The most common question fitness leaders ask is: “What should befitness club advertisementto get more customers?

Personally, I don't have any "miracle cure" for attracting a horde of new clients. I'm sure there are tools out there, and some work better than others...but for the most part, they don't offer any guarantees.

And any "guru" who tells you that he has a "magic pill" and there is an idealgym advertisement, most likely wants only one thing ... EARN MONEY ON YOU.

So without further ado, I'll just give you a list of 15 wayshow to advertise a fitness clubthat work for me and my clients.

1. Give a nice little gift to your most valuable clients (the 20% that brought in the most money for your fitness center or gym last year). It can even be a simple thank you phone call or a letter from the manager, the most common handwritten letter.
2. Launch a new interesting promotion for customers who were interested in your club, but have not yet bought anything from you (they were on the "guest" but did not buy). For example, it could be a special 14-day program with a 50% discount. Your task is to gradually turn temporary customers into permanent ones. Read more about successful promotions for a fitness club in the article:
3. Call the "sleeping" base and make an offer in the forehead. The only thing is that the base needs to be segmented correctly and a separate offer should be developed for each segment of the base.
4. Give all new customers a Gift from a Friend gift certificate. This is the easiest way to attract new customers. It is important to understand that this certificate is not issued from the club, but your client gives this gift from himself.
5. Develop sales scripts for your managers and coaching staff. These are scenarios for telephone conversations, personal communication, handling complaints, sales scenarios, etc.
6. Develop a strong offer for a brand new customer who is calling or visiting the club for the first time. In my club, this is a personal training with a trainer with preliminary fitness testing. The price of such a workout for a beginner is equal to the price of a regular one-time visit, but its value just rolls over.
7. Start using a "content strategy" to manage your club's social media communities. Create valuable content for your potential customers (for example, this article) and immerse them more in the topic of fitness and health.
8. Create a Landing Page for your club. This is such a page on the Internet, the purpose of which is to obtain a contact of a potential client in exchange for valuable information or educational materials. For example, it could be a training program along with video tutorials from your trainers.
9. Familiarize yourself with the principles of search engine optimization. It is not so difficult to make your club's website take first place in search engines, and you see it in the TOP 5 of Google and Yandex all the time.
10. Make direct mail to the residents of the area where your club is located. Just don't do stupid mailbox distribution of leaflets. An invitation to a master class from a coach, which will take place, say, this Thursday at 20:00, works well. And after such an event, you will be able to sell a club card or subscription.
11. Collect a database of e-mail addresses from all people who are in any way in contact with your club. Email marketing is one of the cheapest ways to communicate with your potential customers and works great for building relationships with them if done right. If you approach this issue creatively, then this effective fitness club advertisement will be able to attract quite a lot of potential customers.
12. Attract customers through paid advertising on Facebook. You can promote just advertising posts or content information with a link to your site. So far, few people use it.
13. Be sure to create a blog and link it to your site. On this blog, your coaching staff will share their best practices and practices. This simultaneously develops the coach and increases his expertise in the eyes of potential clients.
14. Register your fitness club on all possible Internet sites. Each city has a main city website with a "Where to go" section. If you take the time to do this, you can find a dozen more similar sites and post information about your club on it for free. It is important to make the description "selling". Read more about promoting a fitness club in social networks in the article:
15. Become a member of the First Online Community of Fitness Entrepreneurs in the CIS and get the best practical materials on running a profitable fitness business every day.
    Here they are... ways to attract clients to a fitness club and take your fitness business to the next level.

Here they are ... wayshow to attract clients to a fitness club and take your fitness business to the next level.

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How to attract customers to a fitness club using Facebook: TOP 7 Successful Techniques

Induce positive emotions

Not all people study in detail the goods and services they offer before agreeing to spend their money. People are arranged in such a way that most of their decisions were made under the influence of emotions, which are much stronger than any logical conclusions and conclusions.

In order to evoke positive emotions among potential clients of the fitness center, in addition to the informational text, it is necessary to place photos showing famous athletes or just people in good shape with happy faces who are exercising in a well-equipped fitness center.

Get attention on fitness center ads

The human brain is designed in such a way that the perception of a combination of certain colors causes approximately the same emotions. In order for the fitness center advertising post to attract the attention of even those who do not think about playing sports, you should use a combination of red and blue colors. Everyone knows that red causes some irritation, but the combination with blue makes you focus attention and does not cause aggression.

