Are your gym’s social media strategies actually helping you generate membership leads? Are you using them to retain loyal members and build awareness of your brand? Or are they just sucking up your valuable time but not really contributing to your business goals?
When it comes to measuring the impact of marketing campaigns, the traditional methods can be tricky. But social media sites provide built-in ‘insights’ or reporting data, showing results from all your activities in easy-to-understand charts. This makes it super simple to identify what worked well, and what didn’t, so you know what to repeat in the future.
Social media can be an invaluable tool for your fitness business. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram can make a real difference to your bottom line. So, if yours aren’t generating the results you’d like, then we’ve got some practical strategies to help.
In this article – we share 10 gym social media ideas for lead generation and member retention, to help boost your club’s profitability.
#1 – Promote Your Audience (Not Your Brand)
People love to share social media posts that make them look good. So, help them look good! Promote their stories, successes, and achievements – anything that makes them look smart, successful, funny, or helpful. Posts about people achieving personal bests, winning challenges, or overcoming obstacles, all work really well. Your followers will be much more likely to share this type of content, especially if they know the person being referred to. The key to this approach is to always include a ‘call to action’ that links back to your business.
So, end your post with a phrase like ‘join the challenge’ or ‘get involved here’, plus a link back to your own website.
#2 – Use Lead Magnets
Lead magnets are a great way to capture email addresses and grow your client list. You just need to create something of value, that people will hand over their email addresses for.
Here are a few ideas to get you started.
- Ebooks
- Video courses
- Challenges
- Meal plans
- Cheatsheets
- Workout guides
- Email courses
- Shopping lists
- Checklists
- Recipe cards
If you make your lead magnet valuable enough, then people will naturally share it. You can also pay extra to ‘boost’ it with a Facebook ad or promote it as sponsored content on other social sites.
#3 – Run Competitions
Running a social media contest can be a powerful way to generate leads (as well as increase brand awareness). The key to running a successful contest is to pick a relevant prize. It’s important to choose something that’ll be appealing to your specific target audience.
If you select something that’s generically appealing (like an iPad or Amazon vouchers) then you might attract a lot of entrants, but they won’t necessarily be interested in your products or services. So, think about what your ideal client or member would be interested in… a yoga weekend? A month of free training? Customized Nike trainers? Then collect email addresses from all the contest entrants, so that you can follow up with them afterward.
#4 – Drive Referrals
Referrals tap into the holy grail of marketing… word of mouth. There’s nothing people trust more than a recommendation from a friend. So, if you can get people sharing your digital marketing content, you’re A) increasing your exposure to a wider circle of clients, and B) improving your credibility too.
The simplest step is often overlooked… we neglect to ask. This is easily solved by adding a call to action at the end of posts such as ‘share with someone who’ll appreciate this’ or ‘share with friends who might like to try this’.
The next level is to incentivize referrals. On social media, this means making your audience look helpful, as well as giving them something in return. You could create online vouchers for your followers to share with friends and family.
#5 – Pay to Play
Investing in advertising will multiply the reach and impact of anything you promote. It’s incredibly effective since you’re able to target your ideal client very precisely.
If you’re using Facebook, you can choose to boost posts. This will increase the number of people who see or interact with them in their news feeds. Alternatively, you can create adverts with a specific offer, that links to an email capture form. The key here is to establish a follow-up process for the leads you collect.
One option is to set up an email auto-responder, that sends a series of emails to nurture your prospects. Alternatively, you can follow up directly by phone or email, ideally within 24 hours of them submitting their details.
So, there you have five gym social media strategies for attracting new members… Implementing these marketing ideas will ensure that your social media actually generates clients (and doesn’t just suck up your time).
