How Smart Marketers Sell Gym Memberships

Disclaimer: WodSites is not in any way affiliated with the CrossFit brand.

Sometimes selling CrossFit® memberships can seem like an uphill struggle. That’s because busy box owners can end up chasing their tails and ultimately making things harder than they need to be. In this article WodSites Australia will show you how smart marketers sell CrossFit® memberships and the easy ways that you can join them.

Getting new prospects from the point of browsing the web to becoming members of your box is actually a fairly straightforward process when you perfect it and by the end of this article we think that you will have done just that:

1. To evaluate your target market and opportunities
2. To create a specific and compelling offer for that market
3. To build a landing page (LP) to capture that market

As a busy box owner it could be that you haven’t even thought about this part… right? Well in order to put together a compelling offer for your target market you must first know who they are. When I ask a lot of clients the question “Who is your perfect customer?” or “What type of people do you want to attract to your box?” it is so frustrating to hear the word “Everyone!” Whilst I understand (and agree) that functional fitness is for everyone, you can’t market to everyone! You can try but you will fail. Firstly marketing to everyone is expensive and secondly you can’t tailor a decent sales pitch to everyone! Smart marketing starts by finding your target audience (or audiences) so that we can tailor messages specifically to the needs and desires of your audience.

This is how you find your target audience…

Start by taking a look at your existing clients. These are people who have already bought from you. This will help you to build up a picture of how to target clients just like them. Make a list of the segments that make up your current client list, for example:

1. High level executives
2. Full time athletes
3. Stay at home Moms

Now add to that list two additional segments of clients that you would like to have as members but don’t, for example:

1. College students
2. Office workers

Great… easy enough right? Okay so now what we do is create an in depth profile for each segment allowing us to address their needs and appeal to them directly.

We’ll use the college students as our example from here on out, but realize that we would apply the same profile creation process to any target market we might like to acquire.

The profile will contain

• The Total Addressable Market
• The Segmented Client’s Goals
• Client’s Resistance Points and Fears

*TIP – The Total Addressable Market (TAM) is an estimate of the number of people that could join your gym from any given profile/demographic.  If this is very low because the profile is niche then you will need to add more profiles however if it is high then you will need to segment it further.

• In your city there are two colleges within easy driving distance of your box
• A Google search reveals that there are a combined total of 4000 students
• There are 28 sports teams in total
• This makes roughly 560 (20 per team) dedicated athletes in college
• Consider whether the teams are male or female

Assuming we therefore acquire 10% of this dedicated market this will mean 56 new members… not bad right?

• What do they want to achieve?
• Why will they join your box?
• What motivates them?
• What would we need to offer to get them?

In the case of college students it may be that there goals include:

• Improving their overall fitness
• Building muscle for reasons of appearance
• Receiving a sporting scholarship
• Becoming a star athlete/captain

It is necessary to know these goals and motivators so that we can build them into our website content and promotions.

The resistance points and fears section addresses the reasons why your target client might hesitate to join your box. For example, in the college students example it may be as follows:

• Not having the time due to classes
• Fears over trying a new sport/discipline
• Looking stupid rocking up to their first class alone
• Cost worries for membership fees

Again this is necessary because as with the goals and motivators we will use these fears in the bulk of our text and address them in our offers.

Now you know who your target market is it will be much easier for you to create a compelling offer to convince them to join your box. It’s not a psychological trick but merely common sense which will include the following elements:

• Understanding and Overcoming Objections – remember those objections from before about cost and time? You need to address them and think about how they can be overcome with your offer.
• Creating Urgency – If your offer is going to be around forever then why would anyone grab it now? Put a time limit on it and make it clear throughout your text and on your landing page via a countdown timer.
• An Attractive Offer – Remember your offer must be specifically attractive to your target audience- otherwise there is no point in segmenting them at all.
• A Call-to-Action (CTA) – Your CTA must be simple, straight to the point and impossible to resist in addition to being easy to complete.

*TIP- The landing page you create and the offer you have built into it will speak directly to your target client. Everything from the language and image you use right through to the offer itself will be designed to tempt them to sign up immediately.

At this point make a few notes to keep you on track including:

•     a name for the offer
•     its target aims
•     what it will achieve
•     why it will work
•     bullet points overcoming each objection
•     a description of the offer
•     a call to action

The opening of your landing page may look something like this

FREE MONTH’S MEMBERSHIP TO IMPROVE YOUR COLLEGE FITNESS! Until X Date, WodSites Australia is offering a month’s free membership for college students!

With after college classes, personalised fitness programs and a month’s membership COMPLETELY FREE now’s the time to try CrossFit® with (Your Box Name).

Claim Your Free Month

✓    Free months membership

✓    20% student discount forever

✓    Personalised training programs

✓    Improve your all-round fitness

✓    After college classes until 10 pm

✓    Student discount on all merchandise and beverages at the box

At the side of this offer would be a very easy contact capture form to grab the name, email address and telephone numbers of your sign ups so that they can easily be converted to members. We hope that you enjoyed our blog article and that you feel ready to make your own compelling landing page offer.

For more helpful tips on marketing your CrossFit® box visit our Blog by click this LINK.