Why You Should be Driving Club Traffic with Technology
By Casey Conrad
If you are like most club operators the primary “bottleneck” in hitting your monthly membership goals is generating more tours. I hear the same story over and over again and it typically sounds like this:
“Nothing we are doing lately in terms of marketing seems to be working. Not the ads, not the referrals, not the direct mail. Nothing”
Interestingly enough, it isn’t just inexperienced club operators that are frustrated with the lack of club traffic—it’s savvy, top-notch operators too. I, myself, hate to admit it but it’s true; traditional marketing doesn’t seem to have the effectiveness that it once did.
No doubt slower club traffic is due to multiple factors: perhaps consumers are simply over-marketed too, making them less influenced by advertising. Maybe the high number advertising mediums dilute the effectiveness of marketing dollars for small businesses. In some markets it could be the hyper competitiveness that is spreading the same number of prospects across more clubs. These are just three potential external factors. No doubt there are other external and internal contributors that together make for a complicated and frustrating club traffic situation.
Although we can’t be certain of “the” reason for this industry-wide problem we can be certain about this; if we want a different result, we must do something different.
I certainly don’t profess to have all the answers but I have learned over the past year that one thing our industry must do differently is use technology. I’m not talking about member management software or the latest, greatest fitness department testing equipment. What I’m referring to is the use of technology specifically for prospecting in a way that will dramatically change the health club sales process. Sounds pretty dramatic, so let me explain.
If you look at the way most health clubs sell memberships and relate it to the behavioral change process, we market primarily to individuals who are in a state of readiness to buy.
There are six stages to behavioral change; pre-contemplation (don’t even think about changing); contemplation (I “should” change); preparation (I’m “going to” change); action (I take action); maintenance (I have to work at maintaining my behavior), and; termination (fully integrated new behavior).
When a prospect walks through the doors they are typically in either preparation or action stages. The reason for this is simple; because almost all health club advertising has some kind of “immediate action offer,” these ads appeal to people who are ready to buy.
What this means is that health club ads do virtually nothing to try and appeal to “contemplators.” The result is that until something happens in the contemplators’ world that pushes them into a preparation or action mode, they have no particular affinity for any of the businesses in that market space.
Said another way, an individual who thinks they “should” begin an exercise program but is not ready to respond to your “50% off enrollment offer” is not being engaged into any type of relationship with you—a relationship that could lead to them buying from you in the future versus buying from your competitor! Am I making sense here?
Creating a relationship that will lead to contemplators buying from you is where the technology enters the equation. Specifically, club operators must find ways to build huge data bases of local prospects that have some level of interest in an exercise program but are not currently a member of a club. In fact, these prospects may not even be thinking about the health club as a solution but they are interested in the benefits of exercise.
Once a data base of prospects has been created, the next step is to communicate with them in a way that helps build a relationship and specifically educate the consumer on the benefits of regular exercise. Notice, I did not say “communicate with them about your club and the special membership prices you may be running!” This is counter-productive because your goal is to help the person move down the behavioral change process from pre-contemplation or contemplation to preparation. What moves someone through stages isn’t a better price but a higher perceived value and appreciation for a product or service. This happens through educational information as well as testimonial stories but that is another article for another day.
The question many club operators have, then, is “Okay, so how do I go about building my list?” Certainly there are more traditional ways of growing a list through such things as community events and networking opportunities, but using technology is much more effective. This is true from both efficiency and volume standpoints. Best of all, technology can be combined with and enhance the effectiveness of many of the things we currently do in the club business. Here are just a few examples.
Lead boxes and take-one passes are two of the oldest forms of club marketing. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons many clubs have negative associations towards lead boxes and won’t use them. (Personally I think lead boxes are great—even if they turn out to be nothing more than a $16 mini-billboard in a store.) Take-ones are more universal in appeal but do not pro-actively generate leads because you must wait for the person to call the club after they have picked up a brochure.
How both of these marketing efforts can become greatly effective is by placing a call to action on each brochure, slip and box that drives the prospect to a website for free educational information. Two things are important here. One, the website is not your company website that allows the prospect to get lost in buttons, video clips and other information. Two, the website does only one thing—gives them the ability to opt-in for a free e-booklet.
We have been using this strategy with my in-club weight loss licensing program Take It Off and the results are outstanding. Someone interested in losing weight but not yet ready to call the club about the program goes to the site and can comfortably opt-in with a name, e-mail and zip code and they will receive an e-booklet on how to lose weight.