The temptation is strong to begin this article with a pun about getting your marketing program into shape. While the joke may be a little corny, it doesn’t take away from the fact that investing in the right fitness marketing ideas can generate meaningful gains for your business.
A solid marketing program, with an overarching strategy and considered set of tactics, can help you generate new leads, hang onto the clients you already have, and build a recognizable, trusted brand over the long term.
Here, we’ll look at fitness marketing ideas to support all stages of your marketing funnel. No matter where your fitness business is in its journey, plugging these tactics into your marketing plan can serve as a solid foundation or enhance existing efforts.
Contents
- Fitness marketing ideas for leads and short-term goals
- Fitness marketing ideas for customer retention
- Fitness marketing ideas for brand building and long-term goals
Fitness marketing ideas for leads and short-term goals
Whether you’re just launching your studio or looking to boost memberships, lead generation is always a part of your work. These ideas can help bring new people through the door faster than ever.
1. Offer a free intro class or day pass
Starting a new fitness routine can be daunting. If people have the chance to try your studio for free, it lowers the barrier to entry. They see your welcoming staff, your great environment, your fun workouts, and that feeling of intimidation evaporates!
That’s why offering a free day pass or introductory class is a great way to drive new business. People can give you a chance without worrying that they’re locking into a pricey membership for a fitness routine they don’t know they’ll enjoy.
2. Host an open house
Another way to encourage new sign-ups is to host an open house. You might offer a free community workout on a set day, followed by the opportunity to chat with you and your team.
By making yourself available for any questions, you open the door to conversation, can address concerns head-on, and build a rapport that can help convert these drop-in visitors into paying members.
3. Start a referral program
If you’ve built a great community of dedicated gym-goers already, a referral program allows you to tap that valuable resource.
People who love their gym are always game to talk about it with family and friends. When you create a referral program, you further incentivize that behavior. Your fans get rewarded for talking you up, and you get a pipeline of prospects who’ve already heard great things about you.
Depending on how you structure your referral program, you can even add a benefit for the new clients being referred, like a discount on their first month or a welcome gift. Creating a win-win referral program helps ensure its success!
4. Share fitness content on social media
Nearly 60% of social media users report finding fitness and exercise content useful. There’s a huge market for fun, informative, and safe fitness advice online, and you can take advantage of this demand to promote your brand.
Share short tutorials of your most popular fitness routines. Provide tips on how to make small improvements to an existing workout. Share advice for refueling after a cardio session.
In short, become a valuable resource for fitness information on the internet. If you continually show up with good advice, you become a trusted resource for followers. When they’re ready to explore their options for proper fitness training, you’ll already be at the top of their list.
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5. Highlight your incredible trainers online
Everyone could work out on their own. But people turn to a gym for more than just a workout class. They like the motivation, camaraderie, and expertise of the trainers they find there.
Allowing people to get to know your team online can build those all-important “know, like, and trust” feelings before they ever set foot in your studio.
There are tons of ways to increase your trainers’ online presence. Do “meet the trainer” highlights on social media, where your team can showcase their personalities.
Get professional headshots taken for the entire crew and publish them—alongside fun and engaging bios—on the “about us” page of your website.
Encourage your trainers to build their own public personas on social media, podcasts, or other outlets.
All these efforts contribute to creating a positive image of your team—and your brand—for new people searching for a gym or fitness studio.
6. Share client testimonials
Positive reviews can go a long way toward convincing a prospective new client to give your gym a try. And with 42% of consumers saying they trust an online review as much as personal recommendations, there’s value in gathering client feedback and other forms of social proof to share online.
Online review platforms are great, but don’t stop there. You can post testimonials on social media, your website, and even on direct mailers. Sharing positive feedback about your gym in a variety of places helps prospects discover those sentiments, which can positively influence their buying decision.
7. Run a social media giveaway
Social media contests and giveaways can be a great way to increase your gym’s reach and connect with new prospects.
As part of your contest, you can ask followers to share content and use a branded hashtag. For example, in honor of Halloween, a yoga studio might ask followers to post a photo of themselves doing their favorite yoga pose in costume. Others can vote for their favorite yogi, and the winner receives a free month of classes!
Alternatively, you can create a giveaway that builds up your follower count. Share a post about your giveaway offer, with entry instructions that say people must like the photo, follow your brand, and tag two friends in the comments. Those who want the giveaway offer will follow you—which increases the audience you have to market to in the future!
8. Use geo-targeted ads
Your studio or gym serves a specific geographic area. By running digital ads that target people in your region, you reach a local, relevant audience.
Search engines and social media sites all allow you to target your ads by geography. If you have several locations, you can build out distinct campaigns that speak to each region you serve with location-specific messaging. (“Hey, [Town Name]! Come work out with us!”)
