The fitness industry is constantly growing. According to the latest industry survey, the industry is expected to experience a growth rate of approximately 4%, between 2020 and 2024. And this means more potential clients for your fitness business.
However, more gyms, fitness centers and health clubs are also coming up, meaning you will be dealing with more competition. So, whether you own a gym franchise or a small fitness center in your neighborhood, it’s important to invest in fitness advertising, to ensure you can reach as many potential clients as possible.
The good news, there are plenty of fitness advertising strategies and ideas that you can leverage, to grow your fitness business. In this article, we will take you through 10 strategies and ideas that you can implement to take your fitness business to the next level.
1. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing refers to the use of popular figures or influential people in the fitness industry to promote your fitness business. Whether you sell fitness-related products or offer personal training services, influencer marketing can help you to reach more clients.
And with influencer marketing, you don’t have to reach out to influencers that have millions of followers, as they may prove too costly. Instead, you can simply get in touch with micro-influencers in the fitness industry, who may have smaller subscriber numbers.
The benefit of working with micro-influencers is that they will charge you a lower figure than those with millions of followers. Furthermore, their followers are highly engaged. So, if they promote your fitness brand on their social medial platforms, the conversion rate will also be higher.
2. Social Media Advertising
Facebook has approximately three billion monthly active users, Instagram has around one billion monthly active users while Tik Tok also boasts almost the same figure as Instagram. Hence, with billions of monthly active users, social media channels provide great platforms for advertising your fitness business.
Furthermore, potential fitness clients also expect to find you on social media, where they can check out your photos, to decide whether your fitness business is a good fit for them.
For social media advertising, you can set up an account on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or TikTok, depending on where most of your potential clients are. Once you set up an account on the different platforms, make sure you post relevant, engaging and informative content regularly. Also, ensure you engage with your followers.
3. Video Advertising and Marketing
As you probably know, attention spans are short these days. And video content provides one of the most effective ways of grabbing a potential client’s attention. Hence, video content provides an effective fitness advertising method to reach more clients. For video advertising, you have several platforms to choose from. But, YouTube remains the king when it comes to video content.
So, what can you post on YouTube to attract more potential clients to your fitness business? Well, your options are almost endless. For instance, if you own a fitness center or a gym, you can run a promotional video, showcasing your facilities or training methods. You can also shoot a video showing members using your equipment.
Also, you can post a video where you give workout tips, nutritional tips or even how to choose nutritional supplements. Furthermore, you can upload a video on YouTube providing tips on how people can recover from common injuries if you have credentials and experience in that field.
But, regardless of the type of content that you decide to post on YouTube, make sure you keep the videos engaging and short. Also, ensure you end with a clear call to action. For instance, you can encourage the viewer to reach out for a personal training session or sign up for your mailing list.
4. User-Generated Content
If you are looking for a unique yet powerful fitness advertising strategy, then you should consider user-generated content. User-generated content will go a long way in establishing trust between your brand and potential clients. User-generated content can be in the form of text, audio, photos, images or text.
For instance, if someone has been unsure whether to purchase your product or, a photo or video of someone using your fitness-related product can go a long way in convincing a potential buyer that your product is worth the money. So, make sure you encourage your clients to post videos or photos while using your products.
5. Blogging and Content Marketing
As a fitness business owner, you also need to invest in content marketing. And you can do so by setting up a fitness website. However, merely putting up a website may not be enough to help put your fitness business in front of your target client. Therefore, you will need to go a step further and invest in search engine optimization (SEO).
Also, you should also make sure your fitness website is mobile-friendly. Mobile-friendly websites tend to rank better than non-responsive ones, considering that around half of web traffic globally is coming from mobile devices.
Once you’ve set up your website and optimized it accordingly, you can then go ahead and start blogging. And you have plenty of blogging topics to choose from, depending on your niche. For instance, if you own a yoga studio, you can share tips on how to recover after a yoga session. You can also create a buying guide on how to purchase yoga mats or yoga pants, just to name a few.
6. Email Advertising
Email advertising should also be part of your fitness advertisement strategy. So, whether you run a fitness club, a yoga studio or you sell health supplements, you should ensure you have a robust email marketing campaign in place. Considering that almost everyone these days has an email account, email marketing provides a cost-effective means of promoting and growing your fitness business.
But, you also need to be careful with email marketing. If you are not careful, all your emails may end up in your recipients' spam folder. To avoid such issues, you can request your subscribers to whitelist your email address. Also, using a reputable email marketing program can also help to prevent your emails from going to the recipient’s spam folder. While investing in such a program may cost you some money, the returns will be worth the investment.
7. Community Events
Hosting community events can also help to bring more clients to your fitness business. If you run a boutique studio, gym or fitness center, hosting such events will help to create a spotlight around your business.
For instance, you can host a free personal training event for members of your local community. And it doesn’t have to happen in your gym. You can host it in a local park or any other place where you can get some space.
Once you’ve identified a space to host the event, you can then bring your fitness equipment to that event and give the attendees an opportunity to check out your personal training services. And once the event is over, you can then distribute flyers or business cards to the attendees. The chances are, some of the attendees will call back to enquire more about your services.
8. Referral Programs
As the name suggests, referral programs provide a means for people to refer clients to your fitness business. Referral programs can work for almost any type of business in the fitness industry, regardless of whether you offer services or you sell fitness-related products.
For example, if you run a yoga studio, you can offer a discount or even free training for anyone who brings in a new client to your studio, and that client signs up. While a referral program may cost you some money to set it up, it will be worth the investment, especially if you do it right.
9. Paid Advertising
If your organic fitness advertisements are not bringing in the results that you want, then you should consider investing in paid fitness advertising. As you may expect, paid fitness advertisements will cost you more, compared to setting up an SEO campaign. But, they will deliver immediate results.
For paid fitness advertisements, you can opt to display your fitness ads on Google, blogs or social media platforms. Paid fitness ads will allow you to target a specific demographic. Furthermore, you can easily track their performance, thus helping you to determine which ads are delivering the expected results.
10. Special Giveaways
If your fitness business is relatively new, giveaways can help to create excitement around your brand and generate awareness. And, a giveaway doesn’t have to be something costly.
For example, if you have opened a Pilates studio, you can offer something like a free first-month membership to the first 10 people that sign up. You can also offer something that isn’t fitness related like a paid dinner for a couple, especially during the holidays.
11. Wrapping It Up
Your fitness business will struggle to attract customers if you don’t have an advertising strategy in place. Fortunately, you have several strategies to choose from. However, it’s worth mentioning that finding the right fitness advertising strategy is more of testing different methods and measuring what works and what doesn’t. So, try out the different methods that we’ve discussed here and then choose what works best for your fitness business.