Happy New Year to all! As we kick off 2022, new year’s resolutions are flying around for many of us. While this tradition varies by individual, the general themes of continuing good behavior, changing a poor habit or accomplishing a specific, personal goal runs constant. Country Living recently shared the top 10 new year’s resolutions for 2022. Weight loss, healthy eating and improved fitness/more exercise found their way to the top of the list. Not surprisingly, improving one’s health found its way to the top of the list in 2021 as well.

For organizations within the health and fitness business vertical, now is the time to get in front of an audience who is poised and ready to make a change in their life. The time has come to capitalize on the fact that resolutions are still fresh in consumers’ minds. This week, we’ve highlighted a few marketing strategies to help health and fitness marketers grow their business and connect with local health and fitness intenders.

Encourage customer testimonials and share success stories

If you’re anything like us, the thought of starting a new fitness routine at a new-to-you gym or health club can be daunting, to say the least. To alleviate some of this stress and answer the “what is this place actually like?” question, many prospective customers or clients will go digging for reviews. When they do so, make sure compelling, positive reviews exist for your organization!

According to Bizrate Insights, the majority of consumers read between one and ten reviews before making a purchase, and 12% state that they will read more than ten. In addition, the same survey found that over 25% of respondents only trust an overall company rating if it has between 11 and 50 reviews. So, having a mix of positive, average and poor reviews is more than okay. In fact, it makes your business more trustworthy in the eyes of consumers!

While making sure your organization’s review volume is growing, ensuring that diverse review channels are utilized is also very important. Studies have shown that in 2021, consumers were most likely to have utilized Google and Amazon for reviews (59% and 57%, respectively). Facebook is another excellent platform for both attracting and providing feedback, provided you have an account set up for your business. We want to make the point that prospects are not only looking for reviews and at reviews on your company’s website, but across the internet on the sites that they are most likely to personally frequent. And, ammassing reviews across sites that provide additional ways of spreading the word about your brand is a win-win.

Once you get a great review (or ten!), we recommend using it as a brand asset within pieces of marketing collateral. For example, social media graphics can be used to creatively share testimonials and Google display ads can incorporate bits of text from a testimonial in order to engage interest.

Utilize paid social media campaigns to engage your audience

A moment ago, we recommended sharing positive testimonials on social media to showcase some of the great elements of your organization. Although this can largely be done organically, paid social media ads are a fantastic manner in which to reach a target audience. Partnering with a local media agency such as the Times Union Media Group can provide your organization access to market research data that can point you to consumer segments likely to engage with a health or fitness brand.

In addition, having this level of consumer insight allows your organization to effectively and efficiently personalize paid social media campaigns. A paid social media ad that has imagery and copy that resonates with the campaign’s the target audience is more compelling and therefore has a greater conversion likelihood.

Looking for new prospects? Develop a special intro offer!

In 2019, the fitness industry was worth about $159B. While the pandemic caused a bit of an economic setback within the industry (a 32.5% setback, to be exact), the industry is projected to make a major comeback over the course of the next 6 years to reach approximately $435B by 2028. Knowing this, we can deduce that increased growth will likely mean increased competition. While this is nothing new for many organizations, devising ways to stay ahead of the market share curve and stand out amidst a competitive field can be challenging.

For many health and fitness organizations, offering a special introductory offer or promotion is a fantastic way to get prospects in the door and allow them to see the value your business provides in their wellness journey. While the t-shirt Planet Fitness provides to new members is a nice thank-you gesture, we would recommend enticing your audience with something that evokes a bit more of a commitment, such as a free month of membership, or a limited number of free classes.

Special introductory offerings or special promotions are also a fantastic way to build your company’s lead list and grow your customer (or prospective customer) database. When determining the information fields to include when creating an attractive offering, we recommend including the following fields in your sign-up:

• First Name
• Last Name
• Email
• Zip Code
• Opt-in Checkbox

With this information, you will know more about who your audience is, where they reside and have the ability to deliver additional information about your business, service or products to them in regularity. Promotional offerings can be shared on your organization’s website, on social media (organically or through a paid campaign), via email, through display ads, within print publications and countless other marketing mediums.

Wrap Up

Reviews, targeted marketing campaigns and special promotions offer health and wellness organizations the opportunity to break the traditional advertising mold and set themselves apart in a way that resonates with consumers. As many of us embark on living healthier lifestyles in this new year, now is the time to deploy a marketing campaign that is authentic and multichannel.

The Times Union Media Groups crafts turn-key digital marketing solutions to reach & engage today’s consumer. We’re a data-driven digital marketing and advertising agency with full-service capabilities. We partner with organizations from a multitude of industries to increase brand authority, earn trust and drive more sales. We leverage marketing tactics with your business goals and priorities as the focal point.

Want to learn more today? Let us know!

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