Increase Gym Membership by Promoting Resources

Increase Gym Membership by Promoting ResourcesIf you read my blog last week, “What’s a Persona and Why You Need One For Your Fitness Business Marketing Strategy,” you learned how to create the “ideal” customer / persona for your fitness business. Hopefully by now you have at least one persona in mind and you know the basic demographic information (how old, single/married/divorced, typical occupation, what his or her day is like, where he or she goes to get information, what challenges he or she faces in trying to establish or maintain a fitness routine).

Now that you have this persona (or even more than one), let’s talk about how you can start creating and promoting resources to reach that persona and increase gym membership. If you know where this person goes for information and the challenges he or she faces, the questions you need to ask yourself are:

• “How can I become a resource for this potential client / member / athlete?”
• “How can I get the resources I offer in front of my potential persona?”

You need to consider what types of resources this person might need and then position yourself and your business as THE resource for this persona. This is especially important if there are lots of other gyms, studios or personal trainers competing for your ideal persona too.

How to Create and Promote Resources to Your Personas

Take your persona and then walk through the following process of questions to begin outlining what resources they need, where to find them and how best to promote the resource you will create to them. Below is an example of this process for the Target Persona, Busy Stay-at-home Mom.

• Target persona:
  • Busy stay-at-home mom
  • Biggest challenge: Finding time to workout out every day.

• Type of content this persona would read:
  • Quick tips on staying fit, finding time to workout, any sort of checklist (how fit are you?).

• Where does this persona get her information:
  • Via friends on Facebook or an online moms’ forum.

• What resources you could create:
  • A checklist: “How to Find Time for Your Workouts Every Day?”
  • You can easily post this as a blog on your website, then use the blog URL to promote it on your social networks and other online platforms.

• How you can promote:
  •  Join online moms forum and post the link to your blog with some introductory info about who you are and why this checklist is beneficial to the forum’s audience. Better yet, you can ask a current member or client if she can post on your behalf.
  • Share this resource on Facebook and on your other social media channels. Facebook has the ability to turn any of your posts to your business page into a Facebook Ad by simply selecting to “Boost Post” (bottom left hand corner once it is live on your page) and then you can choose who, outside your current audience, you want to reach.

Note: In Facebook’s advertising tool you can find look-alike audiences to the ones who currently follow you. You can promote this post both to folks who have liked your business in the past and to people who are potential members and clients (with Facebook’s advertising tool).

Why Promoting Resources Beats Your Competition

Ok, I know what you’re thinking….Shouldn’t I just offer one month free and promote that as my ad on Facebook? Yes, you could and you may even get a few folks from this type of promotion. But, isn’t that what many of your competitors are doing? You want to stand out to your target persona and offering up similar promotions as your competitors won’t get you there. Offer up a resource this target persona needs and once you have earned their trust with your quick tips list or something similar, then you can offer up a promo / introductory offer.

This is just one example of how you can take the information you know about your persona and attract her (or him) to your gym or studio. Create something that he or she will want to read and once you’ve earned their attention, then he or she will be more open to introductory offers, free on-ramp, a free class, etc..

For tips on how to strategically promote the awesome resources you’ve created, check out our 10 Step Marketing Guide for Gyms.