Price psychology

To interest potential customers, you can use the human feature to perceive prices by rounding them down. If you set the price for a monthly subscription or for one workout and subtract 1 kopeck from it, you get something like this: 79.99. This technique is widely used in marketing and gives impressive results.

Take care of your figure already "now"

Modern life moves at a fast pace, which most people are afraid of not being able to keep up with. To lose any opportunity today causes almost panic among the majority. Therefore, you can play with the word "today" in the advertising text of the fitness center, tell potential customers what a unique opportunity to keep fit, train the muscles of the body they are missing.

Focus on the most important information

Using theses, you can list the main advantages of the club, for example:

• Discount for those who have purchased a subscription for a month - 30% (highlight the word "discount" and its very meaning);
• The center uses modern simulators from leading manufacturers of sports equipment;
• Classes with a trainer are held on an individual basis;
• The hall maintains a comfortable and friendly atmosphere.

Limiting the duration of the promotion by time or audience

Creating an artificial scarcity will further arouse the desire to make an impulsive decision. You can post information about an existing promotion that will end, for example, on January 30 or is designed for the first 10 customers. Therefore, it is necessary to rush to sign up for training at the fitness center.

Application of odd numbers

Contrary to logic and common sense, odd numbers attract people's attention. Does it matter why this happens? The main thing is the effect itself, which will attract the attention of people who want to go in for sports.

A healthy lifestyle is a trend that is gaining momentum every year. A very useful fashion is to give up bad habits and start good ones, do fitness and infect others with this movement. Everything that is in trend is necessarily reflected in business. We went to marketing analyst Maria Polyakova, who promotes several projects, including representatives of the fitness industry in Tyumen, and also leads an active sports lifestyle herself.

Masha, tell us about your main project.

One of my clients now is a fitness club, which is located in the city center in an elite development: in a residential complex, but in a separate building. The total area is about 2 thousand square meters, more than 2,000 visitors. I have been working on this project since January of this year.

This is a fairly large and, at the same time, a young fitness club (it is three years old). Now he has a period of transition to a new level in everything: in marketing, in finance, in general consistency, in regulations, in a promotion strategy, in building a clearer positioning.

Now the management already knows who their audience is, and understands what list of services they can provide - basic and additional. All this, which has been empirically worked out within the company, now needs to be fixed and look at distant horizons.

Do you work with them as a marketer?

Yes. My partner Alexandra Samoilovich and I have a joint Marketing & Finance project, where we work in a tight connection between marketing and finance. These are two inseparable things, but the vast majority of companies do not yet understand that these two areas do not live in isolation.

Why did you choose the fitness industry?

I'm basically interested in the fitness industry. In addition, I do fitness myself, although training is closer to me not in the gym, but in the open air. My profile is climbing, mountaineering and running.

My company has been engaged in research marketing since 2011. It has always been mostly sociological, marketing research. Gradually, sociology faded away, analytics, consulting were added, then promotion appeared.

There are mainly two types of clients who apply for research: those who expand into the regions, and those with whom something went wrong. Companies of the second type come, as if to a doctor: “We have such a problem ... Something happened ... Why is this happening?” When we find out the reasons, the question arises of what to do with it, we find a solution.

This is how the service of strategic planning, promotion and strategic marketing was born. When you have a lot of experience in the market, then starting to conduct research, you inevitably immerse yourself in the specifics of the area under study. Friends are often surprised: “How do you know everything? We are talking about heavy equipment - you skillfully pick up the conversation, we are talking about the agricultural complex - you are talking about herbicides and combines, we touch on the building material market - you are in the subject there too! Often just a head boils from an excess of information.

If we talk about the fitness industry, then in the current rather difficult market conditions, this area is developing quite well. With a general drop in income in many areas of the economy, income in the fitness industry is growing. Growth has slowed but not stopped. There are several reasons for this: the fitness industry market in Russia is growing, it is quite young, and the degree of its penetration is low, especially in the regions. And one more reason: when the vast majority of people are in a state of instability, at the slightest opportunity they begin to improve themselves as a product. With the general trend of a healthy lifestyle, which was set by our president, with a high loyalty of the labor market to a younger and more active population, whether you want it or not, but keeping in shape becomes one of life's priorities.

Therefore, the fitness industry market is growing, it is attractive, it scales well. I am interested to see how he offers more and more new services and almost all of them are perceived with a bang.

