This post was written by Surbhi and edited by Adete from Team InVideo
The gym and fitness industry's market size is predicted to grow by 7.2 percent in 2024. As a gym owner, it is understandable that a growing sector means a highly competitive atmosphere for your company. Even if you have a fantastic gym, it might be difficult to retain new members coming in on a regular basis.
So, how can you make sure your gym stands out from the throng and attracts the right clients? The solution is straightforward: promoting your gym. This is one of the simplest and most successful methods to step up your fitness business, attract more clients, generate revenue flow, and increase your bottom line.
If you’re wondering how to go about promoting your gym, we’ve got you covered. In this article, we will take you through effective gym promotion ideas that will help you get more clients this year. And if you already have a few ideas in your kitty, we would suggest making video marketing a core component of your promotion strategy because it is one of the best ways to promote your gym business. And don’t worry, making videos can be simplified if you use a tool like InVideo that helps you create videos in minutes even if you’ve never edited one before.
Here's what we will cover in the article:
1. Create and post videos on social media platforms
2. Offer online fitness classes to build credibility
3. Run paid ads to reach more people
4. Collaborate with local businesses to build awareness
5. Collaborate with social media influencers to grow your brand
6. Offer discounts and incentives to drive up sales
7. Create a referral program for word of mouth promotions
8. Host challenges for your audience and clients to create a buzz
9. Create a user-friendly website
10. Create your Google My Business page
Now, let’s get started on how to make your fitness program the next big thing!
1. Create and post videos on social media platforms
The largest group of gym-goers falls between the ages of 18 and 34, which also happens to be the most active social media user base. This means if as a gym you want to be on their radar, you need to have a solid social media presence. But simply creating an account is not enough. You need to post highly-engaging content on a consistent basis if you want to keep your current client base happy and reach more potential customers. This is where video content comes into play.
Creating and posting videos on social media platforms is one of the most effective gym promotion ideas out there. There is virtually no barrier of entry and every single social media platform out there is focusing on pushing out video content. You should use this to your advantage by creating thumb-stopping videos for your gym and sharing it on your social media platforms. Videos allow you to give your viewers a real-time experience of what it is like working with you or at your gym, they help build trust, and they are far more interactive than static posts. You can therefore use videos to build genuine relationships with existing and potential clients, improve your sign-up rate for memberships or training programs, and simultaneously keep building a brand.
For instance, look at how Soul Cycle has created an engaged online community by posting relatable, useful, and genuine content on their Instagram:
To create effective videos you first need to zero in on the platform as SoulCycle did. Don’t try to post on all platforms at once. Start with a short-form content platform such as Instagram or TikTok where your local audience is the most active. Once you have a solid footing, move on to long-form content platforms like YouTube and Facebook for promoting your gym beyond the confines of your local area.
Once you have your platform decided, you want to establish your target audience. Knowing your target audience in terms of age groups, likes and needs will help you create the right content that hits the right spot. Once you have narrowed down your target audience, it’s time to let your creative juices flow and create highly engaging videos.
For instance, PopSugar Fitness caters primarily to women and therefore the videos they share are focused on that demographic.
After you’ve decided on your target audience, go ahead and create a video marketing strategy that helps you post videos consistently on a variety of topics that will be useful/entertaining for your core audience. Plan out your videos for shooting and then edit them using InVideo’s online editor that gives you access to thousands of editable templates, stock assets, and a huge music library. Here’s a template you can use to create educational fitness videos for your audience on Instagram:
2. Offer online fitness classes to build credibility
Hosting a fitness class online is a great gym promotion idea because it will give potential customers an idea of what to expect when they visit your gym. They provide your audience an inside look at your teaching methods and allow them to decide if it's the correct match for them without ever having to enter the premises.
You can start a fitness class on social media using live videos on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. You can also make short videos of the routine and publish them online which would give your clientele a glimpse of what you as a gym owner or trainer can offer. A good online fitness class helps your current members stay in touch with your brand online while attracting new members to try your services.
Anytime Fitness does this really well with their Coach Care Connect series where they share complete live workouts on their YouTube channel to build community with their existing and potential customers. This video below is a great example:
Their page also proves that you don’t need millions of views and thousands of subscribers to achieve success. You need to create content that resonates with your target audience and you will automatically get better leads and conversions.
