Get started with these four steps to storytelling for gyms to promote your brand, build customer engagement, and gain a loyal following.

1. Set the Goal

Before you do anything else for your storytelling campaign, you need to determine the intent behind your efforts. Is the goal to get people into your gym for a tour? Do you want to add people to your email subscriber list?

Whatever it is, make sure your story emphasizes fitness marketing and has a clearly defined objective. Without that, you might as well be reading a children’s book to your customers. It simply won’t produce results.

2. Choose Your Target Audience

People across the world are trying to achieve a wide variety of fitness levels. Some want to lose weight and shed body fat, while others may want to gain mass and pack on some muscle. It would be extremely difficult to tell one story that would be of interest to both of these customer types at the same time.

Storytelling for gyms should have one focused persona you are trying to reach with your message.

3. Create & Share the Story

Once you know what you’re trying to accomplish and who the story is for, it’s time to compile all the necessary information. Find key details and statistics that will grab the attention of your viewers to provide value in your fitness marketing strategy.

And when you have all the data you need, generate written or video content to share it on your website, blog, and social media platforms.

4. Evaluate & Start Again

Whether you’re telling the story of your gym or other fitness-related material, most aspects of marketing require what is called A/B Testing. It is the process of producing multiple pieces of content that surround the same topic and determining what gets the most engagement from your subscribers, readers, or followers.

As you evaluate your findings of which one is the most successful, you can use those results as part of your plans for the next storytelling campaign.

Ready to Tell the World Your Story?

Fitness marketing can be a difficult venture due to how flooded the industry can feel at times. The use of quality storytelling for gyms can make a huge difference in customer engagement and getting people through your doors.

If you’d like help with your online marketing endeavors, get in touch with the SoOlis team today. We use powerful tools that generate real results!

Let’s take a look at four benefits of storytelling in fitness marketing to set you on the right path as you continually strive to improve your advertising efforts.

1. Give Life to Your Brand

In the past, a brand was little more than the logo that represented your company. Whether it was seen on the website or at your retail location, it was basically the only factor that allowed customers to recognize a business. But as time moves on, branding has transformed into every aspect of the logo, website, content, storytelling, and other front-facing parts of a corporation.

When marketing for gyms, the benefits of storytelling can be seen across each platform as your brand expands beyond the basic logo and name of your gym.

2. Invoke the Reader’s Emotions

A world-famous quote by Maya Angelou says “that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” This mindset works in every aspect of life, from personal relationships to business connections. Telling stories through your marketing efforts makes the content relatable, understandable, and entertaining.

People who read or watch it will be much more likely to remember your fitness center if you bring the viewers’ positive emotions into the mix.

3. Build a Relationship With Your Customers

More than ever before, customers want to feel like they are more than just a number on a page or a name on a client list. As you take them through the customer journey, consumers need a feeling of importance as though they are part of the family and storytelling can reach them on a personal level to give them that impression.

The benefits of storytelling for fitness marketing will lead those who see your content to become more loyal to your brand and remain a customer for life.

4. Makes Your Content Memorable

Reverting back to Maya Angelou’s great saying above, as you develop your fitness marketing plans, ensure the message is one they will remember. That way, even if they decide not to become a member right away, your content will stick out in their mind whenever they are ready.

Whether you are promoting written content or focusing on using powerful videos when marketing for gyms, ensure it has memorable dialogue, images, and statistics.

Let Us Help Share Your Story!

If you are struggling with incorporating storytelling into the marketing for your gym or fitness center, we would love to help! Our team understands the importance of high-quality content and the benefits of storytelling in this competitive industry.

Get in touch with soOlis today at tel: 877-789-8773 or fill out our contact form to receive additional information!

But the reality is that the artificial intelligence available in the real world today has many beneficial uses, especially when it comes to business.

In the fitness industry, the personal touch of face-to-face customer service will never be fully replaced by things like A.I. Voice. But there are plenty of great ways to incorporate this innovative service into the buyer’s journey for your gym or fitness center.

To ensure we can highlight the key uses, let’s take a quick look at tasks that should be done by an individual and things an AI voiceover system can take care of for you.

Tasks for the Humans

As long as there are people who are interested in their health and staying fit, there will always be individuals who need help learning their way around a gym. Customer service representatives and personal trainers should be available for fitness equipment instruction.

When a person walks into a fitness center, their journey as a buyer likely started well before they stepped through the door. But this is a crucial point in the process to show what is available to them if they decide to join the club.