Since you are actively involved in fitness, you didn’t have to dive too much? You are the representative of the target audience.

Yes, in this case, I immediately know what is valuable, useful and important to me as an internal client. When you see the picture both from the outside and from the inside, it becomes more complete.

Athlete, climber and simply beautiful Masha!

What are the features of promotion in the fitness industry? What should you pay attention to?

This is a service business. This is work with a client, with a person, but not with his primary desires and needs, but with his dream, intention.

It is both simple and complex business at the same time. I help a person realize his dream. A person associates a lot in life with his appearance, health, and inner state of mind. The fitness industry interacts with all of this. It leads to the understanding that in order to achieve a dream, you need to work hard, take gradual systemic steps. We can always “tear off the sleeves from the vest”, but this is of no use. I'm talking about those who buy the most expensive annual card, the most expensive fitness outfit, work out three workouts and end there, they say, that's it, muscles hurt - "this is not for me."

Or people want very fast results. But, as my grandmother used to say, "only cats will be born quickly."

There are many other nuances in this area.

Yes, fitness is dream work. But it is also fashionable, almost everyone wants to do it. But not the fact that they are doing it. And here fitness needs to maintain a balance between, on the one hand, inaccessibility in terms of beauty, the end product (athletic physique: well-groomed girls and stately male athletes are demigods for us who descended from Olympus), on the other hand, full accessibility and openness in order to a person had a desire to come to the gym, start exercising, trust the coach. It is in this contradictory combination that there must be a balance.

Is it necessary to encourage those who have just started to train? And how does it work in the fitness business?

Previously, fitness managers thought that the main motivation was an element of additional sales within the club. Now people are more and more aware that the key to success is a personal trainer. I would love to be a personal trainer myself. It's interesting! So you set a task for a person: “So, Vasya, you need to run out of here before lunch!” Vasya ran, ran - and fell, his strength ran out. You think: “Hmm, I wonder how it turned out… Apparently, it’s a bit too much to start with, we need to reduce the load” (laughs). Joke, of course. This is a very difficult and responsible job.

At the same time, a personal trainer does not allow you to sit still, he endlessly motivates, keeps you within strict limits. This is exactly what many adults dream of today, realizing that without a competent mentor, results cannot be achieved. There are very few people who achieve goals on their own. The rest are ready to pay money and spend time so that someone “finishes” them to the result.

Scientifically documented is the fact that it takes 21 regular repetitions to develop a habit - roughly speaking, 21 days. This is true, but as soon as, having stepped over the three-week milestone, you stop repeating, you quickly return to the starting point. And 21 days of non-repetition also fixes the habit. The habit of doing nothing.

How does the fitness club you promote position itself?

This is a family fitness club. A new model that has long been launched in America, Australia, Europe. In Russia, it is just beginning to take root - mainly in megacities - and is represented by federal networks.

In small towns, it is difficult, since this format requires that all family members receive the services they need. For example, my client has a children's developmental club, which is located in the same building, it provides both children's fitness services (certified trainers work) and developmental ones. I come as a mother with two children, I work out for 2–2.5 hours in the gym, and during this time the children jumped, jumped, and sat, thought, painted.

Now, just a playroom for children is no longer in demand, where you leave your child to self-employment under minimal supervision. Now parents want to make the most efficient use of not only their time, but also the time of the child. My client offers just such a convenient model.

Do you think that a fitness club should have a narrow niche?

In any case, you need to segment.

If we are talking about a premium class club, then for a certain price it provides a list of services that suits its target audience. If these are low-cost clubs, which are usually located in shopping centers, in the adjacent territory of residential areas, where there is no reception, fitness bar, massage, fitness testing and other goodies, where there is only a shower, then there is its own target audience, and one TA will be uncomfortable in the club of another.

I am opposed to discount promotions - when the ruble voting among competitors begins and the client is dragged. This is complete nonsense, because at the level of a growing market, you need to win new customers, and not pull ready-made ones from each other. Unfortunately, not everyone understands this. The premium class club lowers prices, blurring the target audience, and those who do not appreciate either the level of comfort, or the qualifications of coaches, or the interior come to it. Rather, he will appreciate it, but he will chronically not understand why you have to pay for it. Gradually, the primary target audience is squeezed out: a bank manager will not want to run on a nearby treadmill with his teller - such is the Russian mentality. And when the club returns prices - after all, comfort must be maintained - newly attracted customers begin to resent. In the end, they also leave. Unjustified discounts are the way to nowhere.

