Assume you are a gym owner who started their fitness journey 6 months ago by opening your gym. You have only one motive to open your gym to inspire people of your town to start their fitness journey at a market-competitive price. Moreover, you also want to provide the best solution for people according to their fitness preferences. To fulfill your vision, you do complete market research in which you collect information such as your target audience preferences and fitness goals.
After completing your fitness market analysis that you are going to target, you open your gym at a place where your members get an easy convenience to reach your business. Moreover, you also made a heavy investment in the internal ambiance of your gym to ensure a more remarkable fitness experience for your members. You also hired fitness professionals with relevant PT training certifications. All these efforts that you made to achieve the success of your gym enable you to attract a limited number of members. The limited number of members in your gym leads to frustration that may raise a question in your mind: Whether people of the town have lost interest in their fitness or you are missing something that helps you attract new members.
As per RunRepeat’s research, around 2.4% of the world’s population has enrolled in gyms to achieve their fitness goals. The US has the most active gym members, around 64.19 million. Germany and the UK take second and third place, with 11.66 and 10.39 million active members, respectively. This statistical analysis shows that the audience has not lost interest in their fitness. However, you are missing something that enables you to stabilize your gym financially by attracting new members.
So, to attract new members to your business, it is essential for you to use effective fitness marketing strategies. These marketing strategies for gyms enable you to align your fitness goals with your members. Here, we are going to discuss the top 11 best marketing strategies for a gym that can help you attract new members to your gym in 2024.
Areas to consider before implementing marketing strategies
Before discussing the effective marketing strategies that enable you to make your fitness business successful, it is essential for you to understand the important areas that you have to consider. An effective marketing strategy enables you to deliver relevant messages to your potential leads that resonate with their fitness goals and attract them to your business. Here are the two areas that you have to consider before implementing an effective marketing strategy to attract new members.
Be authentic
Whether you are marketing new offerings in your gym or event, you must ensure that these marketing campaigns are authentic and genuine. When a potential lead visits your gym website via different social platforms, that lead finds relevant information and pictures about the event or the new offering that you are going to market.
As per Oberlo’s research, 80% of clients expect authenticity from the brand they choose to purchase a product or service from. Authenticity in your marketing campaigns not only enables you to attract new leads and increase the chances of conversion but also enables you to gain your members’ trust as you market the service that you offer in your gym.
For example, you run a gym in your locality, and your target audience loves to learn about new fitness workouts. To attract them to your gym, you start marketing campaigns in which you announce that you will offer HIIT training. But you are just running this campaign to attract new leads. In reality, you are not going to offer them any new service.
This campaign enables you to attract different leads, but when they visit your place, they find nothing related to HIIT training. Thus, this false marketing campaign affects your gym’s image and your member’s trust. So, it is important for you to be authentic with your words while implementing an effective marketing strategy.
Experiment with other platforms
Whenever you implement a new strategy to market your gym, it is essential not to restrict your campaigns to a single platform. Expanding your marketing content on different platforms enables you to engage a larger segment of the audience and increase the chance of lead conversions.
Initially, gym owners use Facebook and Instagram to grab the attention of the digital audience. However, as the trend changed, TikTok became a platform for growing fitness businesses. So, it is essential for you to experiment with different platforms to increase the chance of conversion.
As per The Social Shepherd’s research, Facebook has around 3.065 billion users who visit the social platform monthly, while Instagram has around 2 billion active users monthly. Moreover, TikTok has 1.5 billion users monthly. This statistical analysis shows that if you use the combination of all these social platforms to run your gym campaign, it increases the chance of lead conversion while ensuring the success of your fitness business.
For example, To ensure the success of the HIIT training program, you decide to run a marketing campaign on Facebook. This marketing campaign on Facebook responds well and enables you to attract loyal members, but it still limits your vision’s reach. So, if you want to attract more members, it is essential for you to include other social platforms, such as Instagram and Tiktok, to enhance your audience reach.
11 effective marketing strategies for your gym
After understanding the areas of marketing strategies that enable you to define the success of your fitness business, it is essential for you to know about the 11 effective marketing ideas that enable you to attract loyal members in 2024. These marketing strategies for gyms help you stabilize your gym financially while establishing your fitness business as a name of trust and passion. Here are the 11 effective marketing strategies that you must follow to grow your fitness business in 2024.
Offer a variety of classes
If you want to ensure the success of your fitness business by attracting loyal and passionate members, you have to ensure that your gym offers a variety of classes. These classes enable you to reach a broader spectrum of target audience members who show interest in different workout programs. As per Yoga Vidya school’s research, over 300 million people worldwide practice yoga. Out of these, 35 million practitioners are from the USA alone. However, As per Live Strong’s research, 8.7% of the US population participates in Cardio exercise, while 8.9% participate in weight lifting exercises.
To attract these three different segments of the target audience, you have to ensure that your gym offers all these exercises. Offering these exercises to your members not only increases the retention rate but also enables you to move one step ahead of your competition. The variety of classes you offer in your gym creates a sense of excitement and encourages your members to try new workout programs that enhance their fitness experience.
