You love running your gym, you have a solid amount of loyal clients who have joined over the years. But there’s always room for more.
Let’s talk about consumer behavior. When it comes to joining a gym, the majority of people can be quite picky. They’ll usually shop around, taking their time before committing. To convince potential gym goers to join your gym, you need to connect with these people first. You need to make them leads.
Leads are people who are very interested in joining your gym but haven’t just yet. They become leads because they know about your gym. You need as many of them as you can get because some of these leads will eventually become your clients.
Getting leads (or “generating” leads) requires following a strategic plan.
In this article, we’ll show you four strategies that will help you generate more leads for your gym.
1. Beautify and Optimize Your Website
The majority of gyms have websites. If you don’t have one, don’t worry! You can quickly build your own website using no-code website builders like Wix, Webflow, and Adalo. Each of these site builders features a slick drag-and-drop interface for building your site, and you don’t need any technical or coding knowledge to use them.
To stand out, make your website aesthetically attractive so leads will remember it. Follow these two tips to make your website stand out:
Color Combo, Location, and Contact
Determine a sleek color combination to fit your gym’s brand and grab leads’ attention. A simple, well-arranged design will make it easier for visitors to find information.
Always have your contact information, like email and phone number, at hand. Make your gym’s hours of operation and location easy to find. It’s important to ensure leads can quickly navigate to a contact form so they can reach you.
Make Booking Smooth With Adalo
Keep in mind that Millennials and Generation Z prefer quick communication that doesn’t involve a phone.
Accommodate these demographics by building a scheduling app with an app builder like Adalo. Leads can navigate to the scheduling page and seamlessly book a gym tour with the press of a button.
Leads and clients can use your app to book consultations or appointments with trainers and send direct messages. Everyone will enjoy the convenience that your scheduling app will bring.
Showcase Your Gym’s Facilities
Showing off your gym and its facilities is super important for your site. Leads will want to know what your gym and fitness equipment look like before they schedule a consultation, so include these visuals on your site:
- Videos of happy clients working towards their goals.
- Pictures or videos showing workout buddies spotting each other and smiling will reinforce your gym’s sense of community.
- Showcase the cleanliness of your locker room and changing area– not in use, of course.
- A virtual tour of your entire gym in under 30 seconds will give leads a small insight into your gym’s experience.
- Does your gym have a hot tub, sauna, cold plunge, or any other special facilities? If so, feature them because many leads love the quick recovery from a cold plunge, or hot tub soak after a grueling workout. Leads will likely prefer to join gyms that have hot tubs and cold plunges.
On your homepage, feature a picture or gif of your gym's exterior. Doing this will show exactly what your gym looks like. With your gym’s image fresh in their minds, leads will find it easily when they set out for their consultation.
Connect to Google Business
Connecting your website to Google Business automatically registers you with Google Maps and allows clients to review your site.
Encourage clients and leads to write positive reviews about your gym by offering a free small gift, like an energy bar or a sports drink. Feature your favorite comments on your homepage to illustrate that clients love everything about your gym.
Sometimes, you’ll get negative reviews. When this happens, try to connect with the negative reviewer directly and as quickly as possible, and work with them to solve their problem. If you’re able to fix the situation, ask them to delete their negative review and write a new review explaining how the problem was solved.
Make sure to check your Google reviews daily. Be sure to demonstrate your gratitude to people who compliment your gym - everyone likes to be appreciated.
Bring Your Fitness Knowledge to the Site with a Blog
You have interesting experience running a gym, purchasing workout equipment, designing workout programs, and much much more. Why not start a blog to share this knowledge with the world? Writing a blog will answer leads’ questions about your gym and will showcase your skills and expertise as a gym owner and fitness expert.
Here are a few topics you can write about:
- New gym equipment and what it can do.
- The importance of form while lifting.
- Lifting for muscle mass vs. lifting for strength.
- Combining cardio into your strength training.
- Gym etiquette.
- Stretching to avoid injury.
*Pro Tip: Sprinkle some Search Engine Optimization (SEO) into each article by adding keywords, which are the words or phrases about gyms that leads will google to find info about potential gyms. Sign up for a Google Keyword Planner account, and then search for popular keywords in your area using the “keyword search” function.
Select keywords that have low competition (or a score of under 30) and a monthly search volume of over 100. These will be the easiest keywords for you to rank for and get in front of potential gym-goers. Weaving some SEO keywords into your blogs will help bring your expertise to more leads.
2. Social Media: Make it a Superpower
You’re probably on social media already. But to get more leads, you’ll need to strategically position your gym on social media. Follow our two-pronged approach to reach more leads using social media.
Tactic #1: Basic Yet Powerful Social Media Presence
Ensure you post multiple times a day. Feature blogs, new personal trainers, nutrition, clients working out, and even your workout regimen for the day. By staying active on social media, you’ll attract leads that are active on social media.
Use a lean number of hashtags, and always remember to post visually appealing pictures. Sloppy pictures will reflect poorly on your professionalism.
