11 Marketing Tips On How To Grow Your Fitness Business

We all are witnessing fitness industry growth as the market continues to increase in value. In the US alone, there are more than 41,000 gyms and fitness clubs across states. The fitness boom has intensified the competition among businesses, making it fiercer.

Many are using fitness center management software to enhance engagement and cater to their audience’s needs. But when it comes to scaling, small fitness businesses are struggling to scale.

If you are facing the same issue, don’t fret; we’ve got your back!

All it takes is to follow proven fitness marketing strategies that have been working for big giants. And we’ve already done the hard work on that part, too.

In this article, we are sharing 11 highly effective marketing strategies for gym and fitness centers. These will help you engage potential customers, increase memberships, and improve retention rate, ensuring consistent progress. The below fitness marketing tips will help you step up your game, ensuring steep upward growth.

1. Establish Online Presence

Digital marketing is the key to winning new customers in the online world. It’s the best way to connect with your existing clients and find new prospects without breaking a sweat. You can increase local reach within a specific area to grab the attention of your ideal audience.

Online marketing makes businesses visible across multiple platforms to whole new audiences. All you need for this is to create:

• A professional website
• Intuitive mobile app
• Social media handles

A user-friendly website is the online address of your fitness businesses where you can market services. With a brilliant strategy, you can entice visitors to make bookings online.

In addition to these, engaging in digital PR is crucial for establishing credibility and expanding your reach. Digital PR involves building relationships with online publications, influencers, and bloggers to secure media coverage for your fitness business. Leveraging this strategy can enhance your brand visibility and attract a broader audience. According to recent surveys, around 66% of PR professionals aim to produce measurable outcomes, highlighting the effectiveness and accountability of digital PR efforts in the fitness industry.

2. Focus on Content Marketing

Creating a website is essential, but if you aren’t producing useful content, you’ll be in the wilderness. People are always looking for information and love businesses that quench their thirst for knowledge. That’s why blogging is so popular, and for the same reason, brands focus on content marketing.

Through content marketing, you can:

• Engage relevant audience on the internet
• Improve website traffic and conversions
• Create brand awareness for your fitness business
• Produce valuable information for potential clients

3. Do Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is about making your fitness business ready for search engines like Google and Bing. It puts your business in front of the right audience at the right time. SEO ensures you are using the right words to engage your ideal audience and address their issues the right way.

More importantly, SEO helps you rank higher than your competitors against specific queries or services. In simple words, your fitness business appears on top when potential clients search for services like yours. This, in turn, results in generating more traffic to your website and, hence, more customers.

4. Pay Attention to Social Media Marketing

Do you know more than 57% of the global population use social media?

This means social media marketing can help you market to more than 4 billion people worldwide. However, the trick is to find a suitable platform where your ideal audience likes to hang around. And for fitness businesses like yours, social media is the perfect place.

Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram are the most popular channels where you can advertise your gym or fitness center services.

With minimal effort, you can make your voice heard and your business visible. You can easily find and connect with like-minded people while enticing potential customers to give your business a try.

5. Include Video Marketing

Video marketing is highly effective when it comes to online marketing, as per HubSpot’s research. People love watching visuals, and businesses, especially fitness clubs, have reported higher conversion rates.

But, like social media, you’ve to pick the right platforms to publish video content. Of course, you’ll have to ensure first whether your target audience is present on the platform.

Right now, YouTube and TikTok are two popular platforms for marketing where people spend time watching videos. Facebook is another option if you are willing to go a step forward and want to target Generation Z. Additionally, X (formerly Twitter) is also becoming popular among fitness enthusiasts, so don’t ignore it.

However, keep in mind that you’ll need a video editor to post quality videos on these platforms. If you are short on budget, you can also use video editing tools like FlexClip, InVideo or Veed to generate videos.

6. Offer Gym Referral Program for members

You are already aware that affiliate marketing and referrals are no different. The concept is the same as you’ll be rewarding existing customers for bringing in new ones. You can offer free classes, unlimited sessions, or discounts to encourage people who refer new clients.

