Fitness Marketing: The Ultimate Guide For Agencies

Struggling to juggle all the work of marketing a fitness brand? Fitness marketing is more than challenging for marketing agencies.

Let me take a guess. You have already tried popular marketing techniques but failed to get results your fitness clients appreciate? 

If so, then it’s time to add something new to your marketing mix, like automated direct mail or personalized flyers with healthy recipes. 

Direct mail marketing through Postalytics offers a way to make things simpler and more manageable. It will help you streamline your campaign while attracting a massive audience for your business and clients. 

Automated direct mail marketing is designed to help marketers and fitness-related business owners who are stuck under a barrage of several marketing tools, strategies, and products. 

But, automated direct mail is only a part of a good marketing mix for fitness brands. Let’s explore how to make your clients happy with the latest and the most effective marketing strategies.

Fitness Marketing Strategies for Gyms made Simple

A well-designed fitness marketing campaign can help gym owners to keep gym members informed, excited, and engaged to come back to the gym regularly. 

On top of that, it encourages people who haven’t enrolled in the local gym to start getting fit and healthy. Whether you choose email, social media, direct mail, newsletters for fitness marketing, or of the above, your audience will stay loyal if you keep them updated and well-informed on the latest health trends.

Marketing strategies can also help you engage with your client’s clients and determine what they expect and need from a fitness club. With a thoughtful marketing plan, you can provide the target audience with a meaningful and informative interaction that encourages them to take action. 

You don’t need to opt for challenging and complex marketing tactics to promote your fitness organization. 

Instead, you need a strategy that takes less time and effort to leave a lasting impression, and that too at an affordable price. 

Direct mail marketing is one of the best methods in this regard. It’s proven to have the highest return on investment (ROI) when compared to other marketing channels. This strategy boosts visibility, and response rates, and allows more creative opportunities than standard digital marketing methods.

Fitness marketing produces the best results when you can incorporate several marketing channels into a powerful fitness marketing engine.

Are your client’s local gyms or fitness franchises?

In need of a marketing strategy for a local gym? Or has a fitness franchise reached out to you for marketing purposes? 

Whether it’s a local gym, health club, or bigger fitness franchise company, they all need a well-planned, industry-driven, and strong fitness marketing strategy. 

But first, understanding that different fitness clients will have different needs is the key to creating a good marketing strategy.

Local fitness businesses require a marketing plan that focuses on the people living in that area. Though the audience will be much smaller than a fitness franchise, you still need a strong marketing campaign to convince locals to enroll in the gym. Since local gyms are not as popular as bigger franchises, you need to show what features set you apart from fitness franchises and why people need to opt for you instead of a bigger brand. 

For instance, you can market that you offer free training sessions or personal trainers sessions with a personalized flyer that will hit your prospects home just after Christmas when a lot of people start making New Year resolutions.

In the case of a fitness franchise, you need marketing tools and strategies to stay in the spotlight and get the attention of the audience. Regular marketing can help franchises remind the audience why their fitness business is still the best in the market. 

How to Attract More Members to a Gym in 3 Steps with Fitness Marketing Strategy?

As a fitness marketing agency or fitness marketer, your biggest challenge is to attract and keep new members. 

Note that for many people, going to the gym isn’t as appealing as going to their favorite restaurant or streaming their favorite show. Many will lose their interest and enthusiasm after a few weeks of buying a gym membership. Consistently sticking to fitness goals is easier said than done, so when you don’t motivate your target demographic, it becomes impossible for a gym owner to stay in business. And if your clients are not in business, it’s going to be challenging for your agency to stay in business too.

The marketer needs to design an impressive and exclusive plan that attracts more members to a gym. Here are the three steps you need to follow to market a gym and engage with more people.

Step One: Research the Best Fitness Marketing Ideas and Campaigns

Research is the cornerstone of good fitness marketing. It will help you create irresistible marketing material that will engage and move your target prospects.

The research comes in different shapes and sizes. To avoid losing time on the wrong things, here are several ideas to explore:

Research and Address Current Events

Think about the latest events. What is the world going through collectively? What is your community or your client’s community going through? Find a way to address those issues.

When you incorporate current events in your campaign, people will relate to the brand. For instance, now that a large number of people have been working from home for the past two years, you can start a campaign that focuses on staying fit while staying at home. 

Unearth Helpful Content

Execute a marketing campaign that shares helpful content, such as giving some tips on a healthy diet, what exercises are easy to perform at home, and what makes you different from others. Postalytics allows you to add your desired text to postcards and letters. It’s an effective means to spread awareness about modern fitness techniques, the health benefits of staying active, etc.

Find Positive Reviews and Success Stories

You can create a campaign revolving around success stories and reviews about your company. This type of campaign will encourage the audience to take action and buy a gym membership as soon as possible.

Create a List of Fitness Influencers

Incorporating fitness influencers in your campaign is a great idea to boost sales. Hire an influencer and ask them to talk about your gym in their social media posts.

Step Two:  Create Special Offers that Gym-Goers can’t Refuse

Include special and exciting offers in your campaign to attract more customers. Of course, no one can resist enjoying the benefits of discounts, gifts, and prizes. So, offer something unique that your potential customers can’t refuse. Here are some options.

Coupons: 50% Off On Bringing a Friend

Send a coupon discount on services for members who will bring a friend to enroll at the gym. Not only do you get two members at a time, but enrolling friends together will improve the chances of your members showing up every month. Friends usually try to keep each other accountable in the gym.

Free Personalized Healthy Meal Plans

Gym-goers are always on the lookout for the next healthy treat or a meal. You can mail a letter with a diet plan and recipes to each of your members for free to stay top of mind and keep them engaged..

