Modern Marketing for Busy Gym Owners

Modern Marketing for the
Busy Gym Owner

Your idea of marketing might be a little
outdated if you think marketing ends
when the selling begins.

Sure, marketing is essentially promoting
your business, but today that means
marketing is everything: presale, during
the sale and after they sign up too.

Marketing is everything because . . .
People don’t differentiate between marketing,
sales, training experience, facility upkeep,
culture and all the different ways you (the
owner) break up your business.

People only remember the
overall experience which is made up
of every single tiny interaction your
members have with your gym.

And because your best lead source for
new members is referral business, your
#1 marketing priority should be to create
an AWESOME overall experience for your
members to promote.

Unfortunately, having great coaches and
topnotch programming isn’t enough
anymore.

The secret is out. Functional fitness is all
the rage and seasoned business people
are investing in their own boxes.
*cue dramatic music

They may not have your passion and
level of training expertise, but chances
are they have a better idea of how to
reach the masses. . .

Which is a little scary when you think
about it. We don’t want these suits
screwing with our sacred grassroots
culture.

So, the goal here is to:
1) Market your box effectively and efficiently
so you are profitable no matter how saturated
your geographical area becomes

So, the goal here is to:
1) Market your box effectively and efficiently
so you are profitable no matter how
saturated your geographical area becomes
AND
2) Never cross the line of selling out like the big
box gyms and always stay true to our culture
Where do you start?

THE MEMBER’S JOURNEY
Understand the Member’s Journey which is:
• It’s the research process a potential new member goes through
before deciding to become an athlete at your gym.
• It’s the experience they have with your gym as a new member
• It’s the experience they have with your gym as a long time
member
• It’s the issues and challenges that pop up along the way

Why is this important?
Understanding the Member’s journey will make understanding HOW
you need to market your gym very easy.
It’s a reminder that your members needs should be the focus of
everything you do promote your gym. If that’s the focus of all of your
marketing, you’ll be in great shape.

Persona realizes
problem (too much fat,
too little muscle, feeling
old) & hears about this
functional fitness thing
Googles “CF in [your
city]” and visits your
website
Signs up for a free trial
Signs on as a new
member
Goes through on-
ramp/fundamentals
course
Becomes an athlete!
Plateaus/hits
sophomore slump
Gets personal training
Becomes a raving crazy
lunatic promoter of your
gym. The cycle starts
over again as this
person refers a friend.
Start here

Let’s take you through an example of how you can really nail
your marketing with the Member’s Journey in mind.
Meet Jerry.
He’s soft, and this is his story.

THE MEMBER’S JOURNEY“Well look at that. I’m
getting a little round.
Maybe it’s time I try this
functional fitness thing I
heard that guy in the
office talking about.
Googles “CF in
Sacramento” and sees a
dozen listings on the
first page.
This website looks cool.
This website is kinda
ugly. This website is
alright – lots of sweaty
people lying on the
ground. . . Try a free
class? No, not yet.
Leaves these websites
and watches some TV.

Googles “CF in
first page.
people lying on the
class? No, not yet.
Do you see what happened here?
Jerry was kinda, sorta interested in looking into
functional fitness but he wasn’t ready to jump
right into it. There wasn’t anything on these
websites that particularly caught his attention so
he got bored and hungry and turned on Scrubs.
Will he be back to these sites again when he’s
ready? Who knows.
“Well look at that. I’m

Googles “CF in
first page.
people lying on the
class? No, not yet.
This is what we know.
Jerry is getting soft so he’s interested in WODing
for fat loss. He doesn’t care that the workouts are
hard or that the community is awesome. He just
wants to slim down. So, how do we speak to guys
like Jerry?
Put helpful content on your website that’s specific
to common reasons why people join your gym.

Googles “CF in
first page.
people lying on the
class? No, not yet.
For example, if you become a Barbell Logic client,
we’ll design your badass website to capture the
attention (and email address) of people who are
looking to lose fat, build muscle, find a new hobby
and ease pain/improve mobility with these:

Googles “CF in
first page.
people lying on the
class? No, not yet.
These are professionally written eBooks that live on
your website which cover the most common reasons
someone would want to join your box. We update them
every year so they’re always fresh.
Inside, are calls to action to try our your affiliate for a free session.

Googles “CF in
first page.
people lying on the
class? No, not yet.
Sneaky, huh? Not really. This is GOOD marketing.
You’re educating your buyer so he can make this
decision in a natural way – he’ll never know he was
being marketed to.
We even design them to look like they were written by
and for your own gym. You guys are the experts!

So what happens to Jerry now?
He read some great info about fat loss and
learned how functional fitness is the answer on
your website. Does that mean he’s ready to
come in for a free session?

“This eBook was pretty eye
opening. Maybe I’ll try
Affiliate XYZ soon. But for
now, I’ll just watch some TV.”

opening. Maybe I’ll try CF at
XYZ soon. But for now, I’ll
just watch some TV.”
Do you see what happened here?
Jerry was really getting into it! But old habits die
hard. He got hungry and … damn you Scrubs.
Will he be back to visit your website again even
though you spent all that time to provide him with
content that mattered to him?
Who knows? That ingrate.

