Let's talk tangible marketing efforts. In the final two parts, I'll give you everything from B2B marketing to Social Media and everything in between.
You'll have the exact steps in order to invest in your marketing and actually get a return on your investment.
Always remember, it's your moral responsibility to put your message in front of everyone and anyone that can benefit from your services!
Happy Marketing!
Marketing Platforms/Strategies
Corporate B2B
The number one reason a person joins your facility is due to convenience. It's not those videos you post of your athletes. (Sorry to tell you).
To be honest, it's unlikely that you are going to attract many new clients from all over the state or country. The average client either lives or works within a 5 mile radius from their home facility, so you should focus on specific areas that you market to as a result.
Within each area there will always be competition, and you have the tall task of needing to differentiate from that competition. The key to doing so is getting beyond just offering some amazing equipment, or great customer service and coaching.
These are all great features, but there has to be more that you can offer, and your corporate partnerships go a long way to provide more avenues for client acquisition within your community.
This starts with relationships with local businesses. Take a local retail store for example. You provide discounted memberships for the store’s employees, and in turn, can provide your members with discounts at the local store. This allows for some amazing cross promotional opportunities.
This is the type of “old school” marketing that still works in the digital age.
If you would like the full strategy, message me here or email me at Ned@VertiMax.com.
Email Marketing
Email Marketing may be considered “old school”, but that’s ok, because it works (if done right). This is the bread and butter of your inbound marketing efforts. After you capture the prospect’s contact information, you then start marketing to them via email based on where they sit in the funnel.
It is important that the information you are sending is relevant and not salesy. A question to ask yourself before sending out an email: "If I were at the same stage of this prospect, would I benefit from what I’m receiving?"
If the answer is no, don’t send it. If you feel like you would benefit from the information in the email, then send away!
Good email marketing is Valuable, Educational, Entertaining, Engaging and Relevant. If your email isn’t all of these things, it will just be considered spam.
Build Valuable Content First
The key to successful marketing is to give away your best content first. Effective email marketing starts with the content you're providing people. It’s key that you put yourself in the shoes of your clients and prospects and ask if this is an email you would actually read?
Building valuable content doesn’t start with promotions or sales, it starts with helping people fix their problems. Providing information on better ways to see results is much more valuable than soliciting yet another promotion, or multi level marketing company you've signed on with.
Emails should include weekly nutrition tips, training suggestions, supplement ideas, different articles on regulations, how to get scholarships or anything else that is specific to helping your athletes reach their goals.
Even weekly checklists, or sending information on topics such as optimal hydration, nutrition, working out and stress relief go a long way to build value. Ultimately, you want to provide your prospective clientele with something that makes them say, “Wow, they’re giving this away for free? What happens when I train with them?”
You are the solution to their needs and by providing valuable nuggets to help them achieve their goals will increase email open rates and build interest in your services. If you only sell via email, your clients and prospects will lose interest and your emails will end up in spam more times than not.
Segment emails
If you got a special sign up promotion email from a facility you were already a client with, would that benefit you? How about a promotional one on one training deal after you already signed with a coach at full price? These are things that seem to happen daily in most facilities that actually "market" but provide no value to our members.
This is where email segmentation comes in. In order to build valuable content, you have to send the content to the right people. This takes a lot of work, but it is worth it, and will bring a strong return on our marketing investments.
40% of people send emails to spam if it isn’t relevant to them after ONLY the FIRST email. You will create relevant valuable information by segmenting your population.
Be Consistent
Nothing is worse than getting inconsistent sales emails from someone you are subscribed to.
Be consistent with your content. There doesn't have to be a set schedule, but you have to be consistent with how and when you send emails to your clients and prospects. Research shows that the best time to send emails is on Tuesday at 10am, followed by Thursday at 10am for the best open rates.
Everything Should be Attached to a Goal
If it makes you money or costs you money, you must track it. You don’t just send emails to send emails, your emails are attached to our overarching goal of bringing in new clients, onboarding new clients, and retaining our existing clientele.
Each email should be segmented to these populations and the content should focus on that journey. Current clients shouldn’t get sign up promotions and prospects shouldn’t get client only deals. There certainly is an art and science to this, but this is the guideline that should be followed to be successful.
Next week we're talking strictly social media.
To be continued...