To make workout videos like Anytime Fitness, you will need to bring in experts — these could be the trainers at your gym — and ask them to give a workout session on camera. You can then edit these slightly to improve pace, add your own logo and branding using InVideo, and publish it on your platform of choice. You can also create a recurring online fitness class and here’s a template you can use to create promo videos for the class:
3. Run paid ads to reach more people
Paid ads are one of the most effective gym promotion ideas as they help generate revenue, increase reach, and generate higher ROI as compared to organic posts. Running targeted social media ads on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, or using Google Ads are all excellent ways for you to build awareness and drive sales.
When starting a campaign, the first thing you need to define is the goal. For most gym owners, the goal is to turn your traffic into new members. Further, select the type of ad campaign you would want to run, search, static or video. With most ad platforms you can target specific keywords that your audience uses (this can be revealed through SEO research) and run ads accordingly. Similarly, video and static posts can be included in your gym marketing campaign to be displayed between posts on the above mentioned social sites.
Check out this gym ad by Gold’s Gym SoCal. It’s simple yet brilliant at promoting the gym space and offering new member discounts.
To create an effective ad like this, you want to figure out what you’re promoting and then either shoot a video or put pictures of your gym space and training programs together in InVideo to create a video ad like this one. Here’s a template you can use to create a thumb stopping gym ad in minutes:
4. Collaborate with local businesses to build awareness
Collaboration with other local businesses can be a cost-effective method to boost mutual visibility. Reach out to businesses that align with your brand — whether a supplement firm or a meal prep company to collaborate.
Co-marketing allows you to save both time and money and therefore is one of the best gym promotion ideas out there. It also broadens your reach and accelerates the development of the local audience. Leveraging your collaborator’s reputation can help your brand appear more legitimate and trustworthy in the eyes of your potential clients. This is why when you do collaborate, you should also ensure that you make it public. To elaborate on this gym promotion idea, here's an example. One of the biggest gyms, Mountainside Fitness came up with an excellent idea to promote their collaborations as a perk to appeal to their fitness audience by letting them know about discounts at various brands the members could avail through getting their membership.
To create a collab video like Mountainside Fitness, you first need to reach out to other brands within the fitness and wellness space in your local area. It would be helpful if you can create a business plan to share with them. This will help them build more trust in you and eventually come on board. Once you have your collaboration in place, work with them to create content, especially videos, for both your social media handles and leverage each others’ audiences. You can easily make these videos using InVideo’s online video editor.
5. Collaborate with social media influencers to grow your brand
Influencer marketing today is a $10 billion industry and the fitness space makes up a huge part of this. People trust social proof and recommendations from real people way more than advertisements from brands thus making influencer marketing a huge success. The followers of influencers place a lot of faith in them which can assist you in converting potential clients into long-term customers and that is why collaborating with influencers is a super effective gym promotion idea.
Make a list of influencers who can assist you in growing your business. Make contact with significant influencers in your field and ask if they'd be interested in collaborating with your company. If they accept, you'll need to work out an arrangement that benefits both parties.
For example, you can offer your influencer either a 3-months complimentary membership if you want them to advertise your gym on their page or provide them a special discount on your gym services. Technogym on Instagram has shown the benefits of this promotion idea by collaborating with multiple influencers on the page. Here’s an example of their collaboration with a social media influencer Allegra Paris who has a huge following of 87.5k on Instagram.
The benefit of collaborating with influencers is of course that you get visibility to a much wider audience but also that you get highly polished content created for your brand as a part of your promotion strategy.
6. Offer discounts and incentives to drive up sales
Offers and discounts have been shown to be an effective gym promotion idea as it helps your brand attract new customers. Discounts and offers allow your clients to get a better price on gym memberships and services than what is currently available on the market, which helps your business gain more leads and exposure. If you're running promotions on digital channels, it is a good idea to use video to put out your offer since it is a more engaging medium. Thankfully you don't have to spend hours creating video ads, you can do that easily using ready-to-use templates from InVideo.
