FITNESS MARKETING IN 2019 Our first three years in existence ProFit was all about marketing and how to get leads for your business. One of the core messages we stress is having multiple poles in the water. You need to be catching fish from multiple sources and stop relying on just one single campaign, tactic, thing, to get clients into your facility. During the early days, we were a little spoiled with Facebook. Someone could accidentally put an ad up, blink, and have 70-80 paid clients. Not just leads, but actually paid clients. You would get so much revenue for pennies!
THE TIMES HAVE NOW CHANGED. The cost to advertise on Facebook has increased dramatically. For those of you that don’t know, when Facebook first came out it was like the wild west – there wasn’t much competition. When we first started our ad spend expectations for clients started at $400 for a 3-week advertising period and they would come out of that with 65 clients who paid $97 each. It was crazy.
THESE EXPECTATIONS ARE NO LONGER REALISTIC. Why? Well, let’s talk about supply and demand. Cost per impression is how you’re charged on Facebook. You’re paying for every 1,000 times your ad is shown. For instance, our CPM back in 2015 for a paid ad may have been $10-$15 dollars, but to show your ad to that same group today might be $50. When Facebook first came out there weren’t many advertisers. But, you aren’t just competing against other local gyms, you’re competing for placement against the local plumber, large national brands, ecommerce, etc… There’s only so much real estate for ANYONE who is targeting
that same audience, and as Facebook became more popular, the demand for that real estate increased.
THIS CAUSES YOUR COSTS TO INCREASE. If you were in business three years ago, you were spoiled. Most people went all in on Facebook, which was absolutely what you should have done. It was so great because it was trackable, you can’t see a direct return for fliers. If it didn’t work well, you could just shut it off. If you dropped $5,000 on a bad flier, you can’t just shut that off. You were committed. Facebook also made it incredibly easy for just about anyone with a computer to advertise their business. However, because of this, a lot of people don’t know how else to market their business without Facebook.
THAT’S A DANGEROUS POSITION TO BE IN. We want to talk about some other ways that you can advertise your business that are NOT just Facebook.
THE FIRST WAY TO DRIVE IN MORE REVENUE IS YOUR WEBSITE. So many people want to say websites are dead but that’s absolutely not true. 66% percent of customers will not do business with someone who doesn’t have a website. 33% of customers will refer back to a website before moving forward with doing business with them even after finding you on Facebook. So how do you generate leads from your website? First, it’s important to have a great, fast and functional website. It’s not something you want to cut corners on to save some money. SEO is next. We double down on SEO because our BEST clients come from an organic search. I had a gentleman come in a few weeks ago and specifically said he came in because we were number one on Google. This man signed up for our highest package, and if we weren’t there, he wouldn’t have become a client. You also need to look at the content on your website. If you have a gorgeous website but no valuable content on it, it’s useless. Blogs, like you’re reading here, are a great way to present valuable information to the client and show your potential client that you are the expert in your area.
HOW DO YOU GET THAT CONTENT OUT? Social media! It’s so important to educate the unaware. Most of the marketing that’s done in the industry reaches out to the very small percentage of the population that already know and live the fitness lifestyle. The unaware is the audience that none of your competitors are going after. So how do you get in front of those people? This is where you can share your education blogs. You can also create great video content. Share information that’s going to help them. Provide them with value. Then you can create custom audiences around people that watch your videos, or read your blogs, and then retarget them with an offer. This allows you to give before you take.
THE LAST, AND PROBABLY LEAST SURPRISING WAY TO GENERATE LEADS, IS TO CREATE A GREAT ONLINE REVIEW PRESENCE. This is one of the top contributors in a buyer’s decision-making process. Sometimes as business owners, it’s easy to get frustrated with the review platforms because of the negativity that surrounds them. If we think about this from the consumers perspective, it’s so much easier to get online when you’re mad and blast a business than it is to take time out of your day to say how much you appreciate the business. It’s your job as the business owner to ask for the referrals. You can’t expect your clients to just leave you 5-start reviews just because they felt like it. Some people might, but most only do it when they’re upset. With that being said, if someone leaves you a negative review, which is bound to happen, it’s imperative you respond. Try to resolve their issue publicly and take it as an opportunity to learn. You could find some issues in your business you were unaware of through these. When you take the time to respond, it becomes apparent you genuinely care about your client’s concerns and want to rectify the situation. For more detail click here
THERE ARE SO MANY MORE WAYS YOU CAN GET EYES ON YOUR BUSINESS THAT DON’T REQUIRE AD SPEND ON FACEBOOK IF YOU JUST GET A LITTLE CREATIVE. If you’re running out of ideas, we’ve created a platform that takes all of the guesswork and creativity time off your plate. To learn more about our done for you Fitness marketing platform.
Email Us: admin@pfmarketingsolutions.com Follow US On: Facebook You tube Instagram LinkedIn