Smart Marketing for Gyms
How to use digital marketing to grow your gym.
Digital Marketing for Gyms
You may have tried to put some marketing strategies together for your gym or had an employee or your spouse try their hand at digital marketing, but your results may have not been effective or consistent. I understand.
Gym Marketing Strategies That Work!
That is why I have put together this list of gym marketing ideas, organized so they are easy to follow and ordered by importance and difficulty level. You don’t have to do every single idea, but many are easier than you think, and some once implemented can run on their own, on autopilot.
And when you use these strategies to work together to form your SMART Marketing System, you can create a scalable system to consistently grow your gym and help you rise above your competition.
I’ve also included some essential marketing tools and additional resources so you have everything you need to market your gym for success and sustained growth.
Let’s get smart about your Gym marketing!
45 Gym Marketing Strategies
Your Gym Website
You probably have a website, but do you have a website that generates new customers? I could go through gym websites in every city, in every state, and show you websites that will never generate new customers.
Most gym websites are failing them. And that is because the website was designed to please the business owner, and not to bring in potential diners. Here are website strategies to get more diners from your website. Here are gym website marketing ideas:
Use Real Photos
Use real photos of your gym and your equipment. When a customer is looking for a gym do you think they want to see stock photos? No, they want to see real photos of your atmosphere. Be sure to snap some photos and showcase them on your site.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
Refresh Your website
If your website is old or out of date it may be time for a refresh or a redesign. If you are on a budget or want to DIY your site try templates from Elegant Themes.
🚦 Difficulty level: MEDIUM
Use A Call to action
Use a clear call to action to guide your visitors to take the next step. Make it clear for them to get directions or get a free pass. If you are not clear they are likely to take no action at all. Learn more about using a call to action.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
organize Your Website
Make your website EASY for your customers to find what they are looking for by organizing your site, using simple navigation, and easy-to-find links to important hub pages.
🚦 Difficulty level: MEDIUM
mobile friendly Website
With most searches starting on mobile devices it is essential that your website is mobile responsive. You can check your site’s mobile usability in Google Search Console. Learn about Mobile Friendliness.
🚦 Difficulty level: MEDIUM
Benefits not features
Don’t talk about the features of your services, tell them how they will benefit from it. Explain how you can improve their life with your services. “25 Years in Business” is a feature. “A healthy body” is a benefit.
🚦 Difficulty level: MEDIUM
Claim Your Business
Gyms have a plethora of FREE sites that you can claim your business on and reach more customers. Many of these will automatically create a listing for your gym, that may or may not be accurate so it is important that you take control of each listing. You can also find directories, local sites, and review sites to list your business. Many will have a paid version, but the free version is all you need.
Here are ideas on how to claim your business:
Google Business Profile
85% of searches start on Google. Get your business on Google maps and Google searches for free by setting up your Google Business Profile.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
Eating Directories
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
Bing Places for Business
Claim your listing on Bing Places to reach customers looking for a gym in your local area. Bing represents about 7% of local searches.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
Local Websites
Be sure to get listed on local websites for your area, including your local chamber of commerce and other local groups. These can also be great for networking opportunities.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
Yahoo Business Listing
About 3% of searches in the U.S. are still done through Yahoo, so you want to claim your gym on Yahoo Business, as well.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
Directory websites
Find other directory websites like Yelp, YP, and City Search. Check out these 50 sites to list your business for free.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
Gym Social Media Marketing
Everyone is on social media these days and social media platforms remain one of the best places to reach more people for free. Your gym can take advantage of social media marketing to reach more customers, get more referrals and build better relationships with your community. Let’s look at Facebook gym marketing, Google, Instagram, and more. Here are your gym social media marketing ideas:
Posting to Facebook every day should be a breeze for most gyms. Between all the equipment you have, your classes, your staff, your location, reviews, and events popping an image or two on FB a day is doable and EFFECTIVE!
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
get some Google Love!
Google loves to show Google assets as search results so set up and use your Google Business Profile. Post photos and updates to get a little Google love without having to spend a cent. Check out this.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
Don’t discount Instagram as a place to reach more people. Fitness is one of the most posted images on the gram. Not only your images but get your visitors to tag your gym, and you have a winning Insta-strategy.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
Create a Content Strategy
Wherever you decide to post be sure to create a strategy. This includes a mix of educational, behind-the-scenes, and case study posts. Check out our TAPS method for posting content with purpose.
🚦 Difficulty level: MEDIUM
Measure & adjust
Social media can be a great asset or a terrible waste of time, but that can be avoided by checking your insights. Each platform has built-in insights to show growth, reach, and engagement.
🚦 Difficulty level: MEDIUM
Is your Gym Marketing SMART? Take the quiz and find out.
If your marketing is more of a headache than an asset it’s time. to find out what it’s missing.
Gym SEO
Search Engine Optimization is the process of getting your website optimized for search engines. Your Gym website will need both onsite and offsite SEO, so that your gym is shown in search results to the right customers. You can learn more about the basics of SEO with my easy-to-follow SEO for Beginners Series, which I made as a basis for every business owner to understand SEO. Here are SEO ideas:
ONSITE SEO
You need to search engine optimize your website so that it shows up on search results for your prospective customers. Use keywords and terms thoroughly but naturally. Use SEO tools to research and plan your content. Check out these SEO Tips.
