As a fitness studio owner, you wear a lot of hats. Trainer, bookkeeper, salesperson, accountability coach and janitor, to name just a few.
But if marketing isn’t in the top 5 tasks on your daily to-do list, you’re leaving the future of your fitness business to chance.
Fitness studio marketing is perhaps the most important, yet least understood job of the busy studio owner. And if “word of mouth” is your marketing plan, the time for a new plan is way past due.
If you’re like most fitness business owners who use Naamly to simplify and systemize their client acquisition, client experience and follow-up, you don’t have time to learn how to build complex sales funnels. And chances are, you don’t have the budget to run paid ads on Facebook or other platforms.
And if this is you, you might be asking yourself, “How am I supposed to have an effective fitness studio marketing plan if I don’t have the time or money to advertise?”
The good news is, you can build a growing, thriving fitness business with plenty of leads and high conversion and retention rates without spending a dollar on ads.
Many of our Naamly clients have done it, and so can you if you follow a few simple steps and learn from their experience.
“Being authentic will attract the right people in your program,” said Seth Scrimo, owner of Scimo Fitness in Wooster, Ohio. “I approach every day with a mindset of how I can help people and showcase who I am.”
There are a few secrets to fitness studio marketing that our Naamly clients have learned over the years. They wanted to share these with you, so you can avoid the mistakes they’ve made, stop wasting your time and money on advertising that under-delivers, and start experiencing the financial rewards that equate to the time and effort you’re investing in your business.
Perhaps the most important one?
Having a client-centric mindset and message
Most trainers or studio owners are obsessed with the features of their program and how it works. How many workouts you get … what the schedule is … how many people in a class … what it costs. And while details like the schedule and costs are important, they’re only relevant if you connect with the prospect first about “what’s in it for them.”
These are the benefits of your program, and they are the details you should be focused on in all of your fitness studio marketing … website copy, email newsletters, videos, and 1-on-1 conversations.
What results can the prospect expect? Are they going to lose weight, feel younger, fit better in their clothes and regain their energy and confidence?
Once you’ve connected the dots between where the prospect is now and where your program will help them go, then the details like price and schedule are put in the appropriate light. Make the schedule and price the only details the prospect knows about your program, and be prepared to hear a lot of “no’s.”
There’s something else that’s just as essential to fitness studio marketing as having a client-centric mindset and message. And it’s something that Doug Spurling, owner of Spurling Fitness in Kennebunk, Maine, learned to prioritize.
Wow your clients with results they can’t believe and an experience they can’t get anywhere else
“You better have an outstanding program that over-delivers and a client experience that’s off the charts,” Spurling said. “If you’re not getting your clients great results and wowing them with a customer experience that’s second to none, no amount of marketing will be able to fix it.”
Not only does Spurling deliver word-class workouts in a safe, fun and engaging environment, but his studio also thrives in helping clients master their healthy habits outside the gym and stay engaged with their coaches. Spurling used to have mountains of spreadsheets to track the journey of every prospect and client. But it became tedious, wasn’t scalable, and was too complicated to get buy-in from his team.
Now, he uses Naamly to keep prospects from falling through the cracks and keep clients engaged so they get better results and stay longer. Since Spurling added Naamly to his fitness studio marketing plan, he’s seen length of engagement (LEG) increase from 24 to 32 months, resulting in a $2,000 increase in lifetime client value.
Which leads us to the next secret of fool-proof fitness studio marketing.
Create and share compelling testimonials
If your clients are happy and getting amazing results, you need to highlight and share their stories! It sounds elementary, but this is a non-negotiable area where many studio owners leave thousands of dollars on the table.
And you don’t need expensive audio-visual equipment or a fancy recording studio to put out great testimonials. Remember, the whole idea here is to step up your fitness studio marketing game without spending money on advertising, right?
Luckily, every studio owner I’ve ever met has a $1,000 piece of recording equipment in his or her pocket. Use it! Ask a client to record a short interview – 30 seconds to a minute, tops. Then you can use any number of free editing softwares on your phone to edit the video, add graphics or music, and post it on all your channels. Testimonials are fitness studio marketing gold … and don’t have to cost you anything other than your time.
Here’s another hidden gem that most studio owners avoid, and it’s costing them revenue, financial freedom and some fun times, as well.
Be visible and participate in your community
Imagine standing in line at Starbucks and looking at your disappointing Facebook ad metrics on your phone … when you could be handing the person in line next to you an invitation to your next brew pub talk. That would be crazy, right?
Yet so many fitness pros foolishly go down this disappointing fitness studio marketing path, and wonder why their classes are half empty and sign-ups are down.
Ken Wall, owner of Move Better in Shavertown, Pa., uses these brew pub talks to grow his email list and sign up new clients to a 6-week intro program. The pubs offer 10% off draft beers to all attendees, and the fitness talk is free.
“Plus, I get some fun social media out of doing it,” Wall said.
Wall has also invited the owner of a local running shoe store to co-present at his gym on the importance of choosing the right running shoe and training for injury prevention. Both have gotten business out of it, and it cost zero dollars in ad spend. Same goes for sponsoring and volunteering at local 5Ks for charity.
“I’ll have a flier with a QR code for my latest book or resource,” Wall said. “But the bigger thing is just showing up, helping out however I can and meeting people.”
Yeah, it turns out you don’t need to pay Facebook to introduce you to people. You can do that yourself for free!
Juli Colotti, owner of Bodies By Colotti in Kingston, N.Y., follows a similar fitness studio marketing approach with local fitness challenges and partnering with local cafes for “Workout & Wellness” events.
“This not only provides exposure to a different clientele, but also strengthens community ties,” Colotti said. “The key is to find businesses whose customers share interests with our ideal clients.”
And that’s an important point. How are you supposed to know which local businesses are the best bet for these joint ventures and collaborations? Start with businesses that your current clients frequent! It’s like targeting by geography and interests on Facebook … without having to use Facebook or spend any money 🙂
If you’re interested in boosting your fitness studio marketing plan without paying someone else to use their platform, you should download our free guide, “51 Ways To Acquire Clients Without Facebook Ads.”
Your fun, fool-proof marketing plan could be up and running by the end of the day if you download this free guide.