This type of personalization can help drive more clicks. If someone’s looking for a great local workout studio, and your advertising references their neighborhood, they know you’re a good fit for their needs.
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9. Sponsor a local event
Fitness is great for building community. If there are fitness events happening in your area already, signing up to sponsor them allows you to tap into the excitement and camaraderie.
Your gym can sponsor a local 5K, bike race, or children’s sports league. No matter what activity you choose to support, becoming a sponsor of a local fitness-related event shows that you’re generous and serious about inspiring a love of fitness in the community—even among those who aren’t yet part of your gym!
10. Optimize your site for local search
Making your brand discoverable online is essential to your long-term success. This fitness marketing idea is really one that’s applicable to any industry: put a local SEO strategy in place.
Results from WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool.
Local SEO ensures you show up organically in relevant local search results. It involves tactics like local keyword research, incorporating those keywords into your site copy, title tags, and meta descriptions, and claiming your Google Business Profile.
Customer retention ideas for fitness businesses
An oft-quoted statistic from Harvard Business Review says it’s anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing one.
Once you’ve gotten someone signed up for your fitness regimen, there’s a tremendous benefit to keeping them around. Customer retention can also involve upsell opportunities. If someone initially purchases a pack of five classes, continuing your marketing efforts might encourage them to move up to a monthly membership next time. These next fitness marketing ideas build customer loyalty and retention.
11. Offer themed classes
Even the greatest workout routines can lose their shine after a while. Making efforts to reintroduce fun and excitement into your classes can help drive long-term customer retention.
Themed classes can do just that. Give your coaches or trainers the opportunity to design a themed class that they love—that passion will be infectious to everyone who joins. Or, turn the decision over to your studio community. Let members vote: Do they want a Backstreet Boys class, or are they Team Britney?
12. Run seasonal challenges
Seasonal challenges can be another way to break up the regular workout schedule and inject some novelty into the routine.
Orangetheory Fitness runs Hell Week—8 days of intense workouts—leading up to Halloween.
You can build your seasonal challenges around global themes or more regional interests. Host a Thanksgiving-themed challenge where people can Turkey Trot on your treadmills, or invite them to run 26.2 miles during the month of your local marathon.
13. Launch a loyalty program
Showing gratitude to your loyal members helps foster retention. People want to feel appreciated, and a loyalty program is a concrete way to say thanks.
There are plenty of ways to structure your program. You may offer a discount to reward long-term loyalty (“Sign up for a full year of classes, and get one month membership free!”), or you could offer swag or another gift to celebrate milestones with your gym (“Get a free t-shirt after your 100th class!”).
14. Host charity events or classes
Surveys show that 30% of consumers are driven by ethical loyalty—that is, they stick with brands that align with their ethical values.
Hosting charity events or classes, with all proceeds going to a good cause, can reinforce those deeper bonds with current customers. Pick a charity you’re passionate about and donate all class fees to the organization, or ask your members to choose a cause they support and show proof of donation to join the class.
15. Hold a “bring your kids/friend to class” day
When you’re passionate about something, it’s exciting to share it with people you care about. Inviting your members to bring their friends or family to class is a thrill for them, and it can generate new business for you.
Design a family-friendly workout class, and host a set of classes that appeal to the parents (or fun aunts, uncles, and grandparents!) in your community. Be sure to snap some cute pictures of the family workout sessions for social media.
You can also invite current members to bring friends over the course of a week. This gives them the chance to introduce a friend to their favorite workout. It’s a fun activity for both, and if the friend likes the class, they just might sign up for a membership!
16. Encourage user-generated content
Feeding the social media beast can feel like a full-time job. Leaning on user-generated content (or UGC) can lighten the load and create great buzz for your fitness business.
To encourage your fans to create UGC, consider putting up reminders around your workout space or offering a little reward for those who share content. If you’re hosting a themed event, create a hashtag for it, and encourage people to use it.
Whenever someone shares content about you online, be sure to re-share the post from your account and thank them for the shout-out.
17. Start a fitness ambassador program
If your fitness business has diehard fans, consider tapping them to help spread the word about what you do.
You can build an ambassador program to encourage your most loyal members to shout you out in the broader community. This might be a great fit if you have fans with noteworthy social media followings.
Offer these ambassadors perks in exchange for sharing about your business online. If they do have a presence online, you may give them swag to wear in promo posts, plus payment or a gift of free or discounted membership.
This fitness marketing idea doesn’t just help you win new customers; it also rewards your top members and encourages them to stick with you.
Fitness marketing ideas for brand building and long-term goals
Businesses don’t just build brands for fun—they do it for the resulting gains. 90% of American consumers buy from brands they trust, and 87% are willing to pay more for a product from that trusted brand name.
