could offer discounted consultations your customers, while they recommend your fitness training.
• You could support a local dancewear shop. Your clients will receive a “15% discount” on their dance shoes, and they will recommend your dance fitness classes.
• Offering space in gym premises for individual treatments and consultations.

Get creative with your collaborations and don’t be afraid to try something a bit “out there”; maybe hypnosis for improved sporting performance. 

Rewards and Referrals

Your most valuable resource for promoting fitness business is your existing clientele. Word of mouth, personal recommendations and shared offers can have a massive impact on your incoming business. 

If you have happy clients who will advocate for you that is amazing. It says a lot about your business. However, if you have a few on the fence, you can use rewards for referrals. While a discount offer for new clients is good for getting new clients, it’s not the best method for encouraging your old clients to share. When you reward referring new clients to your business, you get a better response from a referral deal that rewards both the new client and those who refer them.

Approachable and Accessible 

Do you know what one of the biggest turnoffs for people returning to the pursuit of fitness is? It’s that gyms and fitness centres can seem elitist and exclusionary. It can be difficult to dispel this opinion without letting people visit your space and try it out. 

Trial days, orientation days and initial fitness consultations can go a long way to engaging new clients with your business. 

Accessibility is another crucial aspect of your fitness business. One point of promoting fitness is being inclusive and attempting to eliminate ableism in the industry. Inclusivity is a huge aspect for a fitness business that has because significant more vital in fitness business in recent years. 

Approachability, accessibility and inclusivity are huge aspects that have become vital for promoting fitness business. You can’t ignore it.

Whatever works to promote fitness and your business!

This year you can’t afford to let things slide. Some people have emerged from their homes with a fabulous self-imposed home workout regime. Conversely, others have let their fitness slide. Don’t let either group pass you by. Encourage those who have embraced lockdown fitness to up their game, and entice those who have let themselves go, to get it back.

What you need to remember is not to fear creativity and use any edge you can find.

• Collaborate and cooperation.
• Get creative
• Motivate 

Moreover, promote the fabulous benefits of fitness, how you think will inspire your target audience best.

For more information about SimplyBook.me can help you market and promote your fitness business through content, referrals and social media, check out our marketing suite.