Modern Marketing for Busy Gym Owners

Modern Marketing for the Busy Gym Owner

WHAT IS MARKETING, ANYWAY?

Your idea of marketing might be a little outdated if you think marketing ends

when the selling begins.

Sure, marketing is essentially promoting your business, but today that means

marketing is everything: presale, during the sale and after they sign up too.

Marketing is everything because . . .

People don’t differentiate between marketing, sales, training experience, facility upkeep, culture and all the different ways you (the

owner) break up your business.

People only remember the overall experience which is made up of every single tiny interaction your

members have with your gym.

And because your best lead source for new members is referral business, your

#1 marketing priority should be to create an AWESOME overall experience for your

members to promote.

Unfortunately, having great coaches and topnotch programming isn’t enough

anymore.

The secret is out. Functional fitness is all the rage and seasoned business people

are investing in their own boxes.

*cue dramatic music

They may not have your passion and level of training expertise, but chances are they have a better idea of how to

reach the masses. . .

Which is a little scary when you think about it. We don’t want these suits screwing with our sacred grassroots

culture.

So, the goal here is to:

So, the goal here is to: 1) Market your box effectively and efficiently

so you are profitable no matter how saturated your geographical area becomes

So, the goal here is to: 1) Market your box effectively and efficiently

so you are profitable no matter how saturated your geographical area becomes

AND

2) Never cross the line of selling out like the big

box gyms and always stay true to our culture

Where do you start?

THE MEMBER’S JOURNEY Understand the Member’s Journey which is:

• It’s the research process a potential new member goes through

before deciding to become an athlete at your gym. • It’s the experience they have with your gym as a new member • It’s the experience they have with your gym as a long time

member • It’s the issues and challenges that pop up along the way

THE MEMBER’S JOURNEY

Why is this important?

Understanding the Member’s journey will make understanding HOW you need to market your gym very easy.

It’s a reminder that your members needs should be the focus of

everything you do promote your gym. If that’s the focus of all of your marketing, you’ll be in great shape.

THE MEMBER’S JOURNEY Persona realizes

problem (too much fat, too little muscle, feeling old) & hears about this functional fitness thing

Googles “CF in [your city]” and visits your

website

Signs up for a free trial Signs on as a new

member

Goes through on-ramp/fundamentals

course

Becomes an athlete! Plateaus/hits

sophomore slump

Gets personal training

Becomes a raving crazy lunatic promoter of your

gym. The cycle starts over again as this

person refers a friend.

Start here


Let’s take you through an example of how you can really nail your marketing with the Member’s Journey in mind.

Meet Jerry.

He’s soft, and this is his story.

THE MEMBER’S JOURNEY “Well look at that. I’m getting a little round. Maybe it’s time I try this functional fitness thing I heard that guy in the office talking about.

Googles “CF in Sacramento” and sees a dozen listings on the first page. This website looks cool. This website is kinda ugly. This website is alright – lots of sweaty people lying on the ground. . . Try a free class? No, not yet. Leaves these websites and watches some TV.



Do you see what happened here?

Jerry was kinda, sorta interested in looking into functional fitness but he wasn’t ready to jump right into it. There wasn’t anything on these

websites that particularly caught his attention so he got bored and hungry and turned on Scrubs.

Will he be back to these sites again when he’s

ready? Who knows.

“Well look at that. I’m getting a little round. Maybe it’s time I try this functional fitness thing I heard that guy in the office talking about.



This is what we know.

Jerry is getting soft so he’s interested in WODing for fat loss. He doesn’t care that the workouts are hard or that the community is awesome. He just

wants to slim down. So, how do we speak to guys like Jerry?

Put helpful content on your website that’s specific

to common reasons why people join your gym.




For example, if you become a Barbell Logic client, we’ll design your badass website to capture the attention (and email address) of people who are

looking to lose fat, build muscle, find a new hobby and ease pain/improve mobility with these:




These are professionally written eBooks that live on your website which cover the most common reasons

someone would want to join your box. We update them every year so they’re always fresh.

Inside, are calls to action to try our your affiliate for a free session.




Sneaky, huh? Not really. This is GOOD marketing. You’re educating your buyer so he can make this

decision in a natural way – he’ll never know he was being marketed to.

We even design them to look like they were written by

and for your own gym. You guys are the experts!



So what happens to Jerry now?

He read some great info about fat loss and learned how functional fitness is the answer on

your website. Does that mean he’s ready to come in for a free session?

THE MEMBER’S JOURNEY “This eBook was pretty eye opening. Maybe I’ll try Affiliate XYZ soon. But for now, I’ll just watch some TV.”

THE MEMBER’S JOURNEY “This eBook was pretty eye opening. Maybe I’ll try CF at XYZ soon. But for now, I’ll just watch some TV.”

Do you see what happened here?

Jerry was really getting into it! But old habits die hard. He got hungry and … damn you Scrubs.

Will he be back to visit your website again even

though you spent all that time to provide him with content that mattered to him?

Who knows? That ingrate.


