Although the simplicity of Club marketing hasn’t changed much in the last 25 years, the way in which customers and prospects engage with your fitness business has altered dramatically – no more so than in the last three years. Your potential members can now choose how they receive your marketing messages and, with most online media, they even have the ability to switch them on and off at will.
This will gather pace over the next 12 months as the triumvirate of Internet marketing, mobile media and social networking entwines itself further into our daily activities. Current Club marketing trends, and those for the foreseeable future, are centred on these three areas.
1. Get them to put their hands up.
The goal of getting your members, customers and prospects ‘opting in’ to become involved with your Club will take precedence over any other element of your marketing activity during 2012.
Fortunately, your Club benefits from being, in the most part, a membership based business giving you a head start over the many industries trying to build an opt-in, ‘me too’ culture. Members are the ultimate in ‘permission based’ marketing. With the ever increasing deluge of daily marketing messages ensuring you build a list of advocates who agree, and are happy and expectant, to receive your marketing, sales and retention messages is essential.
2. Social Media as we know it is dead!
The initial rush, over the last 24 months, via Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and all to get as many ‘friends’, ‘followers’ and ‘likes’ as possible will be replaced by a more focused approach to create quality connections with people loyal, interested and happy to advocate your business. Nurturing and educating these advocates will reap far greater rewards than if you stick with the current trend of trying to ‘stacking them high’.
3. The written word will be put to the sword?
Not quite, but Web Video will play a major part in online marketing strategy over the next 12 months. Utilising Web Video for personal introductions, Club tours and even Personal Training instruction programmes will keep people on your website longer (as they ‘watch’, rather than read) as well as helping your Club stand out from every other ‘me too’ website out there.
4. Information Marketing is the new king of Madison Avenue.
Never before has information marketing been so important. With more and more Clubs, gyms and centres having little to differentiate themselves in terms of service, facilities and equipment, this year will be year where those who cultivate their position as the definitive source for information, advice and counsel will gain the most rewards. It’s time to stand up and be counted as an expert.
Jamie Oliver gets it! Gok Wan gets it! Big time!! The only difference between Gok Wan and ‘Carol’, the personal shopper in Selfridges’ Woman’s department, is his ability to cultivate himself as the ‘go to’ expert for fashion dressing sense. Actually, there is one other difference – about £2m a year in annual salaries.
5. Get out of the middle.
Research suggests a permanent shift in UK purchasing habits towards low cost or premium pricing. The trend, started by the recent economic downturn will continue as these behavioural changes become imbedded in our daily lifestyle and ultimately our choices. You either need to move your Club pricing away from this middle ground or differentiate yourself quite dramatically – and fast.
6. The only way is ethics!
Highly ethical consumers make up 19% of the UK population and this group is growing in size, and growing rapidly. They have a strong interest in how a business behaves in relation to such areas as society, its customers and its local community. These highly ethical consumers are also highly affluent (Over 66% are ABC1’s) and are prepared to pay to match their ethical views – the dramatic sales growth of premium priced brands such as Innocent drinks are testament to this.
The perception of how you interact with your community, customers and suppliers will play a big part in deciding how you ‘get out of the middle’ (see point 6).
7. Don’t miss out on the ‘new’ Gold Rush.
Email marketing is still the most cost effective way of acquiring and retaining members, customers and Clients. For those Members opting in to receive emails 2011 has since an increase in open rates, responses and purchases. However, you need to be quick! New research shows that consumers will accept no more than 2 to 3 relevant messages from any industry, sector or group. So getting there first will be half the battle.
The reason for the resurrection in email marketing is the advancement of the software involved in the sending, monitoring and reporting of it. Software can now adjust the frequency of send, segment recipients so targeting is more effective, and filter and cleanse databases more easily. Also the costs, of utilising such software, has dropped dramatically over the last couple of years. Your goal for 2012, as far as I am concerned, is to capture the email address of every single person who contacts you or walks into your Club and then cultivate a relationship with them through email, direct mail and 1-2-1 communications.
8. Make your Club marketing ‘web centric’.
A massive 87% of all consumer purchase enquiries now start with the Internet – and the vast majority of those are either through Google or Facebook. This trend will continue to grow year on year. Every element of your marketing (both on and offline) should therefore be focused on driving your prospects to an online central resource - your web site.
Facebook, Twitter, displays ads, LinkedIn, Voucher sites, Email, PPC, search marketing and mobile media will all become more and more prevalent over the coming year. All of these, and more, should be utilised as part of your web centric approach to drive potential members to your web site.
Before you start all this though you must first sack your web designer! Or at least get them working alongside a direct marketer. Web design is just that – design. Unless you implement the sales strategies seen in direct mail, email marketing and sales promotions to your website then it will be no different than having 2,000 pretty looking, well designed brochures locked in your stationary cupboard.
Done correctly your web site becomes the sales funnel for your whole business. It has the potential to be your sales force, working 24/7, 365 days a year – and it will never take a day off sick!
9. Without e-commerce your Club will die a slow death! This is an area where the Club and fitness industry lacks behind nearly every other consumer based industry. Buying memberships online seemed an alien concept to the industry a few years ago but the arrival of the Budget Clubs has changed all that and they provide a clear indication that consumers are happy to purchase memberships and PT training online. As more and more of your business becomes ’web centric’ over the coming months and years, then not providing a ‘Buy Now’ button will cost your Club or fitness business hundreds of members each and every year.
Other marketing trends such as Facebook advertising, Google Re-Marketing and mobile apps are worth investing some time and money in, but concentrating the majority of your efforts on the nine key trends above will provide unprecedented returns for those who get it right.
This post is based on an original article in December's copy of FitPro Business Magazine by enjoy! CEO, Adrian Marks
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