Playing with the target audience is like walking through a minefield.

Geolocation is also important, especially when it comes to million-plus cities. The target audience is ranked depending on where you are located. If in the lake, then it is clear that there are roach and crucian carp. If in the sea, then there are bigger fish.

What promotion channels work especially well in fitness clubs?

It depends on what stage of appearance and development the club is in.

If the club has just appeared, then for promotion you need to use all channels to notify the audience. Next, we look at which channels the target audience directly uses, and pay tribute to social networks.

There is a fitness club in Tyumen, which was segmented exclusively for a young audience - from 18 to 30 years old - and is promoted only through the VKontakte and Instagram communities. They are not advertised anywhere else. But they rocked their group so well, they use all its capabilities so cool that they don’t need other channels today.

How to organize a sales funnel in a newly opened fitness club? Where to begin?

We sell a dream to a client and the understanding that we can bring him closer to this dream is the main task. Fitness is not a professional sport. Fitness is when you achieve something and you are praised. And you achieve if you treat your body as carefully as possible, without setting any records. Professional sport is a test of the strength of the resources inherent in a person, his unique properties, and fitness is keeping the body in good shape without harm to health. This is the main value that should be a red line in the sales of any fitness center.

To begin with, the client should be accepted the way he first came: usually not in the best shape, with embarrassment in front of the mirror and others. And only then he needs to show what he can become, and convince him that on the way to his dream he will be accompanied, supported, encouraged, that the coach will be a watchful eye.

And this is more about psychology than about physiology. Often, oddly enough, people come to a fitness club for psychological support. If only you knew how much and in what detail clients tell their trainers! I guess coaches need to pay extra for psychoanalysis! :)

Not every coach is capable of this!

Those who are not capable leave quickly. Every fitness trainer is, first of all, a good psychologist, a good person - in principle, there can be no bad people there.

Well, here the coach loves his client, works with him, improves. But it also has a follow-up function. Or should an administrator, a manager, deal with this?

It is the coach who offers a lot of intra-club services to the client. And he must be taught intellectual sales so that he offers his client exactly what he sees fit. It is necessary to feel the fine line between the situation when the client trusts you, and when the client understands that sales are being organized on his trust. It is very easy to step over this line and lose a client.

An individual approach and adequately selected loads for the client is the main task of a personal trainer

Now there should be much more humanity and subtle mental connection in the relationship with the client than it was before.

Does the new generation of coaches understand this?

Specialists in any field undergo natural selection. If a young trainer has decided that his calling is to make other people more beautiful, better and stronger, and starts working without trying to learn something extra (at least the same interaction with a client), his road in the fitness industry is short. It will quickly cease to be of interest to customers, which means that the fitness club will not need it either.

A coach must constantly learn, develop, be in trend, know new tricks that the fitness industry is producing quite dynamically. The coach should offer his client to know more about new trends than other people, offer to be in this very trend.

The state of expertise in a person is always relevant.

Speaking of promotion, we are not going anywhere from Internet marketing. What to bet on in fitness: on social networks, a website, a fitness blog?

If we are talking about the promotion of a personal trainer and he has something to write about, then this must be done.

If we are talking about promoting a fitness club, then its presentation on the social network should be as interesting as possible. Let these be videos, announcements of events and subsequent reports about them, “bomb” photos, news that appeal directly to the representative of the target audience. It is necessary to conduct a dialogue personally with each user.

In my feed there is a representative of the fitness direction "workout" Frank Medrano (Frank Medrano), he has developed a huge network of fitness clubs that are attended by the disabled. Frank shows a video in which 180-kilogram people come to training, and shows how they work out, how hard it is for them, how they do not give up. Or how a wheelchair user is doing push-ups on the bars with a multi-kilogram chain around his neck. Along with a stroller. There is no glamor in all this, you see the real, alive and very cool. Or the famous CT Fletcher "Plush Beard" - just the kind of motivating with a sharp word and kicking coach, whose YouTube videos break records in terms of the number of views. You get into it right away. You are no longer constrained by embarrassment in front of the fitness room, you understand that the same living people who strive for their dreams will come there.

Fitness promotion should be based on the positive, on broadcasting the energy of burning eyes. Fitness is always a lot of energy. Even static yoga is energetic, it's just that there is a charge inside.

