I am asked quite often about how a start-up fitness business can acquire new clients or members. It seems in this time of economic strife that this is a burning question for many entrepreneurs out there.

Over the next few blogs I will break down the most common marketing strategies into actionable steps so you can start to implement them into your fitness business.

Remember 2 heads are better than 1

Host-beneficiary or loyalty marketing in your fitness business:

This marketing tool has been used for hundreds of years and is currently referred to as a customer loyalty reward. It is a great way to start to get your name out there by co-marketing with various other businesses. These partnerships are hard to find but can often lead to huge success once they are implemented. The plan is to approach local businesses with an offer to provide your services to their customers, usually tied around a purchase, as a reward for being loyal to their businesses. It is a win-win for the businesses involved and is a low cost way to market what you do and to improve your visibility in the community.

How to implement in your fitness business:

1. You need to clearly define your demographic you are targeting for this relationship. To do this will require you to look at your business and analyse the data you have on the people already using your fitness business. Create a list of current clients/members, their occupations and where they live or work. You may need a second list of the types of people you really want to train if you are trying to change your market but the data is the same. You will now have a target demographic and an area that they work or live. If you use Volo the easiest way is to export your member list, open it with excel and then you can filter it anyway you want to see patterns!
2. Identify local businesses in the same area of your fitness business that would service the same target demographic. This is where most make a mistake and jump to assumptions and end up with the wrong partners so if you are not sure compile a list of businesses that you think fit the profile then send out a survey to existing people that use your services to see if they ever shop or use these businesses. You should end up with a list of around 3-5 companies and do not have companies that compete with each other, choose one and if they say no go to the others.
3. Develop the offer for each prospective new partner, these offers could be unique for each one. These offers do not need to be free or discounted to the absurd but they do need to provide a clear and definable benefit to the partner and their customer. Do not think like yourself here because the chances are you are not your target demographic, this is very hard to do. Put in writing and clearly mark out the objectives, the benefits and the responsibilities for both parties involved.
4. Spend some time to create some of the marketing material that describes the offer and your fitness business. This is critical if you do not have the samples and they are not to a standard that the company uses currently then they will not bite on the deal. You cannot approach a high end car dealership with a slip of paper that say come get a free posture assessment, they will toss them out. Spend some time looking at the current marketing material of the companies you are targeting and try to develop offers and materials that match.
5. Clearly layout what you will do for them and the materials that would help you to promote their services or products to your network. Promote your demographic and how you see similarities in the people that you both target. The whole idea is to create a mutually beneficial relationship that will last for years versus one off deals that end in a few months.
6. The final bit of planning is to have tracking metrics so you can review progress and show successes or react to issues by making proactive changes. Include conversion techniques and follow up strategies so that both companies are satisfied. You do not want to be spamming another businesses customers it will only lead to problems down the road so let them know up front what your intentions are.

You now have the steps for this marketing strategy and can start the implementation. Best of luck!

If there is a marketing strategy that you want a step by step guide on then post it in the comments and I will add it to the upcoming blogs!