Meet Your Newest Club Competitor!
(And what you can do about it)

By Casey Conrad

You may not know it yet but a new club competitor is coming to your area. Heck, they may already be there. The news reported that they signed up 5,000 members in their first 30 days.

If those kinds of numbers don’t scare you then this will; this competitor is an on-line health club and their basic membership is free. So, just when you were counting your blessings that a low-price model had not yet knocked on your door, here comes “free.” Wow. Before you read on pull up the site and check it out: www.Wexer.com.

I know what you are thinking. “Free fitness instruction; come on, give me a break. That will never fly. My members come here for the social interaction, they come for the equipment, the motivation.”

My response to that is this: Club operators snickered at the Curves model and poo-poo’d the Planet Fitness model but both have been successful. Oh, sure, Curves over-sold franchises and knock-off’s sold like hot cakes, resulting in a supply and demand imbalance. However, the concept reached a consumer that health club operators had never been able to tap into. Planet Fitness is also accomplishing new market penetration but with a different concept.

And that’s my point; an “on-line gym” will reach consumers who have some level of discomfort with joining a physical gym. It may be fear of embarrassment, fear of failure, lack of trust, lack of finances or maybe something as practical as lack of time for getting to the gym. The Internet breaks down all those barriers—all from the comfort of your own home!

So, you can stick your head in the sand, hum “la, la, la, la, la, la” and hope the on-line gym goes away but when you finally open your eyes you’re only delaying the inevitable; TECHNOLOGY IS HERE TO STAY, and that includes applications to the health club business!

The only question you have to ask yourself is this: “Are you going to embrace technology and make it work for you or are you going to fight it, miss tremendous opportunities and eventually find yourself losing business?”

I have been spending much of the last 18 months teaching eMarketing strategies to health club operators around the world. The biggest question I get from attendees is “Where do I start?”

There is no question that technology can be overwhelming. Further, it is moving at such a fast pace that it seems impossible to keep up with the latest trends. I, myself, fell prey to “information overload” which lead to paralysis. I literally spent 6 months taking more courses and reading more books but had failed to do a single, constructive thing. Only when I had a clear plan of action could I begin implementation.

Because I don’t want you to suffer through the same learning curve I’m going to outline a handful of eStrategies that you need to be incorporating into your marketing plan. Some of them might make sense now while others will sound like a foreign language. That’s okay, keep the checklist handy and methodically begin to incorporate the concepts into your clubs actions. Finally, know that I’m outlining things in somewhat of a chronological order for those who aren’t doing anything with eMarketing at the moment. Therefore, I suggest that you start with the most logical, most “productive” efforts and expand from there.

• Get an on-line guest pass registration set up and prominent on your website. People who are already interested and have found you somehow are on your website. That’s great but your goal isn’t just getting visitors; it’s turning visitors into prospects and eventually members! Have an extremely visible “Click here for a 7-Day guest pass” icon on your home page (or 1 day or 3-day). Further, add this same link or icon to as many other appropriate “prospect” pages as well. It will be even more effective if you can add a visual image of a guest pass, which will increase the visibility and attractiveness.
• Hook up your on-line guest pass form with an auto responder program that doesn’t require a human for follow up! One of the benefits of technology is the ability to set up e-mail responses that happen automatically in a timed sequence from the moment an individual registers for something. With a guest pass this would mean that as soon as the person requested the guest pass, an e-mail would be sent to their in-box with the link to download their guest pass. Afterwards, in the sequence of your liking, follow up e-mails are sent to the registrant. All of this happens without any concern of SPAM because it is the visitor who filled out a form. This system also maximizes delivery rates. I enjoy an average 97% delivery rate to my list of over 3,000 health club professionals who have requested sales and marketing information from my companies. The on-line program I use (and have all our clients use) is fully integrated with unlimited autoresponder &broadcast capability, shopping cart option and affiliate ability, just to name the major features. You can get a free trial of this at www.OurFavoriteCart.com.
• Add other “capture mechanisms” to your website that will attract individuals who aren’t yet ready to join or even ready to ask for a guest pass but want more information. This typically has to be something of high perceived value to the visitor in order to entice them to give their name and e-mail address. For example, an e-book on some area of fitness that is important to a large percentage of the population. This might be on weight loss, home fitness programs, diabetes prevention or any other chronic disease. If you would like to see a reply of a recent webinar I gave entitled “How to Turn Web Leads Into Sales,” go to http://www.smartclubmarketing.com/videos/web-leads-into-sales/
• Evaluate every single marketing, advertising and promotional piece of literature you currently have. Determine whether or not that piece is pro-actively driving people to either your website or individual “landing pages” where prospects can sign up for the guest pass, an eBook or some other value added offer. The goal is to provide something that entices them to give you their name and e-mail address.
• Begin using non-branded, guerrilla marketing efforts (this can be either traditional print or on-line, low cost banner ads and affiliate links) to drive prospects to a landing page for fitness information. A “landing page” is a one-page web site that is a mini advertisement for free stuff, like an e-book. Yes, even free has to be “sold” to get someone to give you a name and e-mail. Use an auto responder system to deliver both the initial content and follow up content. If you want to see an example of a landing page go to www.cbasbook.com. Once you develop a relationship with the individual you can begin introducing them to the services of your club.
• Begin adding audio and video to your website. Many people don’t know that adding video to a website (particularly when you upload the original file onto You Tube) is one of the fastest ways to improve your search engine ranking. Part of the reason is that Google owns You Tube so it is in their best interest to optimize the content on their platforms. Audio and video also adds an element of interest and engagement for the visitor. The more you can establish a relationship with the visitor the greater the chances of them becoming a prospect and ultimately a member.

Bringing the conversation back to the wexer.com site, imagine if you began adding video fitness and exercise tips onto your site—where both members and non-members can access them for free! You may think “Why all the work if I’m going to give them exercise info so they don’t come into my club,” but I can assure you that if done right you will monetize such an effort. It may take time but many consumers will eventually make their way into your club. There is no doubt that the wexer.com site has a “back-end,”—i.e. a place where they eventually make money from their visitors and members. The key is that they gain their trust with the free videos. You may never want to have an on-line gym like theirs but what if you could have enough valuable content that visitors could access to where they eventually trusted you (and themselves) enough where they wanted to join a physical gym. If you were there for them on-line they’ll be much more apt to buy from you when they want a “place” to workout.

• Begin blogging about fitness information. For many people the thought of blogging is almost as misunderstood as the idea behind Twittering. Most club people I talk with ask, “How do I make money from a blog or Twittering?” The answer would be an article or two in themselves (perhaps for a later column?). However, just as 10 years ago you would have never thought your mother would have an e-mail account, so too will be the case with blogging and Twittering. Web 2.0 (which just means that consumers are talking to one another on an open, Internet format and driving what happens in business) is moving rapidly through many industries and it will eventually be mainstream in the club business. If you aren’t there before it becomes mainstream you’ll never catch up (kind of like you couldn’t get your name for a yahoo account because someone else already took it, or a great web address). So, at the very least go to www.Blogger.com and sign up for a free blog with your club’s name (before someone else takes it!). Oh, and by the way, Google owns Blogger too. That means they optimize the heck out of blog content as well!

At present only 14% of Americans are members of a health club and around 25% say they exercise regularly. Technology provides our industry with a fantastic platform to reach more people. Only be embracing technology and finding ways to integrate the strategies and tactics into our marketing will you be able to reap the potential benefits. Just like any new skill, start small but be consistent. Soon you will be able to look back and see the progress you have made.

For more information about eMarketing for health clubs please be sure to visit our site, www.SmartClubMarketing.com and sign up for our free weekly tips.