Generate Hundreds of Fitness Leads

Over the past 18 months, my team and I have generated thousands of leads for hundreds of fitness studios and independent gyms around the world. In doing so, we’ve spent a ton of time and money testing and figuring out exactly what does and doesn’t work when it comes to lead generation for fitness business. And that’s exactly what I share with you here today.

But before we dive in, let’s define exactly what we consider a lead. This is someone  who gives you their first name, last name, email, and phone number in exchange for an offer at your studio or gym.

While every online marketing campaign’s performance varies based on factors like the studio’s location, offer, brand equity, sales process, and overall experience, we’ve noticed that the most successful follow these strategies and provide great customer service.

If you’re ready to build a proven lead generating machine that the top fitness studios in the industry use, here’s what you need:

A PROVEN OFFER

The first part of your online advertising campaign starts with an amazing, proven offer at your fitness studio.

This is what catches potential members’ attention. The one that we’ve found to be the most effective is one free week. This offer has generated 475 leads for a yoga studio in 1 month, 206 leads for a boxing studio in 1 month, and tons more.

1 Free Week performs so well because it allows people to come check out your studio and take a few classes without any commitment. If you have a good sales process and provide a great experience during their free week, it’s likely that they’ll becoming paying members.

RELATED: The Power of Free: Your Fitness Studio’s Offer

This is the one we’ve had most success with, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only option out there. Here are a few paid offers that our fitness studios have had a lot of success with as well:

FACEBOOK ADS

Once you have a proven offer, your next step is to get it in front of as many people in your target demographic as possible.

Facebook ads are a simple and cost-effective way to do this. This social media platform has an average of 1.32 billion daily active users, and you’re able to target your ads based on location, age, gender, interests, behavior, and more. This allows you to spend your ad budget on only your target demographic.

In order to get people to click on the offer on your Facebook ad, you need engaging ad copy that instantly catches people’s attention. The best way to do this is to speak directly to a specific target audience.

Here’s an example:

Notice that the first thing people read in this ad is in all caps and has stars around the text, ⭐ATTENTION LADIES IN CLARKSVILLE⭐. This instantly grabs attention.

Your Facebook ad should also create curiosity, urgency, and scarcity. For example, include that the 1 Free Week is a limited time offer that’s only available to the first 20 people. When people see that an offer is limited or expiring soon, they’re more likely to act quickly.

The next thing you’ll notice about the ad above is that it’s a video …

MADE IT A VIDEO AD

Facebook’s algorithm rewards video posts over image posts. It gets a 135% broader reach than photos and gets better engagement.  

You don’t have to be a professional to film a quick video to include in your ads. Most smartphones record high quality video, and you can easily edit them using programs like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker.

In your video, give people a quick tour of the studio. Show them what your classes look like and explain what they can expect when they come in. You want to really capture the viewer’s attention, so show off your personality and get people excited to come check out your studio.

When you’re done editing your video, add captions to increase view time by up to 12%. Not everyone wants to watch video with sound, so captions make people more likely to watch your video longer and engage with it.

We use a service called Rev for this, and it’s really simple to use. For a step-by-step breakdown on how to do this, check out “How to Caption Social Media Videos Using REV.”

Another tip to increase engagement and get 10X as many shares is to upload videos natively instead of sharing a link from YouTube, Vimeo, or Wistia. Native video plays automatically within Facebook, whereas shared links require you to click on them and take you to an external website.

People are less likely to watch your video ads if they have to click on it and go to another website. Native video that autoplays makes it a lot easier for them.

So once you have an awesome offer and a great Facebook ad to promote that offer, you want to take people somewhere easy for them to redeem the promotion. That’s where landing pages come in. And in order to optimize that landing page and stay in front of people who decide they don’t want your free week even after they click on your ad … you need retargeting.

RETARGETING

On average, it takes 4 to 7 impressions of your business before someone decides to buy. On top of that, 80% of sales are made between the 5th and 8th touch, so you constantly want to stay in front of people after they initially see you.

That’s where retargeting comes in.

Retargeting allows you to continuously market to people who visit your website or landing page even after they’ve left - and all because you’ve placed a Facebook retargeting pixel on the page(s). This way, you still have a chance to convert people with your free week even after they’ve left.

Here’s the process: If someone sees your ad, clicks on it, and goes to your landing page, but they don’t claim the offer, you can use retargeting ads to remind them about your promotion.

This clip of The GSD Show with Mike Arce and Kasim Aslam gives more detail on what the pixel is.

AUTOMATION

When the leads start to come in, it’s really important that you follow up with them as soon as possible. But this can take a lot of time, and we know how busy business owners are. Automated email drips help a ton with this.

Once people claim their offer, the first thing they should get is a welcome email that thanks them and lets them know what they should do next.

Here’s an example:

After a few days, send out another email that asks them if they’ve scheduled their free week. You can also include a bonus offer to give them an incentive like a free measurement session if they call right away and mention the Facebook ad. All of this can be automated and done through your preferred CRM - we use Infusionsoft.

The cool thing is that after you set up the email drip once, the emails will get sent out automatically so you don’t have to worry about it.

The most successful fitness studios generate tons of leads online with these strategies. Once the leads start pouring in, be sure to follow up with them as soon as possible and have a strong sales process. If you need tips on closing leads, check out “7 Ways to Close More of Your Fitness Leads.” Test these out and let us know how they work for you!

 

Mike Arce:

Mike Arce is the host of the top fitness business video podcast, “The GSD Show.” He is also the founder and CEO of Loud Rumor, a 7-figure advertising agency for small businesses in the fitness and wellness space. Mike has helped over 25 major brands like Orangetheory Fitness and his agency has worked with over 400 fitness and wellness companies throughout the world. As a husband and father of 4, he’s created the time to do all of this while traveling to speak at many events across the country over the last 2 years.