Marketing plan for a gym PDF

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Running head: MARKETING PLAN

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Marketing Plan Name Institution

MARKETING PLAN

2 1. Step: Determine Target Market

Fitness business can grow faster through marketing. Stiff competition that exists in the global fitness industry requires that business owners come up with beautiful marketing ideas for them to be relevant in the industry. Such marketing ideas include coming up with marketing strategies for instance integrated marketing. This form of marketing strategy combines all aspects of communications in marketing such as public relations, advertising, social media, direct marketing, and public relations. The fitness industry requires one to target and identify the right market and then display the message and brand to the audience. To determine the target market there exists 12 techniques for achieving this, which include establishing your strengths, talking to your existing audience, not acting on assumptions, looking at your competitors, monitoring and evolving, developing a customer profile, being active on social media, monitoring social media engagement, utilizing Facebook insights, partnering with like-minded brands and doing industry research. In determining the strength for your fitness business, it is crucial that you take a look at your skillsets to understand what fitness related problems you can solve. This enables you to establish a target market that is willing to pay for services that you offer. If you are good at assisting people to lose their weight, you can consider a tool like Google keyword tool to help you meet with people looking for words related to weight loss. If your gym is good at helping people to develop a muscle mass, then it is advisable to search for words associated with this, so that you can link with your target market. It advisable for a gym not to act on assumptions of their target market; instead the gym should get an authentic picture of its target market by performing on street style interviews, organizing small focus groups and conducting surveys. It is

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also crucial to your passionate idea in the industry and avoids it since passionate people are more likely to overestimate the size of their target market. Talking to your existing audience also goes a long way in determining the target market. Communicating with your current support network and fitness customers will assist you to have a better understanding of your ultimate prospects. A gym owner should make better use of analytical tools to help him in establishing emerging trends within his target market and the existing market. The analytical tools can make it easy for you to create demographics such as job function, industry, and goals of people visiting your landing pages and website. It is also necessary to ask yourself questions like which customers consistently use your service and which ones have already used your service as a way to strategize on finding your target market. For a beginner in selling gym membership and sign up for a personal trainer, it essential that a few free trials are conducted to determine the customers that show interest. While selling gym membership and signups for a personal trainer, it is necessary that you assess your competitors' marketing strategy, which goes a long way in assisting you to establish your target customer. While assessing your competitor’s strategy, it is necessary that you take the precaution of not copying your his marketing approach since you want to offer your customer something unique. The gym management should determine what makes them unique while also checking on what customers would benefit from choosing to sign up for a personal trainer with them as compared to doing that with other gyms. Before selling the gym membership and sign up for a personal trainer, it is necessary you perform industry research. There exist several sources to help you survey the fitness industry, which includes your competition, the broad potential customers you have already identified and the market. The good thing about this

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information is that it has been simplified since someone has done the hard work for you and the information cost you nothing. Using of visuals, for instance, having a picture of your current customer in your office helps you to communicate through your content as if you were speaking directly to your customers. When visitors at the office read the visuals, they generate a feeling you are addressing them directly making it easy to transform them into members. Gym business can also utilize Facebook insights to help them in selling gym membership and sign up for a personal trainer. The platform helps gym businesses to come up with demographics of active users, identifying the issues that are discussed and coming up with the right marketing content for the gym that suits the customer. Furthermore, other social media platforms like Twitter can help in determining the target market since it contains a set of powerful insights that go beyond the simple demographic details. It is also advisable that gym business owners ensure they are active on social media. These are because most of the target customers are found on social media sites. Also, it is essential that gym owners endeavor to respond to every message and comment they receive from customers through the social media platform The business should participate in fitness groups, for example, LinkedIn and Facebook groups as a way to sell the gym membership and signups for a personal trainer. Taking part in LinkedIn and Facebook group discussions concerning the fitness industry gives insights to businesses about the target market. Participating in those discussions with the online fitness community will not only lead to a conversion down the line but hopefully lead to an increase in customer involvement such as more people becoming members and signing up for a personal trainer.

