Your Fitness Business- Advertisements, Promotions & Sales
Posted by Barry Duncan on Wed, Jan 27, 2010
I hear from fitness professionals all the time wondering what type of ads or promotions they should run or how do you get people to buy, in other words how do they make a sale. There are three different areas here the first is advertising followed by promotions and then finally the sales process. There is much confusion as to what these three areas are in any business the reason being that it is different depending on your business and your target demographic.
The first two items; advertising and promotion can cause the greatest amount of confusion for people because most businesses advertise their promotions. This is where you will see a store special in a news paper or a TV ad offering a limited time two for one deal. Advertising is meant to attract people to your brand and to build recognition so that people will choose you over a competitor. Promotions are offerings of your product or services these offerings can be at special rates or not; the goal is to let people know that they can buy and receive a special from you. Both are marketing tools and both should lead to an increase in sales.
| | Advertising | Promotion |
| Definition | Advertising is a one way communication with the purpose to inform potential clients about your products and services as well as how to obtain them | A promotion usually involves an immediate incentive for a buyer (sometimes it is an intermediate incentive for distributors). It will also involve specific information about a single product or service this is usually in the form of a specific value or benefit statement. |
| Purpose | To increase sales and most important the brand of the company | Has one purpose to increase sales |
| Time line | Long term needs to run over multiple ads using multiple methods. Success is measured in years
| Short term with a more immediate measure of success. You should see results in days or weeks. |
| Cost | Very expensive and will involve numerous professionals such as graphic artists and marketing or copy writers | Should be cheap as it is involves a discount or free gift of the product or service, it is often done in-house to existing clients or to a specific group |
| Who should do it | Medium to larger companies over 10,000sq with 1000+ members and franchises (small or large) will do this as part of their agreement | Small to medium sized solo fitness professionals and studio owners with 10 to 500 clients |
| Relationship to sales | Indirect; it is assumed that it will lead to sales but is more of a brand awareness | Directly related if you offer a promotion you should have sales otherwise it failed
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Here is an example of and advertisement and a promotion by Snap fitness.The advert is simple it states a message about the brand -it is fast, convenient and open 24 hrs, period end of story. It could be for any of their franchises.
The promotion on the other hand has restriction of time and an offer for a specific thing for a specific group of people in this case the city of Kenosha employees.
Now the nasty ‘S' word ‘Sales', this word tends to have a negative image associated with it, most people think of a used car sales person or aggressive sales tactics that are so annoying. For most fitness professionals becoming a sales person is not an image or role they feel comfortable with. Good news -you don't have to be. But you still have sell it is the how sell that is 100% up to you. If you do your promotions correct and actually offer a great product or service then the sales part should be easy, in some cases it can be as easy as "Go to my Volo site and you can sign up and purchase online". Others will need to hear the benefits and value statements from you in person.Either way you still need to make a sale. By definition a sale is a completion of a transaction for goods or services, how you get there is up to you.