How to Make Your Members That You Retained During Covid Your Brand Ambassadors

Having a thriving business isn’t only about bringing in a steady stream of new customers. We’ve shared before how retaining customers — in this case, gym members — makes more business sense and leads to more profit.

Yet you can go a step further than retention. A key part of inbound marketing, which is designed to attract the right customers to the right business, is to lead them through a buyer journey that takes them from being strangers and turns them into customers and then promoters of your brand. This is an idea worth considering for your gym business.

If you’ve retained gym members during Covid (that’s something to celebrate!), look to those customers as helpers to support your business strategy going forward. How can you turn those gym members into brand ambassadors who can help you gain more like-minded members? 

Pathway #1: Encourage Your Fans to Promote Your Gym

People who become fans and loyal customers will often be happy to promote your gym to their friends and connections. They may do some of this by themselves, yet your gym can take steps to encourage the behavior. Try these ideas:

• Social Media Tactics: Create hashtags and encourage social check-ins so your devoted members naturally share your brand on their social media pages. First, make sure your gym has social media business pages on the right platforms for your business and audience. For example, you can create a Facebook business page that members can then check into from their own pages. Their connections will see your gym attached to the person’s check-ins and posts about fitness progress.
• A Great Customer Experience: Always look for ways to improve your member experience, including asking members what improvements they would like to see. Providing a great experience will keep members around, and then when they’re asked for a recommendation for a local gym, they’re likely to mention yours. This is great word-of-mouth marketing.
• Incentives: Encourage your fans to spread the word by giving them something in return. Maybe they could receive an upgrade or freebie at the gym for sharing about your gym on social media or bringing in a friend. This would have the added benefit of showing them more of what your gym has to offer, potentially making them more of a fan and encouraging them to purchase the upgrades in the future.

Pathway #2: Start an Official Brand Ambassador Program

If your gym has the resources and the desire, you could establish an official brand ambassador program. Official brand ambassadors are those who publicly represent your brand long-term. Compensation of some sort may or may not be part of the equation.

Here are some tips on creating an ambassador program:

• Recruitment: Look for the gym members who have already been enthusiastic supporters, such as those bringing in their friends or consistently mentioning your gym in social posts.
• Insiders: Provide brand information to your ambassadors. This helps your ambassadors feel like trusted insiders while guiding them on your brand messaging and goals.
• Guidelines: Try to avoid restricting your ambassadors too much because you want to keep their recommendations authentic and trustworthy. Nonetheless, provide some guidelines because they’ll be representing your brand.
• Goals: Set clear goals and expectations for your ambassadors, and track their efforts.
• Rewards: Decide if there will be rewards attached to reaching goals. Be clear about the actions, such as a certain number of social posts or showing up to an event, and the rewards the actions result in. Rewards could include monetary compensation, gift cards, or free gym products or services. Publicly talking about their achievements is another type of reward.

Gym software can make it easier to find your loyal supporters and to track their brand ambassador activities.