When showing the visitor around the gym, the representative will be able to point out the fitness equipment and teach the guest how to use pieces they’ve never tried before. The rep will have the chance to explain the different benefits of a treadmill compared to a stationary bike and even let the visitor try it out.

As long as the gym consultant has a good attitude and answers their questions, the guest will enjoy the social aspect and feel right at home in the fitness center.

Tasks for AI Voice

Although the personal touch is always enjoyed by both prospects and current gym members, the use of AI Voice has transformed into a powerful tool for a number of business-related functions. A few examples of things people should be able to accomplish using AI Voice:

• Location hours of operations
• Scheduling appointments/tours
• Booking fitness classes/ persoanl training
• Scheduling service calls
• Finding out which instructor is teaching a specific classes
• What time a specific class is

Just handling the above actions can save your fitness company a great deal of time, and money.

Ready to Add AI Voice?

If you’re looking for ways to provide a better user experience for your clients and prospects, AI Voice is the answer.  soOlis recently launched this innovative software, leaving your competitors in the dust. Artificial intelligence is no longer the future; it is the here and now.

Get in touch with us today to set up your free AI Voice consultation!

soOils AI Voice saves customers time and money as well. People are overwhelming becoming more comfortable talking to their devices by voice. Tim Sebold, the Chief Innovator of soOils, commented that, “soOlis believes from the data available, that voice is the future of internet communication.  Projections have over 50% of the searches being done by voice devices next year.”

The PWC Consumer Intelligence series found that 57 percent of smartphone users already used voice commands.  Voice searching is faster, there is no typing involved and people can ask direct questions and get the answers they are looking for without having to click through web pages to reach a class schedule or request a guest pass. The gym managers and owners like it because it enables them to focus human efforts on the most critical aspect of gym operations.

soOils AI Voice can also be used to schedule gym tours, personal training sessions, group fitness classes and much more.  The AI Voice products are fully customizable for each fitness center setting so that customer data is used to its fullest potential. This way soOils AI Voice can create a personalized experience for each user in each gym setting.

soOils has been working with fitness centers for over 50 years, helping gyms increase revenue by utilizing different digital marketing tools, as well as providing valuable fitness equipment information for the home and commercial markets. The AI Voice launch puts soOils eons ahead of their competitors. Be one of the first gyms to adopt to this new technology.

For more information call 877-789-8773 or click here.

For anyone out there who may be having trouble getting their gym prospects from point A to point B through their sales process, we’ve put together a simple strategy you can follow to get started. Take a look!

Steps to Get More Gym Members

1. Design Your Marketing Funnel

Following a concept similar to a cooking funnel you’d find in a kitchen, a marketing funnel starts with a broad idea to attract leads and narrows down to the select individuals who will become a paying client. While there are a few different funnel strategies out there, the main idea follows a customer journey that begins with awareness of your brand, convincing the person to buy your product, and then building their loyalty to your business.

2. Get People Into the Gym

One of the most effective tactics of getting gym prospects to sign up for a membership is by getting them through your doors. Using content marketing strategies like effective promo videos, blog articles, and social media posts can be a great way to attract attention and build interest in your fitness equipment. Use these avenues to invite them for a free consultation or quick walkthrough of your gym.

3. Follow Up

A major step in the marketing process is collecting personal information, so you can reach out to prospects after the initial contact. Getting basic details like their name, phone number, and email address will make it possible to follow up, answer any questions, and confirm their interest in your facility. Make sure to share information about current promotions or deals the gym is currently offering.

4. Finalize the Sale

The last step involves doing what is necessary to close the deal and get the gym prospect to sign on the dotted line. Overcome any final objections or concerns they might have and confirm they understand the rules and regulations of the gym.

Remember to always ask them for referrals at this stage. Potential leads are four times more likely to use a service when they are referred by a friend or family member.

Struggling to Convert Your Gym Prospects?

Marketing funnels aren’t easy to think up and they can be even more difficult to put into practice. If you’re having a hard time putting together a successful customer journey for your prospects, SoOlis can help! Contact us today to learn more about our marketing services!

Digital Marketing Trends for 2019

Significant trends in cities will continue working to build an experiential conversation with consumers along with featuring specialized group activities for younger generations to share in. User-generated content will also continue to be an essential marketing tool for fitness boutiques and centers.

In 2019 fitness centers should work to draw both younger and older populations through digital marketing. From apartments to gyms, to dining, and shopping the growth of the experiential customer has become a trend. Communicating that your gym caters to this need will be most easily done via social media marketing using a combination of user-generated and your own content.

