Marketing is one of the key pillars of a business's success. Finding a marketing plan for your gym —that is, a proposal that encompasses a good product at the right price, offered in the right way, and effectively communicated to the public—is one of the most important steps. Keys to making the business work . And all of this requires proper and structured planning that pursues specific objectives.
We'll talk about all of this in this post where, following our guidelines, you'll need to complete your own. A marketing plan tailored to your gym and your needs. We invite you to take your time with this post, reading it completely first, and then reviewing each point to develop your proposal on a blank sheet of paper, which will soon become your marketing plan.
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Marketing plan for your gym
We're going to mark the points that are key to Create your marketing plan for your gym. We'll develop each element to help you understand what it entails and what aspects you should consider. Shall we begin?
Get an overview of the situation
In this first point, we're going to assess the current state of your business . If your gym is newly opened, this marketing plan should be closely linked to your business plan , where you established all the foundations for the company's viability. If your gym has been operating for some time, you'll need to do some introspection to to analyze how it is now.
The result of this analysis should be several key ideas that summarize your business's current situation in a few sentences. Here are some very basic examples.
- I get a lot of new customers, but they disappear in a short time.
- The image that users have of my gym is that it offers few services, but in reality, it offers the same services as the competition.
- Nobody in the neighborhood knows my gym, but it's the one that offers the most features at the most competitive price.
Defining our audience
There is no marketing plan without establishing our target audience , that is, those people to whom our business is directed and who, therefore, will also be the target of our marketing actions.
The target audience for our actions can be defined with as much detail as needed. Sometimes, it will be enough to target women or men within a specific age range; other times, we'll need to define many more parameters, such as their employment status, whether they have children, their interests, their concerns, and so on. Try to define the perfect audience for the services your gym offers.
Set some goals
The goal is to define what we want to achieve with our plan . Every objective in a marketing plan must adhere to the SMART methodology (an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound). Therefore, you must establish one or more main objectives that meet all these criteria.
You can also use the OKR (Objective Key Results) methodology, which involves setting secondary objectives so that achieving them leads to achieving the main objective. For example:
Aim
- Increase revenue by 10% in 2024 by increasing spending by 5%.
OKRs:
- To have 2,000 subscribers to our newsletter
- Gain 5,000 followers on our YouTube channel.
- Hold an open house.
- Install a sliding glass door at the entrance
- Increase membership fees for new members by 10%.
- Reduce the membership fees of the 20 oldest members by 5%.
Set the strategy
In our strategy, we must define how we will achieve our objectives. We shouldn't confuse strategy with tactics, where we define all the actions to be taken. Let's look at several examples of what general strategies for achieving our objectives could be.
- Increase online presence.
- Targeting an audience 5 years younger.
- Generate valuable content that is useful to our partners.
- Create a local community of fitness enthusiasts
It outlines the tactic
It's time to roll up our sleeves. Tactics outline all the actions we must take to develop the strategy and achieve our objectives . Here we're talking about concrete actions that will lead us to the desired results.
We can differentiate our actions into two branches: online actions and offline actions.
Online actions
Online actions are all those actions carried out within the digital sphere . Almost all of them have their central point on our website or on the platform that refers to our business (it could be a Google business profile, for example).
Online actions include those we will define below. This does not mean that all of them should be used. We should only resort to... those that we believe will be useful to us in achieving our goals while respecting the budget.
- Website (creation, modification, improvements…).
- SEM: Search Engine Advertising or Display Advertising on other websites or apps.
- SEO: Natural positioning of our website in the top positions of search engines, according to user searches.
- Generating useful content for our potential clients on blogs or social media: videos, images, infographics, articles…
- Social media advertising.
- Email marketing: Sending emails to a list of users who have previously given their consent to receive useful content, such as that mentioned above.
- Influencers: Using profiles with a considerable volume of followers to promote our service.
Offline actions
Offline actions are all those actions that are done outside the digital framework or, as it is commonly said, in traditional media.
- Television commercials.
- Radio jingles.
- Advertisements in newspapers and magazines.
- Outdoor advertising.
- Signage.
- Event organization.
- Point-of-sale marketing.
- Street marketing.
- Joint actions with other companies.
- Etc.
Looking for inspiration? Here's a downloadable guide with the first basic steps to start attracting people to your newly opened gym.
Budget
The budget is the financial amount that will be allocated to carry out all marketing actions. It establishes both the promotional expenses and the fees of the companies that carry it out.
Normally, A small portion of the budget is always set aside for unforeseen expenses , so it's recommended to add a small percentage to the cost of all actions to cover unexpected costs. This way, we'll never exceed the initial budget.
Percentage of spending on marketing
Normally A percentage of the company's overall budget is allocated . There are many theories about what percentage of the annual budget, or of the previous year's profits, is allocated to this item. For example, according to a 2021 Deloitte study of marketing and communications directors, marketing spending represented an average of 11.7% of total company spending.
From there, one can be more ambitious when dealing with young companies where there is a large reinvestment of profits, or more conservative for established companies with stable and sustained growth.
Provide a breakdown of the budget
The best way to control the budget is to create a breakdown by line item at the beginning and try to stick to it throughout the year. It's true that sometimes it's helpful to be flexible and boost successful initiatives at the expense of those that aren't delivering the expected results, but adhering to the spending breakdown will allow us to know more accurately afterward whether the marketing plan has worked as intended.
Calendar
The best way to ensure our gym's marketing plan is being implemented is to outline it in a general annual action calendar and a more specific monthly calendar. This will give us a roadmap to follow, which, having been planned in advance, we will only have to execute later, confident that what was projected beforehand will bear fruit.
Anticipating peak sales periods is key . In the case of gyms, this is usually after the Christmas holidays or in September, once the summer holidays are over. This means that, in our case, we probably won't need to create a marketing plan based on the calendar year, but rather run it, for example, from July to July, or use semi-annual or even quarterly plans. The periods can be adjusted based on sales peaks and troughs. of each business.
It's also interesting Establish marketing plan review milestones . Regular reviews will allow us to see if all planned actions are being carried out correctly and to track results. This will enable us to make adjustments if necessary, avoiding surprises at the end or missing opportunities for real-time improvement.
Measuring results
This is the process by which we evaluate whether our gym's marketing plan has been successful . We generally measure the achievement of our objectives and the success of our plan using what we call KPIs, or key performance indicators. A clear example of a key performance indicator is return on investment (ROI), which is the percentage of revenue generated based on the investment. It is calculated using the following formula:
ROI = (Revenue - Investment) / Investment * 100
From there, we can measure other key indicators such as the percentage of engagement of our users on social networks, the number of newsletter subscribers, the number of gym memberships and cancellations, attendance at group classes... everything that we deem appropriate to measure the success of our plan.
Create your own marketing plan for your gym
These are all the necessary steps to create a successful marketing plan for your gym . Now that you know them, it's time to get to work and implement it in detail, setting your goals and how you're going to achieve them.
No one knows the situation of your sports center and its needs better than you, but it's an exercise you'll have to do calmly so you don't miss anything. We recommend that you also surround yourself with people who know your business to gather useful information: your business partners, investors, family members who help you on a daily basis, employees, people with experience in marketing, business administration, or the fitness industry… or even trusted members of your gym who are in daily contact with the brand. Their insights can be key to determining the best way for your gym to grow.