Investing in brand-building efforts can help ensure the long-term success of your business. When you become known as a reputable player in the fitness space, you can tap into this consumer preference for buying from brands they believe in.
These fitness marketing tips can help reinforce your brand name as a local trusted business.
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18. Establish partnerships with local brands
Local businesses are stronger when they stick together! Building partnerships with relevant brands in your own backyard is a great way to power long-term growth.
Think about adjacent products and services that pair well with your fitness business. What other businesses might your clients frequent? After a workout, maybe they visit the juice bar for a protein-packed smoothie. Or, they might indulge in a cold plunge and massage at the local spa as part of their post-workout recovery.
Reach out to businesses like this and see if they’re open to cross-promotion. You can refer clients to them, and vice versa. You might even formalize the relationship, building special promo offers and codes for clients that come to you via a partner’s business.
19. Create workplace wellness packages for nearby businesses
Building up your client base one individual member at a time is a lot of work. That’s why looking for opportunities to generate multiple memberships at once can be a smart fitness marketing idea.
Barry’s has a suite of corporate-focused offerings, from team-building group classes to workplace wellness challenges.
Consider creating a workplace wellness package for businesses in your community. Rather than approaching employees, you can reach out to HR with a wellness package that they can offer their team. With 85% of HR professionals saying their wellness program actually reduced their talent management costs, you can pitch your program as a benefit, rather than a cost!
20. Start a fitness podcast, blog, or newsletter
Creating marketing content like a podcast or blog takes serious commitment. It requires time and dedication to fuel content creation long-term. But as a fitness pro, you understand that sticking with something that’s hard can lead to rewards down the road!
When you establish a regular fitness podcast, newsletter, or blog, you create a deep repository of your industry knowledge. You also build something where people can regularly find new, helpful fitness advice.
As you continue to build up your library of content, fans return to you for guidance—and share what you have to say with family and friends. Over time, you can become a trusted voice in the industry, which puts your fitness business top-of-mind for anyone looking to enact the advice you share in your content.
21. Design seasonal promotions
When your business has been around for a while, you’re always looking for ways to put a fresh spin on your marketing materials. Leaning into seasonal promotions is one way to help you find new messaging angles and reawaken your audience’s attention.
Is there a particular time of year when your business typically slows down? That’s the ideal time to run a seasonal promotion.
22. Offer hybrid memberships
There are all kinds of hurdles that stand between your customers and their gym time—work, family obligations, friends, and other hobbies, to name a few.
If you’re losing members to hectic schedules with no space for travel to and from your studio, consider building out a hybrid membership offering. Many fitness pros created video content during COVID. If you still have that on hand, you can repackage it as virtual, “always on” classes to help retain those super-busy clients who are at risk of lapsing on their in-person membership.
23. Create branded merch
Personal style is a form of expression, and people love to rep their favorite brands and businesses by wearing (or carrying) branded merchandise.
A branded t-shirt or tote is a classic in the branded merch space, but fitness businesses can get even more creative. Bike shorts, crop tops, sports bras, sweatbands—creating fun fitness gear allows your fans to find something they genuinely want to wear.
Branded merch can also help bring your fans together in the wild. Encountering a stranger wearing a tee from your favorite gym? That’s an instant conversation starter! And when others see people wearing your merch around town, it becomes a subtle form of ongoing advertising for your brand.
24. Run specialty workshops
Working out is only a small sliver of what constitutes a healthy life. When your fitness brand can move beyond workouts and provide additional advice that helps your clients pursue better health overall, you build long-term loyalty.
Consider partnering with local professionals in other arenas to host specialty workshops at your gym or studio. Invite a local dietician to host a session on nutrition, or ask the physical therapist down the street to run an injury prevention clinic.
Give your marketing muscles a workout with these fitness marketing ideas
You’ve just read through dozens of great fitness marketing ideas, but don’t feel you need to tackle them all at once. Instead, start small with a marketing action that’s sustainable. Then, get your reps in and build a habit. Over time, you just may see your marketing gains showing as greater customer acquisition and improved retention. For more ways to market your fitness business, see how our solutions can help!
To recap, here are all our best fitness marketing ideas:
- Offer a free intro class or free day pass
- Host an open house
- Start a referral program
- Share fitness content on social media
- Highlight your trainers online
- Share client testimonials
- Run a social media giveaway
- Use geo-targeted ads
- Sponsor a local event
- Optimize your site for local search
- Offer themed classes
- Run seasonal challenges
- Launch a loyalty program
- Host charity events or classes
- Hold a “bring your kids/friends to class” day
- Encourage user-generated content
- Start a fitness ambassador program
- Establish partnerships with local brands
- Create workplace wellness packages for nearby businesses
- Start a fitness podcast, blog, or newsletter
- Design seasonal promotions
- Offer hybrid memberships
- Create branded merch
- Run specialty workshops
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