Advertise Your Gym Effectively With These Simple Strategies

Advertise Your Gym

Over the last decade or so, fitness has EXPLODED! Every major town in the country will have at least a handful of gyms, such is the popularity of exercise and the health and fitness benefits gained from regular gym attendance.

As gym users, having so much choice is fantastic. As a gym owner, the extra competition means you really have to up your game if you want to stand out from an (ever increasing) crowd. The days of sticking a sign up outside your gym and watching the members walk in are long gone.

The market is out there, but you have to be smart if you’re going to tap into it effectively.

In this article I’m going to share tried and tested strategies to help you advertise your gym. This advice has been collected over my more than 10 years in the industry.

Grow a Facebook Presence

Like it or not, you need a rock-solid web presence. In the early days of your gym, you should look to build a good Facebook following in your local area. Use Facebook ads, groups, business pages, offer competitions and giveaways – anything that helps you build your brand locally.

Don’t wast time advertising to a large area – most people will travel a maximum of 15 minutes to the gym, so target your adverts to a small geographical area.

Host a Charity Event

A charity event is a great way to raise money for your favourite charity and showcase both your facility and what you do. Charity events are popular, relatively easy to manage and are often covered by local media, furthering the exposure of your facility.

By hosting a fitness-based charity event you may even attract people who wouldn’t usually use a gym but want to do their bit to support a cause – if that kind of person comes in, you’ve probably opened yourself up to a whole new market.

Aim Locally

One mistake a lot of people make when they are opening up a gym is to advertise it to the entire town. This is a huge waste of money and time, because most people won’t be interested or willing to travel to you. It’ll cost more to advertise across a wider area, so use your budget wisely – go local, target your audience and focus on your ideal customer.

Focus on the 15 minute radius I mentioned earlier. These are your customers – they’re close by, will be able to travel to your facility and will probably have friends in the area, further boosting your membership.

Target Local Influencers

One way to gain a good reputation in your area is to target the influencers who operate locally to your gym. Strike up friendships with people like hairdressers, Doctors, beauticians, teachers – anyone with good standing and lots of connections in the community. You’ll find they do a lot of the advertising for you!

In the case of service business, if you offer their clients discounts on membership at your gym you’ll often see a very significant jump in membership revenues.

Don’t Forget the Basics

Word of mouth is still a killer marketing tool, but people only recommend if they believe in you. Coach well, show up, look after your facility and your members. Take the time to make an effort and it will go a long, long way. Members will recommend you if they fell part of something and not just another number. People want to feel special, so make them feel special.

Build teams, compete as a gym, help local teams out – getting people to exercise in groups is a great way to boost membership and retention…

Too often gym owners focus way too much on bringing new people in and they forget about the original members. Don’t make that mistake.

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