🚦 Difficulty level: MEDIUM
OFFSITE SEO
Offsite SEO is the process of getting quality backlinks to your website; it’s like the other websites are vouching for you. The more quality backlinks you have, the higher your site will rank in search engines. Learn more about backlinks here.
🚦 Difficulty level: MEDIUM
Specialty Services
If you have specials or services like nutrition coaching, be sure to create a page for each, including unique content, descriptions, and images. This will make it more likely that your website will show up for these terms than if you just listed them briefly on your home page.
🚦 Difficulty level: MEDIUM
Learn Search Engine Optimization
Are you thinking of hiring or doing your own SEO? Tired of only finding overly complicated, overly technical information?
Whether you hire an SEO or do your own, every website owner should learn SEO basics. This intro to SEO course is the perfect easy to understand primer made by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs.
Gym Content Marketing
Content marketing is the process of creating content to educate, attract and book new customers. Content can include articles on your gym blog, free downloads like a coupon or free pass. Content marketing is a must in your gym marketing strategy! Here are your gym content marketing ideas:
Your GymBlog
Your website’s blog is the best place to showcase your expertise, authority, and services. Writing blog posts gives you more content to get picked up by search engines and gym-goers. Not sure what to blog about? Check out these blogging ideas.
🚦 Difficulty level: MEDIUM
Create a freebie
Create a freebie for download on your website and social media. It could be a coupon or another valuable piece of content your diners would want. This will help you grow an email list of potential home owners to market to.
🚦 Difficulty level: MEDIUM
Write A Book
Being an author gives you instant credibility. Imagine what a fitness star you’d be in town if you had a published book? Self-publishing a book is easier than ever. Check out this to get started on your own book.
🚦 Difficulty level: MEDIUM/HARD
Learn To Create A High-Converting Freebie
Email marketing is one of the easiest, hands-off ways to attract new gym customers on autopilot.
But there are a lot of moving parts that confuse people. But how do you get people to sign up for your list? That’s where List Building Lead Magnets 101 comes in. Learn at your own pace with video content.
Gym Email Marketing
Email marketing for gyms is highly effective. In fact, email marketing has the best ROI of any form of digital marketing at 4200% ROI – that means you can get $42 for every $1 you spend on email marketing. Email is a direct way to reach out to and build relationships with your customers beyond just the simple appointment reminder. Here are gym email marketing ideas:
Build Your Email list
Gyms with an email list have the power to fill seats any day of the week, but most never bother to build one. Using birthday clubs, coupons, email for wi-fi and rewards are all effective ways to get customers email addresses.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
Gym newsletter
Emailing out a monthly newsletter is a great way to stay in contact with your members, let them know of new specials or classes and its an effective way to ask for reviews. Make it part of your gym sales funnel.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
ASK & You Shall Receive
Email is more effective than social media to reach out to your customers and offers an great way to ask for referrals and online reviews. If you want more referrals and reviews you’ve got to ask for more referrals and reviews. Best thing is you can automate your review and referral program.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
Learn Email Marketing for Gym
Stop hustling for potential customers and put your growth on autopilot! Get the easy-to-follow, step-by-step process for attracting your ideal new customers 24/7.
This video course will get you started on growing your email list of potential customers. For more advanced methods pair with Lead Magnet Mastery, Content Upgrades, and Marketing Message 101.
Gym Video Marketing
If you want to gain more trust and build a personal connection quicker, video is the way to go. And today, video advertising is accessible to anyone with a smartphone, with no need for fancy editing software and video equipment. Simple video marketing tools make it easy to create a professional video for your gym that your customers will love. Here are your gym video marketing ideas:
YOUR FACILITY
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
Edutainment videos
Create entertaining educational videos for your customers. Answer common questions, share workouts, or what makes your gym unique. Not sure what to make videos about? Start here.
🚦 Difficulty level: MEDIUM
Your youtube channel
Creating a YouTube channel is easy and free, and since YouTube is a search engine, and owned my Google, your videos could show up high on search. Take all the videos we discussed and add them here.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
Gym Event Marketing
Events, you say, ugh…I don’t have the time to put on local events. But this is different and easier than you think, I promise. Digital events happen online: on your social media, through email, or on your website. No setting up and no clean up afterward. Oh yeah. And the best part…you get to pretty much make up whatever you want. Here are some unique digital event ideas:
Contests and Giveaways
We’ve worked with many business owners to set up contests for their customers, with the prize being swag or free training session. Entries can be reviews, referrals, likes, follows or ???