Creating conversations around the actual experience will be important in both cities and rural areas to attract younger crowds into gyms. Digital trends for 2019 include:

• Social Media Marketing
• User-Generated Content
• Blogs or Other Posts that Give Consumers a Feel for Your Gym.

Crafting online personas gives people the opportunity to get a feel for your gym before they enter it. This idea is similar to how Maytag built trust through commercials using the Maytag Man that no one ever needed because the appliances are so trustworthy.

You should plan to create blogs, YouTube videos, a Twitter personality, or another way to get the feeling of your gym across to the public so they may experience it before they walk in the door. The point being, in 2019 you will need to communicate your niche and why people should come to your gym over others, beyond saving money or losing weight.

Combining Traditional Coupons with Digital Marketing

Let’s be real; people don’t have a ton of extra cash to spend on things like memberships, especially people that are living on fixed incomes. Most people these days have Facebook accounts, email addresses, and the like. Once you start building your digital marketing community, you can use that data to find new customers or give incentives to customers you already have.

While it may sound old school, to offer coupons or other incentives to get people in the door and coming back, it works. A post about social media advertising by divvit.com suggests that your ads should be tested and proven for the best click through rates and return on capital. Rather than tackle this learning curve on you own, hiring someone to do it for you will lower the cost to entry and keep things easy for you in the longer run; you do have a gym to run after all.

Overall in 2019, the communication of your gym’s specific niche and experience will be very important for fitness industry marketing. Your marketing plan will depend heavily on your location and the type of members you attract. Unless you already have a great social media marketing plan in place, think about using a marketing professional. Digital marketing professionals can inexpensively get your social media marketing efforts producing new members and improving member retention right away.

For more information about fitness digital marketing contact soOlis at info@soOlis.com.

Digital Data and the Numbers

You have a website, and maybe you track some things on Google Analytics, but you don’t really know what any of it means or how to use it. If you do have a website or use social media to promote your gym, ask yourself the following questions:

Do I know the demographics of people that are engaging with my marketing materials?

Do I have a way to understand the interests of the people that interact with my marketing?

Am I really capitalizing on my social media marketing budget?

If you do not know the answers to these questions, you may want to consider what you can do to answer them. Digital data is a goldmine if you know how to use it. Research has shown that AI can help to convert 216% more customers and increase sales by 21%. For fitness centers, one establishment that has had great success with AI marketing tactics was able to boost leads by 218%.

How Does it Work?

AI for fitness marketing simply takes all of the data from the hard work that you put into your current marketing and makes it more useful. Using a system that is specially designed to see into the future of fitness marketing essentially takes all of your user and interaction data, pools it together and then parses it for positive patterns.

Think about it like this. You have a Facebook user at your gym; they often like your Facebook posts. This particular user posts about one of your classes and their friend, Jill, likes the post then goes to your website and signs up for a newsletter. From here your specialized AI fitness marketing system will go through Jill’s public data such as Facebook posts and likes and construct a personalized marketing plan for Jill only.

A fitness marketing AI system can also enlighten you to what types of media posts are the most popular, what promos work the best, etc., without having to do the footwork yourself. AI will save you a lot of time and therefore money planning out new social media campaigns and other ways to generate leads.

Again, do you have a good handle on your user and interaction data? Are you using it to your best advantage? Get on board with the AI fitness marketing wave, and you will quickly generate more leads than ever before. Unless you are incredibly fortunate and have movie stars in your classes day after day, an AI marketing system is an excellent investment for your gym marketing budget.

For more information about artificial intelligence for gyms contact soOlis at 877-789-8773 or info@soOlis.com

Instead of going out and taking out a loan for the latest and greatest equipment, think hard about marketing tactics.  Just over 60% of gyms have fairly tight marketing budgets. The majority, 41% spend between $100 and $500 a month on marketing. With a small budget, it is important to be sure that dollars are being used in the most economical way possible. recent survey of professional marketing businesses, specializing in fitness center marketing reported that the top three marketing channels as far as return on investment (ROI) are:

Word-of-Mouth – This is part of getting people involved with the gym to the point that they are talking about it to their friends and bringing in referrals.

Social Media – Paid social media marketing had the second-best ROI, this type of marketing has a bit of a learning curve and can be time-consuming.

Signage – Signs and flyers that hit customer pain points make great reminders for potential customers that might be on the fence about joining a gym.

