Concept2 has released a series of free-to-use Zoom background images (above) and Steve Jensen (right).
Are You Ready? Steve Jensen sees the post COVID environment as a time of opportunity for fitness businesses ere’s a fact: Every three to five years, a business should announce big upgrades or a relaunch, or at least an aspect H of it. Given the lockdowns we’ve all endured this year, we need
Step 1. Develop New Services, Upgrades and Add-Ons It’s critical to add two or three new services or add-ons (avoid using the word ‘changes’ as people may feel adverse to change). This is important because it ensures that anyone who’s been previously toured or are former members or clients will then understand that something is different, which will help generate the excitement and enthusiasm required for them to take action.
ultimately join up, your offer must be well structured and easy to understand. The key is to develop an offer that generates leads who want to join; not one that inspires tonnes of people to pay a low-priced membership that will later require extensive sales efforts to upgrade them. This is what’s called a ‘low entry upgrade method’ (sometimes referred to as the ‘Groupon strategy’), as it usually attracts people who have a low value mindset. The downfall of this is that it creates lots of work later, for your sales team, and typically only ever results in low upgrade conversions. To avoid this headache entirely, deny the temptation of creating a ‘low-cost offer’ where people buy from a website; then, you can avoid the laborious challenge that this old-school, timeconsuming strategy typically requires. The alternative is to embrace the ‘pre-sales and relaunch strategy’, which we’ve used with health clubs and fitness businesses all over the world, to successfully generate loads of qualified leads. One easy way to do this is by using an ‘Expression of Interest’ (EOI)strategy, which simply requires a strong offer that steers your leads to complete an online opt-in page where you capture their name, email address and phone number as part of their EOI in your offer.
Step 2. Create the ‘Expression of Interest’ Campaign A strong offer will excite prospects and former members to take action. One way to achieve this is to have them register their interest in the offer. In order to create leads who want to know more and
Step 3. Deliver Two Opportunities When you write the text explaining your offer, make sure you focus on the results and benefits that will be enjoyed once they’ve joined up for a program or membership. Your attractive offer will save them money (so state the savings but not the price itself), and it should confirm that
to seize the opportunity to reopen or relaunch our clubs and studios effectively, in order to confidently position for recovery. Here’s a question: If you were going to open a new club, studio, or fitness business in just four to six weeks, what would you do? Yes, it would be a rush to create the opportunities to attract tonnes of leads and then convert them into members and clients who you can help. Following is a strategy that has successfully helped our clients increase their leads and sales, and which - when adapted correctly - can also help you achieve the same.
40 Australasian Leisure Management Issue 141