The problem here is the lack of follow up. Sure, you can add him to your email list and send him

the monthly newsletter. But honestly, who cares about your newsletter? Not Jerry (yet).

At this point, savvy marketers do something called “drip marketing” or “lead nurturing” to “segmented

lists” Aaaand that’s the last of the marketing jargon, I promise.


The idea here is that you nurture Jerry with little bite sized pieces of educational/funny/helpful emails that are easy to consume and are always speaking to his interests with the goal of getting him to that next

step: to come in for a free training session.

If you send Jerry 1 damn email about gainz and getting huge, you’ve lost him and your emails will wind up in the Gmail boneyard of ignored emails.


So how can you nurture Jerry without bugging him with emails he’ll ignore or get annoyed with?

If you become a client of Barbell Logic, we’d set up the eBooks on your website so that a lead would

have to fill out a form to get it. That form asks a few key things:

Name Email

Gender Experience level


Asking a lead’s gender and experience level are the key bits of data we need to give this lead an awesome email

communication experience.

Why?

When an experienced athlete walks into your gym, you wouldn’t explain to them what WOD means.

If a 45-year-old woman comes into your gym inquiring about your

classes, you wouldn’t start by mentioning how the actors in 300 used functional fitness to get ripped. That’s an awesome story for a 16-year-

old boy though!


Your online communication should be as personal as your face-to-face communication. This is something the biggest, best, era

defining brands in the world do and you can do it too.

“But, I don’t have that kind of budget?!”

You’re right, you couldn’t afford it if you tried to do this on your own, which is why we created Barbell Logic. We’ve done all of this for you and spread out the development cost to many other gyms

so you’re all sharing in the cost and reaping the rewards of automated growth.


OK, enough of the plug. Back to Jerry. What’s next?

THE MEMBER’S JOURNEY “Those emails were super helpful and kinda hilarious. Affiliate XYZ gets me. I’ll try the free class and just give it a shot. Jerry calls Affiliate XYZ and no one picks up the phone and leaves a message. But, Jerry wants to get the ball rolling so he calls another gym on his Google search results page. They pick up and also offer a free session. I really want to try Affilaite XYZ, but I’ll also check this one out since they scheduled me to come in today and compare my options.


After everything you’ve done for Jerry, despite ALL of that awesome marketing, he just went and cheated.

Just like that!

The problem here is response rate. Traditional sales wisdom isn’t just reserved for guys in suits. The first to get back to a customer will win the sale the VAST majority of the time.

When a lead calls you to schedule a time to come in for a free session, just assume that he’s just going down a list of gyms

and will end up joining the first one he visits.

Your competitors probably aren’t great at marketing, but chances are they’ll creating a great first training experience.


What’s the solution?

Build auto responders into your free training session forms. Sound simple? Good! Great marketing doesn’t have to be that complicated.

Tell your lead that you’re currently making the world (or at least the

surrounding area) a fitter place and will get back to them ASAP. But don’t stop there! Give them something to do while you have their attention.

Check out our coaches’ bios. They’re the best in the area. Check out our success stories page to see how our members have transformed. Like us

on Facebook to see all of the awesome stuff we do.

Do as much as you can to keep their mind on you so they don’t wander off to a competitor.


The next step is to ACTUALLY CALL THEM BACK, PEOPLE!

Don’t you hate it when you reach out to a business and they take forever

to get back to you, or don’t at all? It’s easy to forget that on the other side of that business line is just a person and people can make mistakes–

but, hey, it’s still annoying.

The last thing you want to do is annoy a potential new member. Remember, all of the little things add up to the overall experience – and

usually the bad things stand out more (at least in the beginning)


There are things you can do to organize tasks like this that can really pile up especially if your marketing is on point.

One of these things is to become a Barbell Logic client.

Not only does Barbell Logic automate all of your sales and marketing, it also queues up tasks like this on a simple dashboard. All you do is login

in the morning (better yet get a free intern) and work your way down the tasks Barbell Logic has set up for you.


Now, let’s take a break. How are you feeling about the New Member’s Journey

so far?

Feeling like there’s a bit of room for improvement?


When you get into the mindset of marketing with the Member’s Journey in

mind, it tends to really get your gears going.


It’s like playing Undercover Boss and with your own box to see where the holes are from a member’s perspective – to shed

light on how you can fill them with really GREAT marketing.

THE NEW MEMBER’S JOURNEY Now back to the plug.

The Barbell Logic system is made up of dozens of campaigns and hundreds of

emails that are scheduled to go out during different phases of your members’ journey.

So, really this slide deck could go on for days.

THE NEW MEMBER’S JOURNEY Here’s a simplified version of what Jerry’s journey

might look like if you were a client of Barbell Logic:

See next page for email examples

THE NEW MEMBER’S JOURNEY Emails from previous slide

THE NEW MEMBER’S JOURNEY

We hope you found this quick guide to the modern marketing methodology helpful.

If you’d like to learn more about Barbell Logic and to see if it would be a good fit for your gym apply for a

free discovery session here.

www.barbelllogic.com

http://go.barbelllogic.com/strategy-session




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Modern Marketing for Busy Gym Owners