02/12/21 (12 Minute Read)
2020 & 2021 has been a hard time for business owners who thought their years would come with great growth, but the question is can the health, fitness and wellness sector pull back from the difficult time it has had?
With an already saturated market and rapid growth each year, gyms, online coaches, and personal trainers are constantly on their feet trying to outrun their competition. Whether they’re relatively new members of the industry or have been in the game for a while, they’re always looking for little (or large!) improvements each year. And with 2022 right around the corner, businesses are now looking for brand new online fitness marketing strategies that can help them start the year right.
Evaluating your most recent marketing campaign(s) is practically tradition and key to the success in your business’ future. This is when you start looking into what really worked and what didn't in their strategies. The process also includes analysing the major trends that drove the marketing industry during this time before studying any trend forecasts for the future.
Recent events may have stunted the financial growth for businesses in 2020 & 2021 and due to this the sector has adjusted to the new ways of doing things. So with this been said, let's take a look at some of the major trends that drove the fitness marketing landscape to where it is now!
Not much has changed in terms of how consumers make their purchasing decision. A large majority still view user-generated content like testimonials and reviews more trustworthy than normal ads.
According to a recent study, nearly 84% of consumers say they trust online reviews more than personal recommendations of friends and loved ones. The trend still helps build trust among consumers and draws in new leads
Let's just admit it, at this point, influencer marketing has become a massive part of the industry with no signs of slowing down. Like I mentioned earlier, online reviews are trusted by almost anyone, that's why most fitness companies love reaching out to both macro and micro influencers in hopes of improving brand awareness. If you want more people to learn about your services, it's best that you work on furthering the reach of your campaign!
In 2019, the industry saw a surge of personalized approaches in marketing fitness. Gone are the days when one-size-fits-all strategies worked. Consumers now want personalised solutions especially since wellness & fitness services are never really one-size-fits-all. Keep in mind that individuals in your audience are getting into fitness for very different reasons. They may do it for the sake of their confidence while some may do it for medical reasons.
Focus on the individual reasons why your target market needs your services!
There's no denying that photo as well as video content performs well in comparison to normal text posts. Recent surveys around the effectiveness of video marketing have revealed the following statistics:
Taking into consideration that fitness marketing materials are often instructional, it's best that you help audiences process information faster
One of the biggest trends businesses want to adopt nowadays is omnichannel; the strategy of using different channels to create a cohesive experience. Attaining omnichannel success takes a lot of hard work but, if achieved, the strategy produces great results that guarantee growth!
Based on the five trends we've discussed earlier, Ryan Marketing Solutions has figured out some ideas that can help you adapt to these recent trends
Aside from the obvious benefit of positive feedback, user-generated posts provide you with free content and helps elevate your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign. SEO is one of the more common tactics used by businesses to improve the quality and quantity of their website traffic. Companies should use target keywords that are related to their products. And because customer reviews and other testimonials often use the terms like "the best gym" and other similar words, search engines are more likely to link your site as well as your other social media accounts. Additionally, search engines favour highly rated websites. The more positive reviews you get, the higher chances of improving your rank. Encourage reviews by sharing your audience's post around your services!
Like I mentioned earlier, your prospective clients have their own respective journeys toward fitness. Celebrating their major milestones shows that your brand truly cares about creating a positive impact to its people. You can use your website as well as your other social media accounts to recognise the highest achievers among your members. Talk about their journey and how they think you've helped them reach their goal!
These small tokens of recognition build customer loyalty as well as a sense of personalisation. Your business recognises how members have their different stories behind exploring a healthier life.
Keeping up with the idea of incentivising your members or clients, you can also offer them rewards. This strategy can easily be implemented and by doing this, you can guarantee customers build a long-term habit of wellness!
Another key point to keep in mind is how marketable this program is. You can announce rewards and other special events for high achievers through your already established email list – as it is still wins for having the best conversion rate, if done correctly. Furthermore, this strategy leads you to another tactic that could expand your content marketing.
While some may argue that too much of anything is bad, there's nothing awful about making your consumers feel cared for. Going back to the trend of personalised solutions, you want your consumer's experience to be cohesive and you can achieve this by implementing individualised tactics on your campaigns.
Simple merge tags in your email marketing strategies help make every message much more personal. Take the time to analyse feedback from your existing members and figure out how you can customise your other services even more, depending on the wants as well as needs of your people.
Influencer marketing continues to grow because today's consumers dislike hard selling. Seek out local influencers that you can work with and offer them limited free trial of your programs or services in exchange of shout outs as well as recommendations.
Having local influencers post about your services feel less of an advertisement to their followers but more of a personal recommendation. Work on winning influencers over and you'll be winning everyone else!
Staying healthy has never been more important in recent times and COVID-19 has definitely pushed many to pursue healthier habits and brought challenges with the way people workout. With gym access strictly limited for months, consumers needed to adapt if they wanted to accomplish their fitness & health goals. Social media has helped do just that by becoming a source of inspiration and motivation.
As consumers gravitate toward healthier lifestyles and social media trends change so regularly, your services and/or facility must pivot to stay relevant. Social media allows you to give users a look into the behind the scenes of your business. Use it to motivate your members’ health journey and offer exclusive brand content to keep them engaged. If used strategically, social media can be a useful tool to grow your business.
Consider these strategies to help you gain new, valuable business:
Earlier I mentioned SEO and the importance of improving your website's visibility or overall online presence. When you've gotten a better idea of what optimisation is, and maybe you're already running your own campaign, you can now start looking into a newer related strategy that improves your visibility.
Pay-per-click or PPC is digital paid advertisement. Similar to SEO, PPC campaigns use keywords on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) but instead of simply optimising your website alone, businesses bid on highly searched keywords. Whoever wins the bid will appear on its SERPs.
Now you're probably thinking why invest and gamble on PPC if you've got SEO going on? Well because they actually complement one another! Your existing SEO campaign provides you with a good idea of which keywords really matter to your audience.
Using this knowledge, you can launch a remarketing initiative to reach out to potential customers who have already visited your site. On the other hand, PPC can help your campaign test out new keywords. You can use PPC to check out and see if certain keywords can rake in more traffic towards your way.
Overall, not only are PPC campaigns beneficial for your overall online presence, it also gives you more data to use in strategizing for the future.
With all this being said, it is a more technical & costly platform and strategy if not done correctly. Therefore, ensure you have utilised & optimised all elements of organic strategies & paid social media advertising, before going down this route.
Besides these six ideas, Ryan Marketing Solutions also has some tricks you can use to elevate your fitness marketing campaign – as without having an overall strategy & plan how will you ever reach your goals and full potential? It is like throwing something at a wall and hoping it will stick which, unfortunately, never goes the way you hope and is a waste of your valuable time & money!
Catherine Ryan set up Ryan Marketing Solutions to provide bespoke and very personalised services to companies looking to bring their marketing to a new level.
Ryan Marketing Solutions is a strategy driven and brand focused Marketing Services and Consultancy company based in Tipperary, Ireland.
Check out www.ryanmarketingsolutions.ie for more helpful tips & tricks to help you up your marketing game today.
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