People love to join gyms and work out in fitness clubs with friends or family members. So, this is a great way not only to improve the retention rate but also to increase memberships.

7. Run Paid Marketing Campaigns

Online marketing is great for getting organic traffic, but it takes time to generate results. And if you are looking for quick leads, paid marketing is the way forward. It involves spending money on running advertisements either on search engines or social media platforms.

We recommend you go for PPC campaigns as Google is the biggest search engine used by people. It can help you generate more traffic and better leads in less time.

Running social media ads is another option that you must consider if you are trying to find new customers. However, do your research before doing social advertisements on any platform. The ideal way is to consider a channel with the most traffic and a higher number of potential prospects.

8. Share Success Stories

This might be new for you, but people always look for endorsements before joining a fitness center. They want to be sure that the club or gym can help them meet their fitness goals. To address this issue, we recommend you share the success stories of your existing customers.

Positive words from your fitness club members can go a long way and might do the trick. Furthermore, it’ll show potential customers how helpful your staff is and how beneficial your services are.

9. Don't Ignore Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is relatively new, but it’s a highly effective way for services businesses to get customers. The idea is to reach out to influencers who are active on social media platforms. Influencers normally have a loyal fanbase, and their followers listen to their words and recommendations. You can ask such influencers to recommend your business to their audiences.

Influencer marketing will cost you, but it’s usually less expensive than paid marketing. Additionally, you get to reach new audiences who are more likely to convert into leads.

We recommend you reach local or micro-influencers who work in the same niche, i.e., fitness. You can pay them for recommending your fitness business or offer a percentage on each lead.

10. Integrate Email Marketing

Among all digital marketing tactics, email is the most beneficial in terms of outcomes. However, you’ll need a compelling strategy and persuasive words to hit the sweet spot. The key to a successful email marketing campaign is knowing your audience and crafting personalized emails.

However, make sure you have a skilled copywriter who can win customers for you with words. Also, don’t try verbosity, and try to keep your email copy as simple as possible. We recommend you add call-to-action (CTA) buttons at appropriate spaces without overloading the email copy.

The results will be even better if you have a website for your fitness business. This way, you can market different services to different audiences and bring them to the right service pages

11. Try Event Marketing

It’s not a norm, but event marketing might do the trick if nothing is working. Even if you are getting good results from other marketing approaches, try event marketing. It’s a great way to expand your audience reach by hosting a live, hybrid, or virtual event.

You can host a bodybuilding contest or free yoga classes at your fitness club. If nothing, do a live webinar event about the best fitness techniques. You can also join or host podcasts about nutrition or healthy eating habits necessary for fitness.

12. Bonus Marketing Tips for Fitness Businesses

Marketing is all about understanding your audience and addressing their pinpoints. Here are a few more tricks that can give your business the extra edge that it needs to grow.

12.1 Join Hands with Other Businesses

Partnering up with similar businesses is a great tactic if you are failing to generate enough leads. As a fitness business, you can join hands with nutritionists or physio clinics who often recommend people join gyms.

12.2 Utilize User-Generated (UGC) Content

User-generated content represents images or videos that other people create and are helpful for your audience. This will come in handy if you cannot produce your own content or don’t have the time for it. All you’ve to do is repost useful content on your social media handles by adding valuable information or context.

This way, you might attract an audience who likes to know more about fitness techniques or healthy habits. With time, you can turn them into customers by marketing your fitness services in between UGC posts.

12.3 Create a Fitness App

It sounds expensive, but having an intuitive, user-friendly app can bring good results for your business. You can market your fitness courses and earn income by providing useful information about fitness. The good thing is that you can run an affiliate program and make a living by recommending customers to nearby fitness centers.

13. Final Note

Learning how to grow your fitness business requires a better sense of your audience. You don’t have to be tech savvy but will have to utilize the popular marketing means. Creating a business website, focusing on content marketing, and doing social media marketing can generate better results. To get quick leads, you can run paid advertisements and offer referral programs.