When it comes down to it, what type of people get excited about a shiny new treadmill? These are people that are already signed up at fitness centers. The trick to acquiring new customers is to get people talking about it. How is that done?

Atmosphere – The atmosphere of a gym should cater to its niche market. Let’s say a gym wants to attract soon to be moms to take yoga classes with a new instructor. This customer base is not likely to return no matter how many free classes they are offered if the place is decked out in black and silver and smells like sweaty socks. Carefully crafting ways to go about capturing particular markets is essential.

Social Media – Social media marketing is a fine art. Hiring a social media marketer that gets results is money well spent. They will craft niche and location-specific posts that grab the attention of potential customers.

Website – Having a user-friendly fitness website where folks can learn about the center, book appointments, or pay their monthly fees is a big must. Two-thirds of people shopping for something, including gym memberships read reviews and check out the company website before deciding to purchase. Without a website, you are leaving 67% of potential customers guessing about the facility.

While your gym may need an extreme makeover, for most, dollars are better spent on exceptional marketing. The mainstay of marketing, especially for a small business, is to be smart with the dollars that you have. Enlisting help with formulating the perfect marketing strategies could be the best thing you ever did. If you are looking for marketing assistance soOils is a full-service marketing and information company with over 50 years of experience in the industry. Contact soOils today for a free marketing consultation, visit the website or call 1(877)789-8773.

One effective way to generate more interest and boost your visibility is to set up a booth at trade shows. What can you do before, during, and after the event to make sure you’re getting the most out of your time and efforts?

1. Set Goals and Plan in Advance

What business objective do you want to achieve by attending this trade show?

Make sure your marketing materials, messaging, and targeting is in alignment with your overall business objectives so you can attract the right visitors to your booth.

Knowing what your goals are can also help you map out pre- and post-show promotional activities so you can drive more traffic to your booth and follow up with the leads strategically.

2. Complement Your Marketing and Product Launch Calendar

Do you have any new product launch coming up?

Trade shows are perfect venues to drum up attention and excitement around your new product launches. Take a look at your marketing calendar and see what new products you can promote to attract visitors to your booth.

If you don’t yet have a new product to show but got something in the works, you can offer a “sneak peek” to pique interest and entice visitors to get on an early notification list so you can nurture the leads and continue the conversation.

3. Create a Post-Event Follow Up Strategy

What are you going to do with all the business cards and emails collected from your booth visitors during the event? Well, the work has just begun!

A well-designed follow-up strategy consisting of email, social media, and remarketing can help you make the most out of the event by building relationships with the prospects you have met. For example, add them to a new segment on your email list so you can send them a personalized message, a piece of high-value content, and a lead nurturing campaign.

You can keep the buzz going by sharing valuable content and offers through your email, blog, and social media channels (e.g., by setting up a custom audience or through remarketing campaigns.)

For more information on fitness marketing contact soOlis at info@soOlis.com.

As a gym owner or manager, one of the biggest challenges is to make sure you’re using the right marketing strategies to acquire and retain members.

Remarketing has become a very effective marketing strategy for local businesses and here are a few reasons why this strategy is great for gyms:

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Multiply the Power of Local SEO

Most consumers search online when they’re looking for local services. Optimizing for local SEO is the key to getting found but that’s only half the story… what happens after visitors come to your website?

Most people aren’t ready to make a purchasing decision right away and remarketing ads allow you to keep showing up in front of these visitors, who have shown interest in joining a gym, to progress them down your sales funnel.

Engage With Your Email Subscribers

Email remarketing is a tactic that targets subscribers who click on your emails so you can create ad campaigns based on the specific content or offers they have engaged with.

These prospects are already interested in your services and remarketing ads give you the opportunity to accelerate them down the sales funnel by staying top of mind, nurturing the relationships, and directing them back to your website to complete an action.

Establish a Multi-Channel Presence

Remarketing strategies allow you to connect with those who have visited your website on other online touchpoints, such as Facebook, YouTube (as part of the Google platform,) and websites in the Google Display Network.

These ads help you deliver the most relevant content and offers based on the prospects’ prior interactions with your brand and drive traffic back to your site so you can further engage with them.

Improve Client Retention

A membership business model means you have to be constantly “marketing” to your clients so they stay on as members.

Remarketing allows you to continue engaging your members by sharing the latest news, relevant content, and upgrades or special offers based on their interactions with your website.

By consistently communicating with your members and providing value, you can stay top of mind and improve your customer retention rate.

Ready to use remarketing to get more clients? We’re here to help. Get in touch to get started.