5 Steps to Building an Effective Local-Level Marketing Strategy for Your Fitness Business
Posted by Barry Duncan on Wed, Jan 23, 2013
A well-thought-out local-level marketing plan is critical to your success. The plan needs to be centered on the fitness services and products that your business offers to the community.? You want your referrers to become champions of your business, and your community to perceive you as the ?go-to? person on Health, Fitness, and Wellness.
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- Identify businesses that share the same target demographic as your fitness business; those companies that will benefit equally from you referring people to their business. The goal is to create a mutually-beneficial reciprocal relationship. If you are a Personal Training studio, you could partner with a spa or hair salon.
I encourage you to think outside the box too. Our studio recently created a relationship with a nearby Acura car dealership. When someone buys a new car, they receive a gift pack of training sessions to our studio. This has been a great way to get a local business talking about us and advertising our services in their showroom. ?
- Solidify your professionalism and business presence through community groups. After joining our local Chamber of Commerce, my partner, Nikki Layton, was voted ?2009 Business Person of the Year? in our community. This recognition has gone a long way to advertise our Personal Training studio and brand it as a professional local business. We also had some great press around it. There are dozens of local church groups, community programs, business networking groups, and associations within your area.? Search your city and your state, and the words ?Business Groups? or ?Chamber of Commerce?, in Google for starters. (i.e. Birmingham Alabama Business Groups)
- Get involved in local events and charities. Every year we raise money for a charity through our ?Train the Trainer? event held at our Personal Training studio. Clients purchase minutes where they get to train the trainer. To date, we have raised over $150,000.00 for various charities. These donations help to highlight community spirit. Some other ideas: donate services at silent auctions within your community or donate a prize to the winner of a pie-eating contest at the local fair.
- Host Fitness workshops at your facility and invite the neighborhood. Running a fitness workshop is a way for you to show the community what you do and become the local expert on Health and Fitness. Host a talk once a month. The talk doesn?t need to be long ? 30 to 60 minutes at most ? and can cover a wide range of topics, from exercise for children, to how to plan health-conscious grocery lists. ?You can choose to keep the workshop free-of-charge, or donate the fees collected to a local shelter or food drive at a local food bank. Be sure to develop a press release every time you host an event.
- Use the local media and press to your advantage. If you see an article related to Fitness, Health or Wellness, contact the author, offer additional information and/or advice, or write a rebuttal to what was said. Your goal is to build a list of writers and press contacts that you can reach out to when you host an event. Even if your press release is printed once out of every ten times you send it, it is still free press.
Another added value from doing this legwork: you get to meet some fabulous people and learn more about the businesses in your area.
Share your own community success stories below.
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