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Fitness business can also create a customer profile where everyone joining the gym give s his contact information. These help the industry to get psychographic and demographic information from the customer profile, which would help when creating campaigns for your making people to sign up for the gym. This profile contains essential information about the customer such as location, gender, marital status ethnic background, age, career, and income. Moreover, business should pay great attention to information concerning customers such as hobbies, values, behaviors, interests, lifestyle, attitudes and more. 2. : Step: Analyze Competitors When it comes to analyzing competitors in the gym membership, there is so much to look into so that one may get it right within the first few months. The things one learns will enable the gym owner to get the right customers at an affordable price and at a price that will not harm him. According to Guo (2017), when analyzing the competitors one of the things to look at is their pricing, how have they priced their membership deals? First, come up with the list of these competitors so that you can be able to get comprehensive information on them. When it comes to issues of pricing membership, the following is worth noting: high price and high-quality models. Most gyms that offer this kind of services are set up in the suburbs areas of the city. This is where most of the wealthy population can access fitness services. Another pricing model is the high price-low quality, this is where the price is too high, but the quality is low probably because there are no other gyms located close to it and so they take advantage of the gap. Another one is the low price-high quality, this is where the services offered are good, but the price is not high. These could be because they have been there for the longest time possible and therefore, they have their customers and are get good money. The gyms do not see the need to put a high price since they have several outlets all around the city or country that supplement each other. Low

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price-low quality is the last group; this is more placed in low-end areas of the town where most of the members are not so rich and wealthy. Most of these gyms do not have many facilities, for instance, the parking lot may be small, the gym equipment may also be limited, it will probably have many people because of its lower pricing model. One also needs to analyze where their competitors are located, is it on a high-end area or low-end area since it determines where your membership range can operate. The high end can be a bit expensive compared to the low-end areas. Do they also offer specials like health and nutrition advice? Do they offer private showers, larger lockers, personal private training or a subsidy on long-term membership? When gym owners ask themselves this questions, this helps them to give better qualities than their competitors. Special offers such as gifts can be given to members to entice them. Gifts are probably given in times where the customer has been more frequent or has been able to work out well and lost some weight within the time they wanted. Does a gym have a grocery store nearby or attached to it where after a workout, a client can shop from? Clients see this as an advantage since they do not have to go far when they are worked. Does the gym offer a café within the gym or adjacent to it that is free for those that are members of the gym, so that after a workout and freshening up they can pass by the café? Is there a spa in the gym that members can enjoy as either a gift or a special offer about certain longevity of the membership? Is there a children's’ playground for parents that love moving with their children, this can attract a lot of those who have children, and therefore they will opt for memberships and sign up for a personal trainer in the gym. One also needs to seek to know how their competitors sign up personal trainers. How they are paid and how much services they offer to the gym business? It is also necessary for gym

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owners to understand how many hours the personal trainers offer their services and how qualified they are? Some of the things that need to be noted concerning personal trainers include; are personal trainers social, are they able to do communicate effectively with customers. Personal trainers should also have a sense of humor, be self-driven and passionate about helping the customers. Are the personal trainers qualified in particular for instance slimming or do they offer general services? Does the personal trainer have a certificate concerning their training and professionalism? When the owner is confident to have met these requirements, then he is sure to compete favorably against their competitors. When competitors are analyzed, then one will have a better chance of starting well even when they are new to the fitness job as compared to going into the business blindfolded. 3. Step: Set Goals The goals of the gym can be grouped into financial, environmental and social goals. Pierce and Burton (1998) notes, social goals for selling membership and signing up for a personal trainer which include helping the community through sponsorships, giving excellent service to members that use the facilities and helping out schools by conducting sports lessons in the gym. Concerning financial goals, the gym would purpose to achieve the following objectives; increase the level of liquidity and the owner's wealth through increased market share and raise the level of cash flow for the owner. Moreover, other financial goals include not falling into debt and reducing the wastage of cash on products or items that will not help the gym in achieving its purpose. Gable (1998) notes that environmental goals the gym would like to accomplish include installing energy efficient appliances, disposing of waste, using electricity efficiently and minimizing waste. The other goal that would be critical for the gym would be to achieve an increase in the

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membership of the gym and increasing the number of people signing up for a personal trainer.