But discounts don’t always have to be monetary. Here are a few different ways you can incentivize your offers:
1. ‘Bring a friend’ offer where a current member of your gym along with their buddy can sign up for your gym and get 10% off
2. Personalized meal plans or free consultation from inhouse nutritionist for new customers
3. Provide a free 5 session workout with personal trainers for new customers
4. Giveaways on gym anniversary
5. Offer discounted membership rates and offers during the Holiday season to attract more customers
6. Offer couple’s workout sessions
7. Offer 3 free trial sessions for new or potential clients to give them a glimpse of your fitness program.
Check out this offer by Anytime Fitness, where they announce special discounts with no joining fees for their gym. Their bonuses of live classes, free use of body scanner, 24*7 access, etc. make this an irresistible offer.
We have a ton of discount templates that you can use and get going right away. You can customize any type of template for your gym or use our templates specifically designed for gym offers. We’ve given one below to help you start.
7. Create a referral program for word of mouth promotions
A study by Wharton School of Business shows that people are four times more likely to go for something or subscribe to a service like your gym when it’s referred to them by relatives or friends. Friends’ recommendations are a great way to promote your gym both online and offline. When someone joins your gym you can offer them additional rewards for getting their friends or associates to join. And if someone joins through a referral, they get a bonus as well. This creates a chain reaction leading to genuine referrals and promotion through people who already use your gym.
Providing both the people, the referrer and the one getting referred with incentives is really important for this strategy to work effectively. Here’s a list of ideas that you can use as rewards:
1. Free-Workout program with a personal trainer
2. Discount on gym retail products
3. Discounts on membership
4. Gym reward points to purchase a gym item
Once you decide on your referral scheme, you need to choose your referral channels. It could range from push notifications, emails, in-person promotions, WhatsApp messages, or even posters. Here’s an example of a referral program used by one of the leading gyms, Mountainside fitness on their website to attract family and friends of their existing members to expand their clientele.
1 - Email referrals
Email referrals are amazing to communicate with busy members of your gym. You can keep your customers in the loop by sending them newsletters containing a link to a Google form that both, the referrer and the person being referred to, need to fill. Once the forms are submitted and you have verified the details, you can then send out the promotions or discount codes or incentives as promised via email. To know how you can leverage the power of email marketing to promote your gym, check out this in-depth guide.
2 - Mobile App/ Push Notifications
If you have an app for your gym, clients can download and use it as a medium to refer new customers to you. You can just add a tab or section called “Referrals” where your clients can fill in their details and the details of the person being referred to. You can have a section under referrals that says “Invite a friend” or "Refer a friend". Your members would then be required to select a channel like WhatsApp, text message, email, Facebook, etc. to broadcast it. Once they select a channel of their choice, an invitation link would be sent. People who get the invitation link will be asked to fill a short form and submit it.
3 - Posters
If you want to opt for an offline mode of referral promotion, then posters are your best option. You can stick up posters in and around your gym that will let your customers know about the referral offer. Make sure the posters cover every detail and question that your members could have about the promotion.
4 - Business Cards
Business cards are the most common practice used globally to promote a business. You can issue your business cards to your customers to give to their family and friends. So, once the person who was referred comes to redeem the reward or promotional offer, you can take the name of the referrer and make a note of it in your database and reward both people.
8. Host challenges for your audience and clients to create a buzz
Periodic challenges are a fun way to bring the fitness community together and one of the most effective gym promotion ideas. The beauty of this gym promotion idea is that you can do it both online and offline. You can choose to create an online challenge on your social media platforms and this can help you scale your online presence while helping your community come together for one activity. Offline, you can host such challenges within your gym, giving incentives to members to participate.
The perfect example of challenges is fitness trainer Chloe Ting’s page. She creates a calendar around a fitness goal and turns it into a challenge. Here’s an example of one such video:
Creating online challenges is fairly simple. You can just shoot a video of an exercise, state the challenge out loud, use the relative hashtags and post it online. You can take the help of an InVideo template like the one given below to promote your fitness challenge:
You can also use these fitness video templates to create your challenge videos for your social media platforms.
Another way of holding these challenges is inside your gym or outdoor. You can invite your members and people from the fitness community to join you for a fitness challenge. You could set up a fitness circuit routine outdoor or at the gym. These challenges motivate people, and at the same time, reward them when they see themselves participating and pushing themselves to finish the challenge. This also brings the fitness community closer and creates an identity for your gym
9. Create a user-friendly website
Having a website helps to promote and inform members about your business and services. But having a user-friendly website is what sets you apart in the market. A good website for your gym serves as a primary point for potential consumers to learn more about the facility and sign up for membership.