Free Personal Trainer Session

Free personal training sessions for a day or two can attract an incredible number of people that are afraid to exercise alone. This idea works best for gym promotions and increasing revenue with added services.

Bootcamp Services for New Members

You can offer free Bootcamp services to people looking to reduce their weight and reach fitness goals. Let the group keep itself accountable.

Free Workout Special Classes

Workout special classes like doing workouts under the assistance of the best instructor or yoga artist for a couple of weeks can encourage gym enthusiasts to enroll in your gym. Make it challenging because experienced gymgoers love a good challenge.

Other Amazing Offers

  • 15% discount on referrals
  • host a giveaway with any famous fitness influencer
  • offer free online training and workout courses
  • provide long term assistance in diet
  • offer gifts to people who will achieve their fitness objective

Step Three: Fitness Marketing Agency Services to Upsell

If you’re really looking to create a strong fitness marketing service, you’ll need an array of services to upsell.

Since there are several marketing services you can opt for, you need to choose the ones that can save your time, energy, and effort for yourself and your clients.  Also, think about the organization’s goals, your target audience, your major services, and your desired outcomes to choose the appropriate marketing service or strategy for the gym. 

Letters, flyers, social media, content marketing, referral programs, email marketing, PR, and paid media marketing are some of the common and highly-preferred marketing services. 

However, fitness brands will need more than one single channel to maintain a healthy influx of customers. 

Here’s what you can offer your clients on top of your base service:

CRM Automated Marketing System

Using a CRM automated marketing system can allow you to benefit from a gym’s stored data. Clients’ information acts as a crucial resource when running effective campaigns. Postalytics allows you to connect a CRM system with and automate your direct mail marketing. This way, you can automatically send postcards and letters at the right time.

Triggered drip campaigns work 24/7 so that you can interact with your customers on a deeper level and remind them about the gym at the right moment. 

For instance, if someone hasn’t responded to your email, Postalytics can send them mail in the coming week as a reminder. Or if someone checks your website and fills out the service form, but does not act further, it’s time to send them mail. 

Not only this, but you can automate letters and postcards directly from the Salesforce, AcitveCampaign, HubSpot, Zapier, Keep/Infusionsoft, ActiveCampaign, and other modern workflow software. Marketers can use Postalytics to target the right audience and avoid interacting with the wrong people.

Personalized Mail with QR Codes and pURLs

Another important marketing service that you can provide to upsell the gyms’ services is personalized direct mail. 

These types of mail allow you to interact with each potential customer on a deeper level, as you can communicate with them. since Postalytics allows you to send mail to one to several people at a time. Additionally, you can personalize whatever mail you are planning to send. You can begin the mail with their name and give them a fitness solution that they might be looking for. For instance, if a person visits your site and checks the aerobic page but doesn’t contact you, send them a mail that helps them understand the benefits of aerobics. 

Besides personalizing mail, you can send a mail with pURLS and QR codes. These QR codes or pURLS offer information about the company, its services, or its message. Adding QR codes in the mail gives the receiver an opportunity to get more information if they want. It also helps you print additional promotions, as you can add the data to the QR code. So, when your prospect gets your mail, you can scan the code to get more details.

But how can you create a QR code to promote fitness businesses?

Here are the steps you need to follow in Postalytics to get a code.

  • Open Your Free Account- Start the process by creating a free account- don’t worry about the costs of services and hidden charges.
  • Create Your Desired Template- You can use an existing template or create one yourself by choosing different options present on Postalytics.
  • Send Your Mail- Once you are done, we will print QR codes on the mail and send your message to the target audience. This will boost your business sales while preventing you from paying for additional expenses.

Target Email Non-Responders with Direct Mail

You can incorporate direct mail strategy in your marketing campaigns. Using two channels at a time can offer you a 35% lift compared to a single channel. So, if your potential customers are not responding to your email, you can benefit from direct mail. Note that people have a longer emotional response to direct mail because it’s a physical branding item. Additionally, as direct mail is tactile, it’s difficult to ignore it.

Direct mail can also help you attract attention, as it sets you apart from your competitors. The best part is that Postalytics allows you to create amazing and unique direct mail that is hard for your customer to ignore. Choosing triggered direct mails also doesn’t require your assistance. Mails will be sent automatically to people who are not responding to your emails.

Fitness Marketing: Final Thoughts

Though direct mail, video marketing, influencer marketing, online advertising, and email marketing are some most popular and effective marketing options, most fitness businesses need more than just one channel to maintain a strong influx of customers.

Automated direct mail marketing provides an opportunity to gain the desired result with your marketing mix because it offers the strongest ROI of all the available options.

With Postalytics, you can create triggers, automate mailing, and integrate it with other tools, and managing it is also pretty easy. Despite requiring less effort, Postalytics can help you attract a greater audience to your gym. Since you can also track your results, you always have a chance to stay on top of your strategy and deliver results that your clients will boast about.

Sign up for a free account and try Postalytics today! 

About the Author

Dennis Kelly
Dennis Kelly

Dennis Kelly is CEO and co-founder of Postalytics. Dennis joined Boingnet, the predecessor to Postalytics, in 2013. Boingnet was focused on providing print and direct mail marketing service providers the ability to add digital marketing channels to their direct mail campaigns. Postalytics is Dennis’ 6th startup. He has been involved in starting and growing early-stage technology ventures for over 30 years and has held senior management roles at a diverse set of large technology firms including Computer Associates, Palm Inc. and Achieve Healthcare Information Systems.