For example, you run a fitness center in your locality where the audience loves to perform HIIT, Cardio, Yoga, and Strength training. To attract the broader audience segment, you offer HIIT and strength training in your gym. Potential leads who love to perform these workout programs came to your place and started their fitness journey. After some time, you also offer your members yoga and cardio workouts.
Thus, it enables you to attract more loyal members to your gym. Moreover, offering a variety of classes enables you to provide a more remarkable fitness experience for your members as they get all the exercises they love under one roof.
Attract seniors
Most gyms overlook seniors while offering different workout plans. However, seniors represent a valuable demographic that has grown interested in fitness and wellness. So, if you want to grow your fitness business by attracting new members, you have to ensure that your workout plans enable seniors to achieve their fitness goals.
Including seniors in your gym marketing strategy enables you to target a highly respected audience segment. Demonstrating your passion and commitment to helping them achieve their fitness goals establishes your gym as a welcoming and inclusive place.
As per Live Strong’s research, 21% of the yoga practitioners that perform yoga worldwide have an age bracket between 60 and older. So, if you include yoga in your gym workout program and invite seniors, you will be able to increase the number of members and establish your business as a brand.
For example, you run a gym at a place where 10% of the population is comprised of seniors who love to perform yoga to stay fit. Unfortunately, your competition in that place doesn’t offer yoga services and completely neglects this target audience segment. So, to attract seniors to your gym, you offer them yoga classes that enable you to attract 10% of the population to your business. Attracting seniors not only enables you to stabilize your business financially but also establishes your gym as an inclusive place to workout.
Target millennials
Another marketing strategy that you can use in your gym is to target millennials while designing workout programs or offering special fitness sessions for this segment of the audience. Millennials prioritize self-care and make heavy investments in their physical and mental well-being. According to Gitnux’s research, 77% of millennials prefer to exercise in groups over exercising alone.
So, if you want to ensure the success of your gym by targeting millennials, you have to make sure that you offer services that need to be done in groups. Group sessions help you to attract more loyal millennial members and increase your gym membership sales. Moreover, creating a socially engaging environment also helps you attract millennials to your gym. Thus, you have to make sure that you organize events, seminars, and fitness challenges to foster a sense of connection and community among the millennials.
For example, You run a gym in a place where 20% of the population belongs to millennials. So, if you want to ensure the success of your business while moving one step ahead of your competition, you have to make sure to attract these millennials. Attracting this segment of the target audience helps you establish your gym as a place where fitness enthusiasts can perform workouts in a socially engaging environment.
So, to attract this segment, you have to ensure that you organize special events and group sessions that increase the chance of potential lead conversion and establish your gym as a brand.
Free classes
Another marketing strategy for a gym that enables you to attract new members is to offer free classes. By offering free classes and workout sessions to your potential leads, you allow them to witness your training methods and gym environment. These free classes allow you to identify the audience that has the same fitness goals as you. Moreover, you can also offer free classes to your gym members if they want to enroll in more than one workout program at a time.
You simply allow members who are interested in another program to take free classes. These free classes enable you to gain your members’ trust and loyalty to your gym. Such a loyal member helps you attract new members through word-of-mouth marketing.
For example, you are going to start your gym in a place where people have limited knowledge about fitness. In order to attract members to your gym, you have to ensure to offer them free classes. In free classes, you tell all potential leads the benefits of being fit and how to perform a workout to attain the physique that fits their fitness preferences. These free classes not only enable you to attract new members but also help you to establish your gym as a brand.
Offer personalized attention
Another effective way to attract new loyal members while establishing your gym as a brand is to offer personalized attention. Offering personalized care and attention to each member creates a sense of value among them and ensures a remarkable fitness experience. As per IHSRA’s research, three out of five active gym members say that having personalized attention in the gym helps them feel that they are on track to meeting their fitness goals.
It means that if you offer personalized attention to each member, it enables them to foster a sense of belonging among them and helps you gain their loyalty and trust. Moreover, offering this fitness experience to your members enables them to attract more members to your gym through word-of-mouth marketing. You can provide personalized attention via various means, such as customized workout plans, one-on-one consultations, or individual coaching sessions.
For example, You own a gym that offers HIIT training and strength training to its members. Whenever a potential lead reaches your gym via word-of-mouth or any social platform marketing campaign, you provide them guidance and ensure your leads that your vision aligns with their fitness. Moreover, you give each member of your gym customized workout plans that enable them to achieve their fitness goals, which helps you set your fitness business apart from your competition and helps you attract more members.
Use social media platforms to inspire the audience
If you want to broaden the spectrum of your target audience, you have to ensure that you use different social media platforms. These social platforms, such as Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook, etc, provide you a valuable opportunity to connect with your existing members and potential leads. Moreover, using different social platforms allows you to build a solid online presence.
