It’s no surprise that the print industry is vastly diminished compared to what it once was. People are no longer reading newspapers and magazines, so it becomes essential for business owners (like gym owners) to find new ways of connecting to new clients.
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While there have been some controversies around the various platforms over the last few years, social media is still the best place to reach people. So, consider hiring one of the Generic long tail.
Nevertheless, let’s take a look at how gyms can market and communicate on these platforms.
Where do they go after social?
Before looking at organic and paid strategies for social media marketing, we’re going to look at where users go after they have engaged with you. Whether it’s through an ad or engaging with a post, you should have a website set up that they can visit afterwards.
This is a space where you can talk a bit around the story of your gym or business. It’s a space where potential members can get a feel for the company and what you offer.
If the destination is a landing page from an ad, then there are also very specific guidelines you should follow. While it may sound counter intuitive, there should be no navigation route from the landing page through to the rest of the website. You want someone on this page to be taking one action that you determine is best for your business, i.e. contacting you or booking a class.
You need to summarise your service or business as efficiently as possible. Long headlines and too much copy can put people off. Keep it to the point and explain your benefit in simple terms. You should also avoid videos on landing pages due to the many different devices someone may potentially access your site on. Different sizes can cause problems and there is always the possibility the video doesn’t load at all.
Finding new clients through paid social media campaigns
If you’re going to be running paid campaigns on social media, you either need to find someone who can run them for you, or you need to skill up on some general marketing principles. The three things you should understand when building a paid campaign strategy are:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Conversion
These are the three kinds of campaigns you will need to run.
You should be running Awareness campaigns when you’re merely trying to spread the word about your studio. Through engaging creative images and copy, you can let the world know who you are and what you do. You won’t get a lot of sign ups from this, but we’re just at the beginning of the process. Video montage ads can work well here as they can grab attention and communicate a lot of information.
Next, we move to Consideration campaigns. The people receiving these should already be aware of your business. Now we’re trying to provide more distinct information on why they should choose your gym or studio over others. You’re trying to communicate the things that you do better than anyone else, or the unique community and culture you may have built. Once they’ve seen your ad a few times, they’re ready to take the next step and try you out. Think ahead about what kind of reservations someone may have and then answer them.
The last phase of the campaigns are Conversion. This is where you want to use your most direct and aggressive ad. Here we want someone to take a direct action and this is where we want our landing page to be effective in converting them into a client. Conversation campaigns are definitely the most expensive, but they are worth it if you get it right.
A final note, for paid campaigns to work, you need to spend at least $900 per month. This is so the social media platform can have enough budget and time to be able to target the right users effectively.
Organic marketing on social media
To build a following organically on social media can be difficult, but it is possible. It requires discipline and a strict schedule to get right.
You need to post very frequently, at least once a day, but better two or three times a day. This is so that your content is always “visible” to someone coming onto the platform. The less you post, the less likely that it will be seen.
The caveat to this is that it still needs to be quality content. If you can only put out one quality piece of content a day, it’s better to do that than posting three rubbish ones.
Finally, you need to have guidelines for how your business is represented on social media. You want all your posts to have a similar look as well as voice and tone. This is regardless of what kind of post it is. Doing this will help people become more familiar with your brand and make your posts stand out and be instantly recognisable.
A great resource for gym owners or PTs running their own fitness business are the various software providers for personal trainers. As an an example, check out Truecoach, who have plenty of guides and insights to grow your membership.