From time to time, run a social-media special at your gym. Incentivize clients to post a selfie at your gym by rewarding them with a small gift like an energy bar or a sports drink. Or, run a limited-time selfie contest and reward the first 10 submissions with something they really want, like a tub of protein powder or your newest gym hoodie. Doing this boosts your gym’s social media presence, putting it in front of countless leads.
*Pro Tip: Whenever you get new equipment, always run a social media promo. Have a member of your staff take pictures of people cranking out reps on that sleek new sled you just added to your workout gear. This will show leads that you’re constantly updating your gym with the latest workout equipment and that your current clients love it.
Tactic #2: Running Ads
Ad campaigns are a relatively inexpensive way to get your gym in front of a large audience. You’ll be able to run ads on Facebook and Instagram for about $500 per campaign. Follow these steps to create an effective campaign:
- Select the age group and demographic of your target audience in the “age range field.” This is a convenient feature because it allows you to specifically target an older or younger demographic for certain campaigns (think Boomer Biceps), you can do so with this function.
- Choose the careers, hobbies, and interests of the users you want to target. Find people who have interests aligning with going to a gym. People who like outdoor pursuits, martial arts, or like healthy eating are potential leads too.
- After you launch your campaign, your gym’s social media page will be featured in your target audience’s feeds. Your campaign will continue until your payment runs out– campaigns usually last a week or so.
- You will receive a detailed statistics report when your campaign comes to an end. Study this carefully and use it to adjust how you launch your next campaign.
Make it a habit to run ad campaigns every couple of months, or however often your budget allows. If you have a Bill Gates-sized bank account, you can run multiple campaigns simultaneously.
Before each campaign, set clear goals to define what you want to achieve. Goals can be a certain number of contacts or consultations immediately following each ad campaign.
3. Run Periodic Promotional Periods
To get leads to your gym, you’ll want to run special promotional periods. For instance, give leads a membership discount when they sign up during a certain time. It’s a good idea to run promotional periods about four times a year or once every quarter.
Always give rewards for referrals. Whenever a gym member brings you a lead, give them a token of appreciation in the form of a simple gift, such as gym merchandise or a run-of-the-mill energy bar.
Up your appreciation when a referred lead becomes a client by awarding the referrer with a significant monetary gift, such as a discounted membership or a gift card to Gordan Ramsay’s restaurant. Doing this will incentivize your current clients to bring you leads and turn them into clients.
4. Follow Up With Leads
Sometimes, a lead will come into your gym for a consultation and show high levels of enthusiasm about joining – they tell you they’ll get back in a few days. After a few days, it’s been radio silence. Days will turn into weeks, and the radio silence has now become deafening. Don’t turn bitter when a lead ghosts you - there’s still hope. Play the long game with our two long-game tactics:
Long Game Tactic #1 Create a Lead Database
You need to properly organize all the leads that have contacted you in the past. You could do this by using the versatile app builder, Adalo, that we talked about earlier.
Building a web app with Adalo is even simpler than building a site with no-code drag-and-drop tech. Adalo’s interface is so intuitive and easy to use that you won’t need to watch or read any tutorials - you can get started as soon as you sign up for Adalo’s free plan.
Adalo’s software is designed to transform your web app into a mobile app. Leads and clients just need to navigate to the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, where they can download your mobile app for free.
Use Adalo to build a lead database. Creating a lead database is as easy as building your booking program. Just use the drag-and-drop interface to choose the colors, layouts, and fields that you want to include.
Whenever a lead contacts you or comes into your gym, get their email address, phone number, and social media info. In your lead database, create a profile for them and include their contact information. You can also keep a record of the times you’ve attempted to contact that lead and how that lead has responded. Organizing your leads will help you when you contact them in the future.
Long Game Tactic #2: Keep in Contact
Now that you have each lead’s information nicely organized, contact them tactfully. If you’re calling them weekly, you’re practically asking them to ghost you, don’t do this. Leverage email and social media instead.
Create a mailing list of leads that got away. Every month, remind these leads that they’re still on your mind by emailing them a monthly newsletter. Use a catchy subject line with a few emojis to grab their attention. For the newsletter itself, pop in an image of your gym with only a few lines of text. Offer them a limited-time discount to join your gym every few months.
Only send them a newsletter once a month – bombarding their inboxes with weekly newsletters will annoy them – actually, doing that will annoy anyone.
Make sure to follow leads on social media. Occasionally, like their pictures, and if you think the time is right, comment on one of their posts. Always keep your comments positive, and don’t ever sound desperate to get them back to your gym. Whenever you’re running a special event or limited-time offer, tag your leads.
The important thing to remember is that these leads did have some interest in joining your gym before. The challenge now is to re-spark that interest and strike up a conversation with them. Your goal is to make them into clients.
Next Steps: Transforming Leads into Clients
Continue working on these steps day by day. Take notes to determine how effective each strategy is. Tweak your strategies to fit with changing client preferences and the ever-evolving fitness industry landscape.
Your main goal is not just to get leads but to turn these leads into loyal clients who will use your gym for years to come. Consistent work will pay off, and you’ll be reaping the benefits of more leads and new clients in no time!
