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Digital marketing for gyms: how to do

Digital marketing for gyms and personal trainers is an economical way to boost a brand, win customers and get more revenue. There are so many aspects in digital marketing that understanding the right options for your business can be the difference between achieving success or changing branches. Above all, invest in digital marketing [...]

February 25, 2022 · Dudu Gentil · 11 min read

Digital marketing for gyms and personal trainers is an economical way to boost a brand, win customers and get more revenue. There are so many aspects in digital marketing that understanding the right options for your business can be the difference between achieving success or changing branches.

Above all, investing in digital marketing for gyms is a great way to get ahead of competition and of course, draw the attention of students and customers. Especially since if the competition is big, you need to be able to stand out.

Studies indicate that after the pandemic, people began to worry more about health, aesthetics and physical conditioning. Even with the fitness market growing a lot in recent years, it is not so common to see these ventures using marketing well.

The methods used for attracting and converting customers are still dependent on waiting for an interested person to visit or call the academy to find out the price, for example, and there make a sales approach.

And when it comes to loyalty strategies, it gets more complicated. If students are not motivated to continue or a new competitor opens nearby, it is a sign that the academy may lose enrollment and revenue.

This limited and passive view causes many academies to lose great chances of differentiating from competition and, consequently, losing business opportunities.

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Have a website

It's no use investing in an attractive and comfortable space, modern machines and quality service, if your goals are below expectations or the business doesn't leave the place.

A solid online marketing strategy, if well done, can bring great results.

The first important step is to have a website. Without that, you'll be out of the digital world. You don't need to have an exceptional site full of penduricalhos, just be informative and offer options for exclusive access to the student, for example.

You can use one of the numerous existing platforms to build your pages or rely on experienced professionals who offer quality websites. Nvx has an 18-year-old expertise in the market, creating sites that have turned into amazing cases. Click HERE to know.

Start with a fitness blog

For a small academy, marketing ideas that don't cost much can still do wonders for the final result. A blog is one of these affordable but also highly effective marketing ideas.

The benefits of a blog are multifaceted. It allows you to maintain contact with members and prospects, share advice related to physical fitness, and promote events in your gym.

It will also be the digital channel you will have as a reference to offer relevant content to your specific audience.

You won't see much revenue directly linked to your blog posts at the beginning, but with time and dedication you can develop a reputation as a health specialist and physical conditioning. This can bring long-term and clear followers, long-term revenue.

You don't always have to write about your gym and you shouldn't. Instead, create content relevant to your readers or potential members. For example, you can write about:

The greatest benefits of bodybuilding to health
Foods that help to lose weight faster
Exercise equipment and training equipment you recommend
Tips on specific muscle group training

Try creating posts that have a balance between text, photos and videos. Although you don't need to use photos or incorporate videos into your blog posts, they can keep your visitors on the page longer and split text blocks longer.

Email marketing is essential

Email marketing is extremely important for the fitness industry because it allows companies and individuals to develop and maintain solid relationships with customers. Your academy needs to rely on loyal customers who will also become brand ambassadors.

The implementation of email marketing in your overall digital marketing strategy will help you to:

Nutritioning your target audience: Email marketing campaigns are an effective way to educate people on how to achieve their physical conditioning goals.
Retaining customers: your academy's success is based not only on the acquisition of new customers, but also on the retention of existing ones. The email favors the promotion of specialized physical conditioning programs, sharing content and special offers, as well as important warnings.
Building trust: e-mail is a highly personalized marketing channel that consumers themselves seem to prefer. Sending professional-looking emails will increase consumer confidence in your brand.

In addition, email marketing is an economical channel to communicate with your audience, and is easy to manage, compared to Google or Facebook ads, for example. All you need is a friendly tool and a lot of creativity!

*There are several tools for creating and managing email marketing in the market, try hiring one to facilitate the work and automate the process.

Offer incentives for references

Few campaigns are as successful in achieving the goals as offering incentives to students who send new people to their academy. Unlike other actions, which may be more appropriate at some times than at others, an indication program may last the whole year.

It can even become a standard practice in your gym and a fantastic way to show that you really care about students. You can set up an online program where students get a lower monthly fee or upgrade to a higher physical conditioning package when friends or family references become students.

References can be made by sending an “inscription” invitation to the email address of a potential member.

This may be one of the most effective academic association marketing strategies at your disposal, so don't let it pass! You can always try it for a short time and see how it goes. If you succeed, consider deploying it permanently.

Be active on social networks

It takes more than a few emails and blogs to build relationships with customers. Creating a relationship also requires bidirectional conversations. Blog posts, emails and some other marketing methods only allow you to contact one member at a time.

The best way to keep conversations with thousands of people at the same time is to stay active on social networks.

Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube help you share news and updates with followers, but also allow you to receive feedback and resolve your complaints or doubts.

Instagram is by far the most suitable social network for gyms and allows you to also post photos, create stories and publish videos on Reels. You can post from your gym, highlight and mark students and teachers, as well as offer training tips or physical conditioning.

Always keep posting new content, but also save time to answer questions and participate in the conversation. It's what we call engagement. The more you get involved with the members, the more likely they'll keep coming back.

For special campaigns, try to invest in sponsored posts, which have an incredible reach for the desired target audience, whether by neighborhoods, regions or interest. And of course, attract more followers to your profile, which should be configured as “company”.

What about WhatsApp?

WhatsApp, which is a mix of social networking and messenger, should never be ignored in its marketing strategies. Every day it has become an efficient network for service and also close sales.

Prefer the Business version (for companies), which allows you to automate conversations and facilitate service. But don't go around texting everyone. Segment contacts to avoid blockages.

A few tips:

- Avoid cold lists of contacts that can tarnish your brand's reputation

-If the contact never received any communication from your academy, ask him if he would accept

-Share only warnings and offers that make sense, such as an upgrade offer of plan that should be offered as “exclusive”.

Optimize your Google business profile

Whenever someone wants to look for something online, they go to Google.

One of the easiest and most effective ways to generate interested and lead is to have a good presentation of your gym on Google My Business. Once Google checks your organization, you can optimize the profile with useful information for those who are searching. .

You can add your address, phone number, working hours, commercial category and photos from your space. Your Google business profile also collects your comments to facilitate monitoring and responding to feedback and reviews that your customers leave to you.

Keeping your company profile up to date will increase your ranking when people search for a company like yours. Optimized profiles are more likely to be discovered organically through Google Maps listings in a search query, rather than having to pay to boost your business.

Improve the academia environment with other marketing strategies

Investing in digital marketing for academies is important to attract students, however, other strategies should be adopted to provide a good environment. Offer a good layout at the academy, well trained and attentive staff, ambient music to encourage workout, among others.

Details that can make all the difference to the success of your business. So consider investing in them!

Conclusion

Finally, plan a strategy that can rescue old students or that has cancelled the plans. Often due to lack of incentive or because they are not at the right time of purchase, customer loss can be reversed with marketing actions.

Remember to keep your contact base up to date, for who knows, send an email or message offering some offer to return: these can be free classes, discounted tuition, access to benefits or even exemption from enrollment or membership.

Marketing for gyms, as you have seen so far, requires time, arm, investment and can distract you from some of the other duties you have to manage your business.

So instead of trying to create strategies on your own or do nothing (which is worse), you can count on a team of elite marketing professionals that can help you to draw a path to success.

Dudu Gentil · Nacionalvox

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