As per Smart Insights Digital Marketing’s research, more than 62.6% (5.07 billion) of the world population use different social media platforms. You can run Facebook ads to attract potential leads from Facebook or use different Facebook groups to promote special offers, discounts, or challenges. Moreover, you can use high-quality media and content that resonate with your potential leads’ interest and increase the chance of a conversion.
For example, you started your gym at a place where people love to achieve their fitness goals. You made a heavy investment in the ambiance and location of the gym. But still, you are not able to attract new members to your gym. Then, you put Facebook ads related to your gym offering and also post content on other social media platforms. Thus, it enables you to attract more members and establish your gym as a brand while resonating your vision with members’ fitness goals.
Share reviews and success stories
To attract potential leads to your gym, you can share your existing members’ success stories and reviews of their fitness experiences on different social media platforms. These testimonials enable your potential leads to connect with your existing members’ fitness journeys and start their own fitness journeys.
In these testimonials, you can ask your members questions like how their lives changed after joining your gym and how they felt when they achieved a milestone under your personal trainer’s supervision. Thus, these success stories and reviews attract potential leads who have the same fitness goals as your existing members.
For example, To inspire your online community members to start their fitness journey, you share the success stories of different members. Your members’ success stories and relevant pictures affect your online community, and the target audience that feels the same develops a connection with that story, which increases the chance of lead conversion.
Provide incentives
Another effective marketing strategy for attracting new members to your gym is offering incentives. Incentives not only inspire people to start their fitness journey but also increase the pressure to achieve their fitness goals immediately. According to Zinrelo’s research, 84% of clients say they’re more likely to stick to a brand that offers them incentives through a loyalty program.
This means you can offer your members incentives through discounted or promotional membership rates. You can limit the discount, which creates a sense of urgency among your members and increases their efforts to achieve that limit. Moreover, you can also offer incentives by offering your members a loyalty program or referral incentives.
In this incentive, your members have to bring new members to your gym and achieve their reward. This reward can be in the form of discounted or promotional membership rates. Thus, these incentives enable your gym members to promote your business via word-of-mouth marketing and help your business establish itself as a brand.
For example, in your gym, you notice that the number of members is falling daily, affecting your business reputation. Thus, to tackle this situation, you came up with the idea of incentives that you can give to members who bring business to your gym. This will enable you to revive your business financially and increase client retention rates.
Listen to feedback
If you want to attract new leads while ensuring the fitness experience they want, you must listen to your existing members’ feedback. This will give you the best insights into their perspective on the fitness experience at your gym. Your members are the ones who use your services and can give you helpful tips that help you improve your gym.
You can implement the feedback mechanism by conducting surveys or asking your members to put their suggestions into the suggestion box. After the feedback mechanism is completed, you have to read out their answers and highlight the areas in your gym that require improvements. You can use this suggestion to improve or introduce new offerings that align with potential lead preferences. Listening to your members’ suggestions also enables you to foster a sense of belonging among them and helps you gain their trust and loyalty.
For example, In your gym, you want your members to highlight the areas of flaws to bring improvement and to align your fitness center offering with new members. For this, you conduct a survey in which you mention different gym offerings and ask your members about the changes they thought to be rectified. After completion, you compile the results and implement the changes for improvement. Thus, it enables you to foster a sense of belonging among your members, increasing new member referrals.
Organize events
You can also organize events that enable you to directly attract new members by showcasing your fitness skills. These events allow you to engage with a target audience and create a sense of excitement among them. These social events enable you to demonstrate your gym’s commitment to its value. You can host events such as workshops, open houses, seminars, or themed workout classes. These events enable you to deliver a unique fitness experience to existing members and increase the chance of attracting new leads.
For example, you are a gym owner who has invested heavily in running marketing campaigns for your business. But, still, you are not getting the results that you are expecting. Then, you heard about a competition in the town where your competition also takes part. Your gym members performed unexceptionally in the event and won the first prize. It enables your gym to be established as a brand. It also allows you to communicate directly with your potential leads and helps you to attract new members to your fitness center.
Partner with local business
Another effective strategy to attract new members to your fitness center is to partner with local businesses. This partnership enables both companies to create an environment where both can generate revenue. In this partnership, your gym offers special discounts to the clients of your partner, and in return, your partner provides services to your members. This partnership not only enables you to attract new members but also helps you to market your gym offering among the target audience.
For example, you started a gym six months ago, attracting a limited number of members. To grow your business, you implement the marketing strategy of partnership. Thus, to find a suitable partner, you do complete market research and find a coffee shop in the town that people of the area visit each morning to have their first coffee.
You go to the coffee shop owner and offer him special discounts to the members he refers to. In return, he has to offer a free coffee to your gym members. This partnership works, and within two months, the number of members rises to 200 from 20. This effective marketing strategy increases your gym’s visibility and reputation among the community.
Bottom line
To run your fitness business successfully, it is essential for you to market your gym offering in a way that aligns your target audience preferences with your vision. This not only increases the chance of potential lead conversion but also enables you to create an environment that allows your members to achieve the desired results.
