Since the 2020 Pandemic things have certainly shifted in the US. The United States is officially in a recession and people are making cutbacks. So how does the fitness industry keep from being cut out peoples budgets? Well now more than ever people are more conscious on being physically and mentally fit. Your gym can capitalize on that need, but only if you direct mail marketing yourself the right way.
There is also another challenge gyms owners have to fight through: an oversaturated fitness market. With so many options outside of a brick and mortar gyms like streaming classes and online coaches, it can feel like a battle trying to stand out. So how do you get people into your gym? Lets take a look at some different ways to get the attention of your future gym members!
Understanding Promotion & Sales
While marketing is a necessary part of acquiring your new members, it is not going to close the deal. The purpose of marketing is to generate leads. You have to keep in mind that when marketing, your goal is to get them into your business, or on the phone calling in. It is then up to your sales processes to cultivate those leads, turn them into appointments, presentations, and, then, members. While a big part of signing a new member is up to your sales team you have to create a campaign and sales pitch that is enticing and cohesive.
Promotion and marketing provide brand awareness, it connects you to potential new members and it gets you visible in the market. If done right, it will get people to ask you why they should come to your gym rather than some other place. It’s then up to you and your staff to win them over. If you don’t have the ability to do that, then the best marketing in the world will be a waste of time and money.
Reverse the Numbers:
Reverse engineering means that you start at the goal and work backward. So, let’s say that you want to get 25 new gym members. You can work backward from that figure to identify just what you need to do to achieve it.
The fitness industry closing rate average is 50 percent. So, that means that, to get 25 new members, you will need to do 50 sales presentations. Yet not every presentation you book will end up in the person showing up for a presentation. Again, the industry average is 50 percent.
So, to get 50 presentations, you and your team will have to book 100 appointments.
The lead conversion to appointment rate will vary, but, again the industry average is around 50 percent. That means to get 100 appointments, you will need 200 leads.
We now know that you will need to generate 200 leads to achieve your target of 25 new members.
The fitness industry average cost per member is $100. So, you should expect to have to invest $2500 into your marketing budget to realize 25 new members.
Direct Mail
It may seem like an outdated idea to even think about using direct mail as a marketing strategy, especially when we are in the digital heavy society. But over the past 2 decades direct mail has itself and continued to provide results. Direct mail is a great marketing tool when it is layered with other things and can work really well when paired with a digital marketing strategy.
In order for a direct mail campaign to work, you need to run it for a minimum of 90 days. Over that period, you should send out three different messages:
- The first message should be an introductory, or warm-up message. It should still, though, have a call to action on it.
- The second message will contain a slightly more aggressive call to action.
- The third message will be built around FOMO – it will have a scarcity, don’t miss out angle to it.
Campaign Numbers:
- A good marketing campaign will involve sending out between five thousand and ten thousand mailers every month.
- Send out the mailers within a three to five-mile radius around your gym.
- You want to include a webpage, QR code or dedicated phone line to help you source your leads. This will help you to analyze the results of the campaign to determine you ROI.
- Expect to spend between $500-$7000 for a 90-day direct mail campaign.
- The average return in terms of new members on a 90-day campaign is about thirty new members.
- Final numbers: if your direct mail campaign netted 50 new members. If they are each paying $100 per month, that’s a $60,000 return on your $5-7000 direct mail investment.
Realize that your direct mail campaign will generally not yield great results on its own. Not that many people will walk into the gym with a mailer in their hand saying ‘Sign me up’. Rather, direct mail is just one layer of a number of different avenues of getting your business into the consciousness of the potential new customer.
If you’d like to find out more information about how to use seasonal fluctuations to the advantage of your business, or if you have any other questions you’d like to see answered, please don’t delay – contact us today.