The problem here is the lack of follow up. Sure,
you can add him to your email list and send him
the monthly newsletter. But honestly, who
cares about your newsletter? Not Jerry (yet).
At this point, savvy marketers do something called
“drip marketing” or “lead nurturing” to “segmented
lists” Aaaand that’s the last of the marketing
jargon, I promise.

The idea here is that you nurture Jerry with little bite
sized pieces of educational/funny/helpful emails that
are easy to consume and are always speaking to his
interests with the goal of getting him to that next
step: to come in for a free training session.
If you send Jerry 1 damn email about gainz and
getting huge, you’ve lost him and your emails will
wind up in the Gmail boneyard of ignored emails.

So how can you nurture Jerry without bugging him
with emails he’ll ignore or get annoyed with?
If you become a client of Barbell Logic, we’d set up
the eBooks on your website so that a lead would
have to fill out a form to get it. That form asks a few
key things:
Name
Email
Gender
Experience level

Asking a lead’s gender and experience level are the key
bits of data we need to give this lead an awesome email
communication experience.
Why?
When an experienced athlete walks into your gym, you wouldn’t explain
to them what WOD means.
If a 45-year-old woman comes into your gym inquiring about your
classes, you wouldn’t start by mentioning how the actors in 300 used
functional fitness to get ripped. That’s an awesome story for a 16-year-
old boy though!

Your online communication should be as personal as your face-
to-face communication. This is something the biggest, best, era
defining brands in the world do and you can do it too.
“But, I don’t have that kind of budget?!”
You’re right, you couldn’t afford it if you tried to do this on your
own, which is why we created Barbell Logic. We’ve done all of this
for you and spread out the development cost to many other gyms
so you’re all sharing in the cost and reaping the rewards of
automated growth.

OK, enough of the plug. Back to Jerry.
What’s next?

“Those emails were super
helpful and kinda hilarious.
Affiliate XYZ gets me.
I’ll try the free class and just
give it a shot.
Jerry calls Affiliate XYZ and
no one picks up the phone
and leaves a message. But,
Jerry wants to get the ball
rolling so he calls another
gym on his Google search
results page. They pick up
and also offer a free session.
I really want to try Affilaite
XYZ, but I’ll also check this
one out since they scheduled
me to come in today and
compare my options.

give it a shot.
compare my options.
After everything you’ve done for Jerry, despite ALL of that
awesome marketing, he just went and cheated.
Just like that!
The problem here is response rate. Traditional sales wisdom
isn’t just reserved for guys in suits. The first to get back to a
customer will win the sale the VAST majority of the time.
When a lead calls you to schedule a time to come in for a free
session, just assume that he’s just going down a list of gyms
and will end up joining the first one he visits.
Your competitors probably aren’t great at marketing, but
chances are they’ll creating a great first training experience.

give it a shot.
compare my options.
What’s the solution?
Build auto responders into your free training session forms. Sound
simple? Good! Great marketing doesn’t have to be that complicated.
Tell your lead that you’re currently making the world (or at least the
surrounding area) a fitter place and will get back to them ASAP. But don’t
stop there! Give them something to do while you have their attention.
Check out our coaches’ bios. They’re the best in the area. Check out our
success stories page to see how our members have transformed. Like us
on Facebook to see all of the awesome stuff we do.
Do as much as you can to keep their mind on you so they don’t wander
off to a competitor.

give it a shot.
compare my options.
The next step is to
ACTUALLY CALL THEM BACK, PEOPLE!
Don’t you hate it when you reach out to a business and they take forever
to get back to you, or don’t at all? It’s easy to forget that on the other
side of that business line is just a person and people can make mistakes–
but, hey, it’s still annoying.
The last thing you want to do is annoy a potential new member.
Remember, all of the little things add up to the overall experience – and
usually the bad things stand out more (at least in the beginning)

give it a shot.
compare my options.
There are things you can do to organize tasks like this that can really
pile up especially if your marketing is on point.
One of these things is to become a Barbell Logic client.
Not only does Barbell Logic automate all of your sales and marketing, it
also queues up tasks like this on a simple dashboard. All you do is login
in the morning (better yet get a free intern) and work your way down the
tasks Barbell Logic has set up for you.

Now, let’s take a break. How are you
feeling about the New Member’s Journey
so far?
Feeling like there’s a bit of room for
improvement?

When you get into the mindset of
marketing with the Member’s Journey in
mind, it tends to really get your gears
going.

It’s like playing Undercover Boss and with
your own box to see where the holes are
from a member’s perspective – to shed
light on how you can fill them with really
GREAT marketing.

THE NEW MEMBER’S JOURNEY
Now back to the plug.
The Barbell Logic system is made up of
dozens of campaigns and hundreds of
emails that are scheduled to go out during
different phases of your members’ journey.
So, really this slide deck could go on for days.

Here’s a simplified version of what Jerry’s journey
might look like if you were a client of Barbell Logic:
See next page for email examples

Emails from previous slide

We hope you found this quick guide to the
modern marketing methodology helpful.
If you’d like to learn more about Barbell Logic and to
see if it would be a good fit for your gym apply for a
free discovery session here.
www.barbelllogic.com

Modern Marketing for Busy Gym Owners

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