57 percent of users stated that they won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed website on mobiles, while 85 percent of adults believe that a company’s website should be equally good or better on mobile phones as compared to on desktops. This opinion shows that people prefer a well-made and easy-to-navigate website that they can view on their phones and computers. Here are some key features that should have on your website.
1 - A gym highlights section
You can brag about your gym, unique features and fitness training offered that makes you better than other gyms in the area. You can post celebrity and influencer collaborations, events hosted by you, awards and recognitions earned by your gym, success stories, and client testimonials and link them to your social media pages to expand your reach. Here’s a testimonial video template you can use to create a compilation of testimonials from different clients.
2 - Website videos
When learning about a brand, 72 percent of online users prefer watching a video over plain text content. You can use videos to introduce yourself and your gym, share workout programs, tips and tricks, and build a sense of familiarity even before someone comes to your gym.
You can easily create videos for your website using InVideo’s online editor which offers over 5,000 templates, a library of over 8 million stock assets, and an easy-to-navigate timeline that allows you to make videos in minutes even if you’ve never edited a video before. Check out this template that you can use to create a stellar intro video for your website:
3 - Call to action
It is the key aspect for a Call-To-Action (CTA) on your website to get new clients. People can book a free trial for your fitness program or sign up for your gym membership through this CTA. You can also add a feature to book workout sessions with specific personal trainers. Here’s how Luxe Fitness uses this feature to turn their prospective leads into memberships.
4 - Amenities section
This section consists of a tour of your gym, training routines and facilities. It includes different types of programs, fitness routines and activities you offer. This part of the website gives your viewers a picture of what benefits or options they can choose if they subscribe to your gym. East Bank Club, has perfectly utilized this feature on their website showcasing a number of activities they have to offer to their clientele. To create videos that help you showcase the facilities at your gym, you can use InVideo’s gym video templates to your advantage.
Apart from these points, you could also include the prices of your memberships or packages, contact information, address details, and timings to make it easier for your audience to reach out to you.
10. Create your Google My Business page
The first thing your prospective clients do when looking for a gym is to go on Google and search for the nearest one. In fact, 88% of users who do this on their mobile phones either call or visit the center in a day.
People prefer signing up or visiting gyms that are ranked higher on Google that are also in their vicinity. Closer the business to their location, better chances of signing up for the service. Google Business allows you to list your business on Google Maps and other local search results. You can also list additional information about your business like its opening/ closing time, contact details and links to your website. It also includes a review section where your current gym members can give testimonials.
This way, your gym gets higher chances of getting featured on keywords like ‘gym near me', ‘gym with best fitness trainer’ or ‘best gym for outdoor workouts’ that are mostly commonly searched. This is what that search query reveals:
Here's how you can appear on Google maps using this tool:
1. Go to Google My Business and click on “Start now”
2. Put in the name of your gym
3. Add your gym address and choose a business category
4. Enter your contact number and website details
5. Select a verification option (phone, email, instant verification)
6. Once you filled in all the details to claim your listing, ensure it has all the necessary info for your current and potential clients to understand the services your gym offers
After claiming your Google My Business listing, the next steps to follow would be to optimize it by filling out all the required information so that Google can index all the relevant information about your business. Ask your customers for reviews and testimonials and optimize the information for search results.
You can also add videos up to 30 seconds long to your Google Business page. Use this opportunity to put your best foot forward and use fitness templates from InVideo to create stunning videos for your business page
Wrapping up
It takes more than just flashy advertising showing strong people with six-pack abs to come up with good ideas to promote your gym. It's all about delivering the appropriate message to the right audience. Successful gym promotions have the ability to significantly increase your business's success in terms of memberships, customer satisfaction, and, eventually, profits. Regardless of where your gym is located, the three things you must focus on are your social media presence, video marketing, and paid advertising. Here are some social media post ideas and ad ideas you can leverage to that effect.
And if you prefer learning via videos, definitely check out our YouTube channel where we give tips and tricks to help you make the whole process easier.
