Direct Mail Marketing Tips for Gym Operators

Ever wonder what is the best way to reach potential customers that aren't always active on social media or websites like Groupon? Sometimes the answer dates back to some good old-fashioned direct mail marketing.

Here are five tips to add direct mail marketing to your fitness facility’s strategy (and then see what you can achieve with email marketing).

1. Laying out the foundation

Before you starting any marketing campaign, you will want to sit down and consider the following questions:

• What’s my budget? It is important to set a budget for how much you’re willing to spend on advertising.
• Who’s the target of your campaign? It is important to know who will be receiving your messages. This will help focus your content to a specific audience to achieve better results. For example if you’re trying to attract more women to your facility, then you might not want to promote personal training by using big, bulky models. This might not work for them them especially if their goal physique isn’t to be big and bulky. Understanding who the target audience is a vital aspect of the process because is who you'll be marketing to and it will have an effect on how you portray the message, how you design your message, and more importantly, how you will connect with your audience.
• What’s the goal of this campaign? Decide what you are trying to accomplish. Are your membership sales are down? Then think about how many memberships you want to get. Are you trying to boost personal training? Then consider how many sessions you want to sell to your members.

2. Create a sense of urgency

A huge factor that helps make direct mail marketing effective, is creating a sense of urgency. You want your members and potential members to feel like they must cash in on the direct mail offer. Providing limited time offers (LTOs) are a great way to create a sense of urgency and will get potential members to want to act sooner rather than later so they can take advantage of your promotion.

Keep in mind that your promotion should b

little more on the aggressive side in order to get them in the door to see your facility, test your equipment, try out your group exercise classes, and get a feel for the environment.

3. Distribution

Once you’ve decided what you’d like to offer and how much you’re willing to spend, it’s time to find a direct mail partner, like Dynamicard.

4. Communicating and training your staff

One commonly overlooked task of any marketing promotion is communicating to your staff about the promotion. While this might seem like an obvious task, it is typically forgotten and can lead to communication mishaps. So it’s important to let your employees know what the promotion is, what it looks like, and how long the promotion will last.

Take time training your staff on how they should respond to inquiries about the promotion. You don't want potential customers to call and your staff not know what is going on, and risk losing a sale. It is important that all staff are on the same page, give the same message, and have the same information. During this time you should be getting several inquiries and don't want to risk a missed opportunity to get someone through the door.

5. Track

Once the campaign is over, you will want to figure out how successful the campaign was. You will want to consider if it’s something that you can run again at a later date. Below are some handy formulas to determine your true return on investment (ROI). Aim for a high ROI, high gain in memberships, and low cost of new membership.

• ROI = (Gains/losses from marketing campaign – Cost of marketing campaign) / Cost of marketing compaign
• Gain in memberships = (Memberships after promotion - Memberships before promotion) / Members before promotion
• Cost of new membership = Cost of promotion / Memberships gained

It is important to always try new things in marketing your facility as your gym evolves and tries to attract new members.

If you'd like to find out even more about how to avoid getting stuck in the dreaded "direct mail" rut, or if you have any additional questions about topics like graphic design or targeted mailing that you'd like to go over in a bit more detail, please don't hesitate to contact us today.

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