4. Step: Outline Strategies The objectives and strategies of the gym are the things that the business targets to attain while also focusing on overall strategic goals. The objectives include eradicating the weaknesses in the gym while also making the business weakness to become its strength through improving on the vulnerability and trying to make them stronger and by working them out with one another employees in the gym. The other objective is to try to work around keeping threats away from the business and taking every opportunity possible to help the business grow. Another aim would be to build a good reputation within the community so that people feel invited and welcomed after they visit the gym and improving the financial wealth for the gym owner. The owner and the employees by accepting to work together can achieve these objectives. By so doing, this implies that employees in the gym can help one another with their weak points while ensuring the strengths offered by every employee are improved. Moreover, the gym owner should be ready to spend money on these strategies that increase the gym membership. According to Dabija (2015), marketing and sales strategies for the gym business include removing any risk to joining the gym, taking a diversified approach in increasing the gym membership, never getting tired of testing your marketing, making follow up prospects and collecting contact information. Moreover, the owner of the gym can advertise the gym with a definite offer, promoting the gyms unique selling position in everything you do and targeting a specific niche market in marketing your gym. In

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targeting specific niche markets in selling your gym, every person living within a radius of 3 miles can be a potential customer for the business. The monthly marketing efforts will give good outcomes for the minimum acquisition cost when you focus prospects with the greatest need for the fitness service you offer. It is crucial that the owner spots a market gap and customize the fitness services to meet the customer needs. Moreover, the owner should reproduce his gym marketing outcomes by coming up with several other gaps for the gym. Promoting the gym unique selling position (USP) in everything you do is the one that makes members join your gym instead of the other one. Therefore, it is vital that gym owners provide quality services, which cannot be obtained anywhere else thus making the business to attract the highest number of customers joining the gym for membership and a personal trainer. If you did not have a USP initially, ensure you begin one by adding a new service to your gym. After doing that, ensure you make the USP into a value statement in all your advertising, membership and marketing sales presentations. Ensuring you advertise with a definite offer is another strategy that increases the gym membership. Gym owners should include special offers when advertising their gym to ensure they get new members for signing up for a personal trainer. Services such as personal training, offering, free information associated with your membership and other fitness services help to come up with website or telephone inquiry traffic. Owners can come up with a more compelling membership bonus or discount time offer they can manage to translate these inquiring gym services prospects into personal training or new membership sales.

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In collecting follow up and contact information with prospects, the owner should understand it somehow not possible for prospective members to join the membership of the gym at the first time of hearing the gym sales message. Therefore, collecting the contact details during marketing will make it easy for the owner to contact the prospective members periodically while also reminding them of the available offers. Reports show that about 50 percent in the sales of membership occur due to the periodic follow up on prospects or guests who had initially asked for information but had not yet joined the gym. A gym owner can also increase the membership of the gym by removing any existing risk in joining the gym. The gym owner should examine if there exist any hindrances that may keep away potential customers even though the people require the services. To ensure that prospective customers are guaranteed of the services they are to get from the gym, the owner can assure customer satisfaction regarding the services offered. A refund of customer money in case the services fail to meet the customer's expectation can also act as an assurance to customers thereby causing an increase in the gym membership. 5. Step: Set a Budget Service Type

Average Price

Membership Types Daytime monthly membership 2-month membership 75 4-month membership 250 7-month membership 400 11-month membership 530

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Class packages 2 classes

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4 classes

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Other services Sign up

110

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12 References

Dabija, D. C., Abrudan, I. N., & Postelnicu, C. (2015). Competitive strategies of fitness gyms in the international business environment. Empirical findings through observation. Gable, C. (1998). Strategic Action Planning Now Setting and Meeting Your Goals. CRC Press. Guo, L., Sharma, R., Yin, L., Lu, R., & Rong, K. (2017). Automated competitor analysis using big data analytics: Evidence from the fitness mobile app business. Business Process Management Journal, 23(3), 735-762. Pierce, B. E., & Burton, D. (1998). Scoring the perfect 10: Investigating the impact of goalsetting styles on a goal-setting program for female gymnasts. The sport psychologist, 12(2), 156-168....