Get more out of your clubs marketing budget

In a perfect world, we would have a bottomless budget to spend on gym marketing.

Although throwing money at paid ads works for some companies, being frugal with your spending and exploring other options to find and convert new leads will pay off in the long run.

In this article, we will be discussing 5 different ways for you to spend less time and money getting more gym members.

5 Ways to Increase the Success of Your Marketing Budget

Here are some simple ways for you to get the most out of your marketing budget, while increasing your potential to cut down on unnecessary expenses.

Make Signing Up Easy

When people are looking for new fitness facilities, chances are they are going to start with a Google search to see what is in their area.

During this browsing process, an unprofessional website or lack of user-friendly software can be enough to turn off potential customers.

Most people don’t want to have to create a login to view an online schedule for classes.

If they have a question they want a contact form that is easy to fill out, and that will definitely be seen and answered by your staff.

And most importantly, once they’ve decided on your gym, they want the signup process to be seamless.

I think we’ve all experienced being so annoyed by a complicated checkout process that we decide not to buy a product, regardless of how much we want it.

Don’t let that be a reason for you to lose potential customers.

There are systems to streamline sign ups both in your club, and online via your website, here’s a link to learn more about this.

Keep Everything Up to Date

Running any sort of business can mean that you’re always juggling 100 different tasks, and trying to make sure not to forget anything.

Through traditional systems, making simple changes to something like a membership, class timetable, pt schedule, or products in your inventory, can require you to make changes in multiple locations.

On busy days, we might miss a step. And although these missed steps might seem minor to us, a lack of fluency can seem unprofessional, especially to potential new customers.

Using the right software can help you to remove all of the above unnecessary steps for you or your staff.

This will ensure that nothing gets missed, and can help you get more gym members.

Work Prospecting Into Your Staff’s Routine

Chances are your front desk staff have extra time during their shifts that they could be putting towards prospecting for the business.

Create a schedule for daily or bi-daily social media posts for your employees to make during their shifts.

When a new member signs up, have pre-made emails that your gym software automatically sends to them, making them aware of any current promotions.

Making new members aware of any current promotions you have will give you the opportunity to upsell them on products and memberships.

And lastly, when a new member joins the gym, make sure that your staff—especially at the front desk—know this. They then have the opportunity to give them an extra warm welcome.

It’s little personalized touches like this that make your gym stand out, and keep customers coming back.

Lead Nurturing

Acquiring a new lead isn’t enough. You need to have systems in place that can help you turn those leads from cold, to red hot.

Create an enticing free offer for first-time customers on your website.

Offering things like a free one-day pass or branded merchandise in exchange for their emails is a good way to get them in the door, and keep their interest through email marketing campaigns.

Make use of marketing tools that help you to keep continuous content flowing to those people that haven’t yet made up their minds about joining.

Automizing these processes wherever possible will cut down on the amount of things you have to juggle, and free up time that you can spend elsewhere.

Track and Focus on the Channels That Bring the Most Success

Stop relying on haphazard success, and start paying attention to analytics.

If you’re not tracking your successful campaigns, and paying attention to where people are spending time on your website, you’ll never be able to make improvements that help you build and maintain real growth over the long term.

It’s also worth it for you to start paying attention to how people are hearing about your gym.

If you are heavily invested in Facebook ads, when most people are finding you through another channel, like a Google search or your YouTube channel, then you are wasting your time and money.

Adding the question “how did you hear about us” to your sign-up form is super simple, and can help you save time and most importantly, money.

The Bottom Line

It’s no longer enough for you to rely on a wing and prayer. If you’re serious about growing your fitness club, then you have to be willing to invest time and energy into testing out different tactics.

If you play your cards right, and focus on automating your systems, then in time you will be able to sit back and allow your systems to make money for you.

The goal of any entrepreneur is to make money in your sleep. Taking advantage of systems designed to help your gym thrive through easy member sign-up, consistent automated marketing, and attention to analytics is the best way to help you get there.