Gaining quality leads can be an intimidating task. Knowing how to target every potential customer can feel overwhelming. But thanks to new marketing trends, we can successfully stay on top of generating leads and gain new customers. From social media to email lists, websites to word-of-mouth marketing, there are unlimited ways to grow your gym or martial arts business. We’re here to help simplify the process so you can get started with actionable tasks today.
Social Media Techniques
Today, a majority of us use social media to gain information, follow friends and family, and get updates on businesses. In fact, 84% of users log on to their social accounts as a part of a morning routine, and consistently check it throughout the day. It is the perfect way to continue updating your gym members on the happenings. It also helps keep potential customers interested. Stories and posts can greatly increase the visibility of your business to potential audiences.
Facebook Tactics
- Remarketing
- Customizable Audiences
- Lookalike Audiences
Facebook is a perfect place to get started with marketing your business. It helps you share with your community what you’re most passionate about, and gives you the opportunity to reach people who care about the same things. Through the Facebook smart tools like custom audiences and lookalike audiences, your gym or martial arts business can hand pick the exact group of people they want their ads to be shown to.
Custom Audiences help with the following:
- Target people who visited specific pages on your site
- Upload an email list of contacts that once showed interest but aren’t customers
With custom audiences, you can create a Remarketing list to advertise to people who went to your website and left without filling out a form or calling you. This helps keep your business top of mind, especially when a potential customer is shopping around for a gym or martial arts studio.
Lookalike Audiences help with the following:
- Finding new audiences that are similar to your current customer base
You can create a lookalike audience within Facebook to target people who would be most interested in your business.
- Visual Components
- Create Your Brand
- Combat Algorithms
Instagram is known to be the ultimate visual experience of social media. Stories, posts, and commenting on other people’s posts can drive people to see your feed. Creating a cohesive design template for your Instagram will always ultimately benefit your brand. Engagement with your audience is very important on this platform, as you can post story polls, interact with comments, and generate likes. If you’re wanting to grow your following on Instagram, posting a giveaway will generate new leads, increase engagement, and increase your follower base.
How to do a giveaway on Instagram to generate leads:
- Post a picture of your studio or a picture of your instructors and say, “GIVEAWAY! We’re giving away X months of lessons to a lucky winner! To enter, do all 3 of the following: 1. Follow X instagram page (your page) 2. Tag your friends, every tag is an entry! 3. Share this post on your stories.”
- Chance to Go Viral
- Easy, Less Serious Marketing
- Interactive with Audience
Marketing your martial arts business on Twitter is probably the most fun and easy way to gain brand recognition. Finding a voice and rhythm that flows with your brand and your message is the ideal takeaway with this social media platform. With the occasional boundary pushing tweet, this can mean big success. Getting attention on Twitter is somewhat difficult, as tweets can be stolen very easily, but ultimately, the instantaneous opportunities of interacting with your customers is beneficial. This platform allows you to see what people are saying about your brand and gives you an opportunity to respond accordingly.
Email Marketing
- Most Beneficial
- Active Email Accounts Estimated 5.6 Billion in 2019
- 73% of Millennials Prefer Communications from Businesses to Come from Email
Did you know that 99% of consumers check their email on a daily basis, and in 2019 there were an estimated 5.6 billion active email accounts? Making use of techniques such as newsletters, call to actions, or simply following up with customers can greatly influence your audience to visit your site. Not only that, but you can utilize forms on your site to increase the amount of emails you have in your remarketing arsenal.
Utilizing Call to Action
Call to action buttons are some of the most beneficial design tools when it comes to marketing. Utilizing them in email format will increase the amount of leads that visit your site. It will also give them a clear direction of what to do. Encouraging return customers by providing CTA’s such as “subscribe now” or “schedule your free class” gives you the opportunity to send new and updated content to interested leads.
Remarketing
As we mentioned earlier, remarketing is a great tool to use to stay in front of people who may have shown interest prior. You can remarket ads to people who viewed your site through Facebook, Instagram, or Google Display Network. Remarketing can be an affordable option to stay top of mind, typically costing only $100-$200/month.
Website Management
Continuing updates on your site is incredibly important when marketing to potential members. Having an easily accessible site is the cornerstone for attracting leads. A slow website that is not search engine optimized can directly impact how many leads you are generating. Checking website health, traffic to the site through Google Analytics, and search query reports in Google Search Console will help you navigate what updates need to be made on your website.
Word Of Mouth
- Brand Trust
- Free Advertising
- 88% of Consumers Trust Online Reviews
In the world of digital marketing, it seems like the classic techniques like word-of-mouth marketing are out of touch with what’s trending now. Traditionally, this marketing technique is defined as one person spreading information about a vendor by speaking about it with another consumer. Word-of-mouth marketing can mean any organically occuring instance of consumers sharing their satisfaction with your gym or martial arts business. To increase word-of-mouth marketing, think about implementing a referral program. Any time a current customer brings in a new customer, they can receive a month free or some other offer.
Back to Basics
Getting your customers to engage in sharing their opinions about your gym or martial arts business can be as simple as reaching out to encourage reviews. 92% of consumers will trust a brand based on the opinions of friends and family rather than targeted ads. Not only that, reviews from trusted gym members give questioning potential customers a firm ground to stand on. 88% of buyers trust reviews that are written on a site as much as opinions given to them by people they know. Asking for reviews, promoting existing reviews, and engaging in the feedback you receive will benefit your battle to generate leads. We recommend sending emails out regularly to your current studio members with a link to your Google local listing or Facebook page. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to gain those reviews.
Why You Should Campaign For Reviews
While the number of people who trust online reviews grows, the amount of businesses actively seeking out consumers to participate in sharing their opinion remains at a low 33%. According to Big Commerce, researchers found that in word-of-mouth case studies, a 10% increase in reviews (on and offline) translated to a 0.2 to 1.5% sales lift. Not only that, the opinions people post online can provide an opportunity for free advertising. There’s also a chance to increase engagement between your martial arts business and your audience. Positive reviews leave room for others to be impacted by them. But potentially negative reviews leave room for your gym to react accordingly to mend a relationship with your customer.
In Conclusion
Directing potential customers toward your business can be simplified by social media techniques, site management, email marketing, and word-of-mouth campaigns. Ultimately, driving the conversation to your brand by putting yourself out there is a key factor in keeping that attention factor. There is no wrong way to generate more leads, but these trends will help you gain more traffic.