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
of the week
Create your own weekly event that keeps you top of mind and your customers educated, entertained, and wanting more. Question of the week. Tip of the week. You make it up; stick to it and be consistent.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
Gym Social Proof
Social Proof is showing your prospects that your current customers vouch for you, and their word is more valuable than you just tooting your own horn. Social proof builds your online reputation. That is why it’s so important to not only collect different forms of social proof but also get really good at using it to your advantage in your gym marketing. Here are some social proof ideas:
5 star reviews
Potential customers are likely to try out the gym with the most online reviews, so make getting as many 5-star reviews a top priority. Bake review requests right into your follow-up process so getting customer reviews is on autopilot.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
testimonial videos
🚦 Difficulty level: MEDIUM
Influencers
Are there “influencers” that workout at your gym? You’d be surprised at the reach even some newbie influencers have online. Reach out to them and encourage them to tag your gym. You. can even offer them products or classes in exchange for promoting your gym.
🚦 Difficulty level: MEDIUM
Learn Social Proof Secrets for Gyms
Learn how to harness the power of social influence and free social tools to increase your sales and conversions.
In Social Proof Secrets will we dive into the psychologically proven strategies of social proof and how to move beyond just a testimonial on your website or positive reviews here and there. It’s time to supercharge your social proof!
Gym PPC Marketing
Most of the ideas for gym marketing above have been organic and free, however if you want to turn the firehose on, you can go with some paid digital ads. There are several options for your gym advertising. You can do any on your own or find a media buyer or agency to help you. Here are PPC marketing ideas:
Facebook Ads
I have run hundreds of thousands of dollars in Facebook Ads for my clients and know that Facebook Ads work! They are highly targeted to your location, interests, and demographics so you can spend money reaching the exact audience you want.
🚦 Difficulty level: MEDIUM
Google Ads
Google Adwords and YouTube Ads are other solid gym advertising options for gym. A little more complex than Facebook ads, you can reach people right on Google, at the top of search results in a bid auction for the top spot. I recommend getting assistance on these if you want great results.
🚦 Difficulty level: HARD
Gym marketing Tools
Ten or so years ago, marketing was difficult. It was difficult to make graphics, videos, websites, and social media was not as intuitive, but these days that has changed. There are so many tools out there that put the power into YOUR hands to market your business, look professional, attract potential customers, and analyze how your gym marketing efforts are going. Here are some marketing tools you can use!
This is truly the time of smart marketing and these tools are can make your gym shines.
Canva
Sure, I could tell you all the great ways you can make graphics, but I am going to skip them all but one. Canva is your go-to for making any graphics or materials for your gym. We are talking social graphics, post cards, flyers, ebooks, checklists – really you name it. Their templates make you look like a pro designer with no design skills required.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY/Free Versions
SEO Tools
Even if you hire out your SEO to an SEO company (we suggest NP Digital), it’s good to have some SEO tools to track your website ranking. We suggest SEM Rush, Ahrefs and Ubersuggest – all with free versions.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY/Free Versions
Video Marketing tools
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY/Free Versions
Analytics tools
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY/Free
Email Marketing tools
Email is an essential marketing tool for your customer relationships! There are great email software services for small to large businesses at any budget to automate your email marketing efforts. Here are some of my favorite email marketing services.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY/Free Versions
social scheduling tools
Ever wonder how the heck some of these businesses post so much all over the web? Social media schedulers are an amazing shortcut to at least get a base of content out on the web. Check out our favorite schedulers here.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY/Free Versions
Gym Marketing Templates
If you’ve been around my site or seen any of my weekly videos you know I am all about being smart with your time, money, and effort. And using templates is one of those great ways to work smarter. Here are some templates you can use to save time and money in your online gym marketing.
Graphic Templates
If you are looking for gym graphic templates a quick search in Canva will give you a huge array to choose from. Other graphic templates can be found at Envato Elements or Creative Market.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
Sales funnel Templates
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
Video Templates
Many of the video creation tools have templates already set up for you so you only have to add your video clips or photos and get amazing professional looking videos. Check out my favorite video marketing tools.
🚦 Difficulty level: EASY
I want to help you with your Gym Marketing
I’ve spent years figuring out digital marketing myself, spending thousands on courses, conferences, training, and books. I’ve wasted time, money, and resources.
BUT you don’t have to.
Smart Marketing Courses and Resources
My smart marketing courses make it easy for you to find the information you need, a variety of skill-level materials, and you get step-by-step, start-to-finish instructions, templates, and resources that take less of your time and give you more of the results you want.
Since starting my 7-figure marketing agency in 2007 I’ve spoken with so many small business owners with a desire to learn how to market their business, to learn social media and digital marketing strategy – good people just like you – who were getting stuck and needed more help in their pursuit of growing a business they love without wasting any more time, money or sanity.
Let’s get SMART with your digital gym marketing.
4 Steps to Get SMART
1. Where you at?
Let's take a serious look at where you are and where you want to go. Only then do you know what you need to work on.
2. Fill the Gap
It's time to fill in the gaps in order to get results. What skills do you need? What systems do you need to create?
3. Cheat the System
Use tools, templates, and done-for-you resources to work smarter. No need to reinvent anything - it's already been done.
4.The Dream team
Entrepreneurship is lonely. Get the support you need. Coaching and community are essential to becoming a successful entrepreneur.
Is Your Marketing Taking You Away From The Things You Love?
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