How to Optimize Your Gym’s Inbound Marketing Strategy

In the world of health and fitness clubs, outbound marketing is king. Paid advertising through various different channels, from television to radio to billboards to even print advertising, is how a majority of new members find and join gyms. While gym owners and managers know that inbound channels (social media, your website, etc.) are just as important, the higher priority has always been these traditional marketing methods.

In recent years, the tide has steadily shifted in the gym world towards a middle-ground between outbound and inbound. While traditional marketing channels will never fully disappear, gym managers are starting to see the tangible benefits of the more social and personal approach of inbound marketing.

Here are three ways your team can optimize your inbound marketing channels and maximize your inbound potential:

Social Media

Promoting your gym through social media can be a huge driver for new members. After all, there’s a reason that social media influencers and fitness accounts are so popular. People want to see quick, easy, and fun workouts on their social feeds. For gyms, this social craze might seem like a difficult group to compete with. In reality, building a social following starts with your members. Start posting videos to an Instagram or Facebook account, and ask your members to start tagging your gym in their posts.

You can’t stop there, however. The whole point of this channel is to get people to come into the gym, which is why you need to include strong CTAs or links in your posts. Captioning a video of a workout class “Come join us from 5-6 pm!” or “Click here to sign up for the next class!” engages your audience through the video while also giving them direction on how they can become a part of your team.

Referral Marketing

Another less traditional inbound marketing channel is word-of-mouth and referral marketing. More than 83% of people say they trust the recommendations of friends and family. Gym managers can use this to their advantage by creating referral programs for current members. Promotions could include a free week, a free class pack, or even a free water bottle for referring a new member. Depending on your gym type and your member profile, you can set up different types of inbound referral campaigns to drive new memberships.

Website

A website is one of a business’s most important marketing tools, regardless of the industry. Unfortunately for many gyms, websites are often forgotten in favor of traditional advertising channels or, more recently, social media. A website can no longer consist of a simple Contact Us page, some stock photos, and a few descriptions of available classes. By optimizing your web presence, leveraging SEO, and setting up a few forms, your website can start driving new membership traffic into your gym. The best part of an optimized web presence is that your team can continuously update and change content to see what works and what doesn’t.

Optimize your inbound strategy

One of the best parts of inbound marketing is that there are relatively low operating costs associated with most of the above strategies. This way, your team can still invest financially in traditional outbound channels while giving inbound marketing a try. Once you get the hang of it, your gym will benefit from a well-rounded omnichannel marketing program.