A person comes to acquiring an annual card through emotions, this is an irrational purchase. And the website of the fitness center must be a sales tool, the client must enter it with an already made decision to buy the services of the club. There should be the most convenient navigation so that the client can quickly purchase a card, sign up for an excursion to the club, create a map constructor from conditions that are interesting to him, calculate the body mass index - you need to provide for all these chips. The client's contact with the club through applications and instant messengers should be as short and simple as possible.

Tell us more about the tricks that a fitness club can use to attract and retain customers.

For example, gamification in a club, when points are awarded to a client. Only I am for it to be based on the results of the client, on additional services. And the fitness club should go beyond the club with its client, travel.

Let's say I live in Tyumen, I visit a certain fitness club. And so I arrived in Moscow - and I will stay at the hotel where my fitness club has a discount. Or my club recommends me hotels with an excellent gym and a cool pool.

The fitness club builds the infrastructure of its client's being. He is a friend.

It is necessary to develop an affiliate network, to carefully select partners for your target audience - this is very cool both for the club's marketing and for the partners themselves. Different areas, for example, HoReCa and fitness, are in contact, which means that a common client will certainly be at the point of contact. The same goes for vacations and shopping.

Let's talk about small fitness projects: small centers or studios. What are their features of functioning and promotion?

Now this is a new trend - boutique fitness clubs.

In Tyumen, for example, we have a cycle club. This is the micro-business that needs marketing micro-formats. Their implementation is even easier. There are not too many clients there and it is easier to make a person's stay in the club as comfortable as possible, to provide the very infrastructure of being.

I think that there will be more such formats, since the vast majority of clients do not really need a huge fitness center with its prohibitive number of services. In small studios, a special microclimate is formed, you can arrange master classes, attract healthy food, natural cosmetics, sportswear lines of the local market - all this is not put on an industrial footing, and at this level you can put together a good affiliate program.

You are planning new projects in Sochi. Are they related to fitness? And why exactly Sochi?

I am planning to move to Sochi.

Today, the Krasnodar Territory, in particular, the Black Sea coast, has a steep infrastructure and serious resources in terms of the resort business, organizing offsite business events, but there is no saturation as such. A very pronounced seasonality today should be eroded by such events, and now this area is gaining momentum. A very dense network of large-scale events: Formula 1, the football championship, the International Youth Festival is planned for the autumn, which will be attended by a large number of world-class personalities, including Elon Musk. In this regard, Sochi is developing very coolly, but it is necessary to attract Russians, and not only to a banal resort holiday, but also to other activities.

I will be organizing business events using the resources of the Black Sea coast and Krasnaya Polyana, organizing educational and fitness tours. This is all that I want and know how to do, which brings me untold pleasure. I think that we will sound in unison with Sochi.

Do you have any technology for implementing plans?

Of course, there is a production technology. I really like the way Natalia Frankel and Dmitry Rumyantsev work in this direction, and I have my own experience in organizing events.

Is there any specifics in the promotion of the fitness direction in Sochi?

The specificity lies in the fact that the Olympic legacy inherited by the resort town is a very big responsibility. Now the city has a huge Olympic park, amazing infrastructure, and Sochi residents simply have to immerse themselves in a sports-active state, stay in it and set an example for the rest of the country. The bar has been set high, and the mentality of local residents must be brought up to it.

According to the mayor of Sochi, over the past two or three years, about two hundred thousand people have moved to the Black Sea coast for permanent residence, and the urban population has almost doubled. Now this population needs to be healed, brought into a state of love for an active lifestyle, sports, and here there is absolutely everything for a healthy lifestyle to spread by leaps and bounds. Therefore, the fitness industry should hold the maximum number of events here, both local and large-scale, and invite as many active people as possible.

Thank you, Maria, for a cheerful interview, interesting cases and advice. Are there fitness project managers among our subscribers? Share the features of your business, tell us how you are doing with promotion.

