Marketing a Fitness Boot Camp
Posted by Steve Hochman on Wed. Oct. 16th, 2013
If you’ve already started a fitness boot camp, you may only have a few people attending and obviously, getting more people to join will increase how much you earn.
There are dozens of ways of marketing a fitness boot camp business as you probably know, but the best way to get a good response is to offer something free. Free is the most effective word in advertising, because it works.
Whether you want to run print ads, use your FaceBook Business page to attract leads, or use lead boxes, you can attract a lot of business by offering prizes and free sessions to get people in through the door.
As a bonus, by using any or all of these methods you can also grow your email list, so even if people aren’t ready to sign up today, you can keep reminding them of what they’re missing. Just make sure your limited time offers are what they say they are - limited. If people know they’re always going to get $100 off their first month’s boot camp membership, there’s no incentive - you have to create a sense of urgency.
Lead Boxes
Lead boxes are a quick and easy way to grow your client list; you’ve probably noticed them on local retailers’ counters. They’re simply little boxes that can advertise a business’s special offers. They have a slot in the top where you drop in a card, just like a ballot box. It could be a business card, but the best idea is to have a short tear-off questionnaire, that asks for a name, phone number and email address.
No savvy business owner is going to clutter up his sales counter with lead boxes if he doesn’t get something out of it. Make him an offer of a free personal training session, a free month’s boot camp, or a coupon – something valuable that benefits him.
The great thing about lead boxes is they’re extremely easy to monitor, because obviously you have to go back an empty them. For promoting a fitness boot camp, you have to figure out where the best places will be to leave your lead box, and that will be hair salons, barbershops, spas, health food stores, and yoghurt shops etc. It may take some trial an error to find the best locations, but lead boxes can be an incredibly good source of leads.
You have an awesome business, so think hard about the design of your lead box. It should be attractive, and tell people exactly and concisely what to expect if they do fill in a card.
A good graphic designer will help you create just the right lead box, one the business owner doesn’t hide under the counter as soon as you leave. The cost for a lead box can be just $20 each and in a high-traffic location, you may get 50 leads a week, with a conversion rate of maybe 1-5 sign ups, and of course, you get 50 email addresses that you can work on. The more compelling and valuable your offer, the more interest there will be.
If you only have 10 lead boxes, you can always drop in once every few days and buy a joghurt, shoot the breeze with the owner or get your hair trimmed and collect the cards. More than that and you’ll probably have to hire someone to do it for you.
FaceBook has changed a lot; it’s no longer just a social media site, it’s a great place to promote a business. You can run an ad on FaceBook offering free sessions or reduced rates to your exact target audience only, so if your bootcamps are popular with 25- to 35-year old businesswomen, only they will be see your ad.
To keep your costs down, don’t redirect prospects to your blog or website, send them to your FaceBook business page, and offer a free audio program or report in exchange it for their email address, because FaceBook prefers if you don’t redirect traffic away from their site.
Using Other Business Owner’s Email Lists
Building a rapport with other business owners is important because eventually you may be able to ask to use their email list. What you’ll do is send out a series of emails to their clients, containg a special offer. You can sweeten the pot by giving the business owner some gift cards, that he can use himself or give away, and you could reciprocate by offering to send a special offer for his business to your email list.
Build a Website or Blog
If you’re serious about marketing a fitness boot camp and cultivating a good following, but haven’t already built a blog or website it’s time to do so.
Learn about keywords, which are the words people use to search for relevant websites. Those words are how the search engines find your website too. Make your blog or website interesting, post regularly and link to information on other sites your visitors may find interesting and useful. Pay attention to comments and respond as quickly as possible, which easy these days thanks to smart phones.
Google gives points to websites that do all these things, and you will see your site moving up the ranking. Your aim of course, is to be on page 1 of Google’s search engine results pages. It won’t happen overnight, but Google does give preference to local businesses. If your fitness bootcamp is in Walla Walla for example, when anyone puts in the words “boot camp Walla Walla”, your site will appear.
Then get on Google Places. This is a simple process. Your business will appear on a map of the area alongside all the other listed boot camps in Walla Walla. Write a good description and link to your awesome website so people will be encouraged to pick up the phone or stop by your facility first.
Post videos on your site so people can see the methods you use. Post the same videos on You Tube, again using keywords so the video appears on the search engine results pages.
Add real testimonials and perhaps some before and after pictures of happy clients. A blog or website is the best place to advertise special offers, but you’ll have to have a significant number of local visitors for those offers to be effective. Run competitions that say something like “the first 10 people with the correct answer will win a free month’s trial membership…” That way you create a sense of urgency. Make sure limited time offers don’t run forever or nobody will feel compelled to sign up immediately. You want visitors to feel they’re going to miss a great opportunity if they don’t sign up NOW.
Freebies
You’ll find you’re giving a lot of stuff away when you start to promote your fitness boot camp. It may be your time, talking to other local business owners, participating in charity events, giving talks, making videos and giving talks at local schools etc., but it is an investment.
Free trials offers, reduced rates, competitions online and off, are great ways to create a buzz about your boot camp, plus you can grow your email list from all of these sources.
Email Promos
Ask any network marketer and he’ll tell you “the money’s in the list”. An effective marketing strategy must include email marketing. You don’t have to bombard people with a daily email, they’ll soon hit the spam button if you do All you need is a well thought out series of informative emails that gently remind people why they signed up in the first place. Do it right and you’ll see a lot of not-right-now’s turn into paying clients.
Welcome Packages
Many high-end apartments give out welcome packages to new renters; you could include a special offer in one of those. New homeowners may receive welcome packages from the local authority and/or the realty company, so there’s another fitness boot camp marketing opportunity.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of ways to market your boot camp business; the number of ways will only limited by your imagination.
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