Interviewed by Nadezhda Merkusheva

• Often, to attract customers, fitness clubs, yoga studios, gyms, rocking chairs provide the opportunity for a free first visit.
• The classic option is to distribute leaflets. But by no means should you distribute them at the entrance to shopping centers, on the street - this annoys people. One of the important factors for clients is the location of the club (studio), the ability to practice close to work or from home. Make sure that all potential customers who work or live near your establishment know about it. What office centers are nearby? How to deliver ads to mailboxes of people living in the area?
• Very often people do not go to a specific fitness club, but to a specific trainer or instructor. If you have got a good specialist, make sure that those who used to work with him know about it.
• The work schedule of a fitness club is of particular importance for attracting people. For example, some clubs work successfully late at night. There are also round-the-clock clubs, the whole question is attendance.
• You should have a website with contact information, an address (even better, show a map with a mark), or a page on a social network (VKontakte in the first place, if we talk about Russia), which is easy to find (for example, by searching for "fitness [city name]" ).
• Registration in Yandex.Maps gives a good effect - in this case, people will be able to find you on the map (for example, next to their metro station).
• You can attract users of social networks with the help of targeted advertising (targeted at a specific group of people). If you carefully consider what your target audience is (gender, age, place of residence, interests), then the cost of attracting visitors to a site or group will be relatively low.

• You can give contextual advertising in Google or Yandex, through which potential customers will come to your site. After learning the basics, you can do it yourself. Suggested terms people are looking for you for are:

• fitness club [street name]
• fitness club [metro station]
• gym [street name]
• yoga [subway station]
• fitness [name of area]
• (you can continue yourself)

• Find out if there are large VKontakte or Facebook communities related to sports and a healthy lifestyle in your city, and establish relationships with them. Become a sponsor of sporting events, where you will find your target audience. Perhaps there are cycling or ski races very close by - this is a great opportunity to express yourself.
• Participate in city events (for example, City Day, Athlete's Day). You can hold a demonstration performance and hand out flyers.

What to think about

• Remember that the purpose of advertising is only to bring the client to the threshold of the institution. If he does not like the atmosphere, the coach, the class schedule, then he will leave, and the advertising costs will be in vain.
• People want to come to a place where they are expected and where there is an opportunity to communicate. The experience of the "Tonus Club" is indicative - they "Bent on lazy people who want to do fitness without doing anything special." And another characteristic quote: “A middle-aged woman lacks a place where she is expected, in addition to work and home. So that you can chat with friends and not think about how you look. ().
• Fitness club is written like this: fitness club. There is a hyphen between the words "fitness" and "club". The same applies to the yoga center. Illiteracy will indicate that you are not serious enough about the matter.

Hidden Marketing

• You can make friends with a pizza delivery service (they could put your flyer in the box), a cafe, a restaurant (giving your booklet along with the menu or posting information on the tables).
• If there is a bookstore nearby, you can negotiate with him and put your leaflets in the literature on your topic.
• You can negotiate with schools, institutes and place information about yourself there, distribute invitations, etc.
• Organize a "bring a friend" promotion. Encourage those customers who bring their friends and acquaintances.
• You can run a promotion in conjunction with one of the coupon services, but there is an opinion that this will lead to you mostly one-time visitors.
• Call companies, businesses and offer them a corporate membership. As a rule, employees are happy to visit fitness centers when the employer pays for it. The question can only rest on the price - not all companies can afford this.

Instruction

Ravshana Kurkova, actress
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIL5muTBof8&feature=youtu.be

About the X-Fit Network

X-Fit is the largest federal network of international fitness clubs in the premium and business class segment in Russia. It is one of the top three leaders in the domestic fitness services industry.
The history of X-Fit began in 1991, when one of the first private tennis clubs in Russia was opened in Lianozovo Park in Moscow. It was a unique project for its time, based on the old English traditions of elite club recreation. The tennis club quickly became popular among people who appreciate the atmosphere of coziness and comfort, who understand the benefits of a healthy lifestyle.
Five years later, the first fitness studio appeared next to the tennis club, which became the base for the future full-fledged, ultra-modern fitness club with an X-Fit pool in Altufyevo. Further development of the network was rapid: in 2005, five clubs, including one regional one, already operated under the X-Fit brand, and in 2010, 19 fitness centers in the capital and major Russian cities. Today, the federal network includes more than 60 fitness clubs in Moscow, Kazan, Voronezh, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Samara, Novosibirsk, Krasnodar, Nizhny Novgorod, Perm and other cities.
The company operates on the market under two brands: customers can choose full-format X-Fit clubs with an area of ​​more than 2,500 m2 or clubs of a democratic Fit-Studio format. Currently, over 350,000 people are members of X-Fit fitness clubs across the country.
In 2015, the network patented the Smart Fitness system of proven methods developed by the company's experts (“Smart Fitness”), which underlies all X-Fit training programs. In September 2017, the system was updated and restarted - Smart Fitness vol. 2.0 is valid in all fitness clubs of the network. The company has established and operates the X-Fit PRO faculty, which includes dozens of educational programs for fitness industry professionals and a wide audience.
X-Fit has more than fifty prestigious prizes, awards, diplomas and certificates of honor. Among them: in 2017, the network of fitness clubs became the winner of the Sports and Russia award in the field of sports and healthy lifestyle support in the nomination “Best Innovative Fitness Club”; business award of public activity "Best in Russia/Best.ru" - according to the results of 2015, the X-Fit network was recognized as the best in the category "Network of sports clubs"; "Moscow entrepreneur - 2016" and "Moscow entrepreneur - 2015" in the category "The best network of fitness clubs in Moscow"; "Moscow Entrepreneur - 2014" in the nomination "Services in the field of sports"; "Person of the Year - 2011" in the nomination "For the creation of the largest network of fitness clubs" according to RBC; "Entrepreneur of the Year - 2010" in the nomination "Services" according to Ernst diploma from the government of Moscow "Moscow Entrepreneur" in the nomination "Medicine, leisure, sports and health services"; the first Russian award in the field of beauty and health "Grace"; Grand Prix "Best Network Fitness Center" and many others.

Discuss with current customers their goals and needs. Make sure your sports program delivers measurable results and keeps your attendees happy. Otherwise, expand it or eliminate the excess. Also find out what number of sessions per week clients consider optimal.

Improve and expand the list of services offered. If you feel that the club's clients have begun to lose interest in sports training and even stop attending them, urgently come up with something new. Increase the coaching staff, open new sections, upgrade strength training equipment. The environment should be conducive to intense and interesting activities.

After the launch of the fitness business, the main task for a long time to come is to attract the maximum number of new customers to the club. This is achieved through a well-thought-out promotion strategy and allows you to promote a fitness club.

It's no secret that a marketing campaign requires careful planning and is a time-consuming process that you, as the owner, will have to deal with. But with the right approach, you actually get an automated fitness marketing system.

Firstly, it should be understood that all successful fitness clubs operate with the same goals and concepts in their marketing campaigns. Based on these components, a system is built that, in the future, attracts customers to the fitness club already “on the machine”.

When developing a strategy for promoting a sports club, remember that there is a huge variety of gyms and sports centers. Your task is to provide a potential consumer USP(Unique Selling Point) - a strong offer that will make it clear that your club stands out from the crowd, that you can provide it with something that your competitors do not have. This message is formed on the basis of several considerations that relate not only to marketing, but also to the organization of the club as a whole.

Read about the new concept of fitness marketing in the article:

1. Choose a Niche

The first step is to determine the niche in which your club will operate. Being an expert in a certain area is much better than trying to squeeze in among other large halls. In addition, do not expect that they will give you their customers just like that.

By choosing your niche, you can also present your product to the audience in a better and more targeted way.

For a more accurate hit in the right segment, ask yourself 4 questions:

1. Are the basic selection criteria covered by your competitors (for example, availability of the right equipment, swimming pool, certified coaching staff, etc.)?
2. Are the secondary selection criteria covered by your competitors (eg specific equipment, counter current pool, coach with an international diploma, etc.)?
3. Are your competitors using fitness innovations?
4. Are there competitors in the market that use “pull” positioning? (for example, specialized fitness studios)

For an existing fitness business, the following questions will be relevant:

1. What services do competitors already provide and what can your club do better?
2. Which audience lives or works within walking distance of your fitness club?
3. What services are unique for the local market provided by your specialists? (perhaps you can quickly train/hire such specialists?)
4. What promotional tools can you use more effectively than your competitors?

The answers to these questions will help us not only determine what we will convey to the audience, but will also automatically distinguish our fitness business from the stream of competitors.

2. Analyzing Competitors

Also, do not be afraid to analyze the work of competitors. Sometimes other fitness clubs come up with great ideas that can be implemented in your fitness business. We are not talking about plagiarism, but about the implementation of ideas.

With the help of the appropriate software, you can easily analyze the performance of competitors ( www. similar web.com)

Today, the realities are such that the Western fitness business market has stepped far ahead of ours, so this is just a huge treasure trove of knowledge that can and should be applied here.

Foreign fitness entrepreneurs were able to destroy one of the main stereotypes, namely: opening a fitness club in the center or in a residential area - good, opening on the outskirts - bad. Of course, location is of the utmost importance for a fitness business, but how do you ensure that customers are motivated to visit your fitness center, no matter how far it is from their home or what the weather is like?

Very simple – give them a unique user experience.

Does everyone provide a free guest visit? - And you provide a potential client at the first training many times more. Let it be a workout with a personal trainer after which you treat him to a protein shake.

3. Automate the Work

The next step is the introduction of systems for automating the work of the Club, namely:

• Sales management system;
• Customer service system;
• Personnel management system.

Journals and notepads are the last century. The fitness room loses a huge number of regular and potential customers when the administrator is simply unable to find the necessary information in the mountains of waste paper.

The use of software not only simplifies the management of a fitness business, but also allows you to work with potential clients with the highest quality.

4. Working Through Referral Marketing

Referral marketing is a very powerful lead generation method that doesn't cost much.

True, most fitness clubs attract referrals only by offering discount services for existing customers. For example: "25% discount on the purchase of a Subscription for Friends of Our Loyal Customers."

Try to create a product or service that does not require additional incentives for existing customers to talk about it. Then your main task will only be to provide a convenient mechanism for the dissemination of positive information about you. Now it is most convenient to do this via the Internet.

Always consider each of your clients as 10 new ones - with the right strategy, the members of your club will unwittingly start selling your fitness services to their acquaintances, friends, employees.

Read more about methods for expanding the client flow of the club in the article:

5. We work with the Affiliate Program

How to promote a fitness club through an affiliate program with other business entrepreneurs? Let's say you know that your club is predominantly female. You can offer owners of local hairdressers or spa salons, provide their clients with a 10-20% discount on a subscription to a fitness room, or pure barter: You advertise a spa salon in your club, the spa owner does the same in his studios.

6. Generating Leads Through Direct Marketing

Flyer mailing is a very popular marketing trend in the West and it really works. In our case, you can mail out to commercial enterprises, through affiliate programs with other business entrepreneurs, and distribute flyers directly to your hands.

In addition to the informative part, the flyer should contain some creative idea. Posting information about a club or a promotion is easy. We need to "hook" a potential client. Remember the last time you had an unpretentious advertising melody or phrase in your head - viral advertising can work no worse than any other and its great advantage is that it allows you to interest even an indifferent layman.

An example of a creative approach in fitness marketing

In practice, the option works well when you send out not an ordinary selling flyer, but a personal letter from a fitness trainer or fitness business owner. At the moment, there is a serious trend associated with personification! This fully applies to offers that you send to your potential customers by mail.

7. Move on the Web

The first thing to start with is to create fitness club website. But for it to work, it's not enough just to create a site and mark it as "done" in the task list. You have to work with him all the time. Your website is like a shop window. It should be of high quality and optimized for specific tasks, namely, attracting new customers.

You can often see a picture when a visitor gets to a fitness resource and does not understand where he got to - downloaded pictures from the “search” instead of live photos of the gym, lack of reviews and stereotyped phrases that already initially cut the ear. In fact, instead of answering the question “Which gym should I go to,” the client receives tons of useless information.

Stop investing your time and money in this kind of work. Provide potential customers with only high-quality visual and informational content.

Instead of sending emails to clients individually, send emails using software (GetResponse is recommended).

Constant communication with visitors via e-mail will allow you to build trusting relationships already at the initial stages of attracting customers to the club.

Third, targeted fitness advertising in social networks. Social networks are direct access to the target audience. The coverage for the advertising campaign is simply colossal. However, you should be prepared to invest a certain amount of resources and most likely hire a specialist to advance in this area. Anyone can simply “post” pictures on social networks. Attract real customers who buy fitness services - units.

+1. Focusing on What We Can Do

Delegate your powers. You don't have to know everything. If you need a quality website or flyer, hire a qualified specialist to perform these tasks. It's much more productive than taking the time to learn everything on your own. Focus on your strengths and hire people who are experts in areas where you are not so strong. As a result, you get a powerful team of specialists to develop your fitness business.

Outcome. We work on automatic

The embodiment of the above ideas for promoting a fitness club in practice provides you with an automated one. No need to sit and rack your brains about how to attract new customers - the mechanism has already been launched and is working "on the machine".

Click right now to get a 17-page guide to setting up a Fitness Marketing System in your club.

How to Promote a Fitness Club or Gym and Forget About the Problem of Attracting New Clients Forever

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