We hear it all the time…
“I need more leads”.
We get it.
Acquiring new clients is an essential part of keeping a business alive and running. But this past year has left a lot of gym owners wondering where they should be investing their marketing efforts.
This week, Thomas Plummer helps us unpack the current state of marketing in fitness and what you should be prioritizing to fill your funnel with buyers!
In this episode, we discuss:
- The difference between the concept of marketing and the delivery system.
- The one marketing tactic that never goes out of style (and what that means for your marketing).
- How vital a deep understanding of your target market is to your success as a gym owner.
Plus, much more!
If you’ve been struggling to get new clients in the door, or just want the latest brush up in marketing best practices, then you can’t afford to miss this episode!
Now that you have the latest and greatest insights into marketing best practices, it’s time to eliminate all those spreadsheets you use to manage, track, and follow up with your leads. Naamly takes the work out of your follow-up system. Easily store, track, and send reach outs to your leads directly from the Naamly platform with a simple push of a button. Ready to get started? Go here to sign up for a FREE trial and start filling your funnel now!
Resources Mentioned In This Episode
- Start Your FREE Naamly Trial!
- Episode 11 Pricing Perfection: Learn How To Dial In Your Gym’s Pricing Strategy
- Mark Fisher Fitness Commercial
- Hubspot Build Your Ideal Client Persona
Watch The Full Episode
Thomas Plummer: So welcome to
Sumit: your viewers. Just one thing, another episode where training gym owners get actionable insights to build a dream business. And then again, with the legendary Tom, so Tom, let’s just dive right in and unpack one thing where we can help our training tomorrow. Just go there, go for it. Right. And move forward in their business.
Thomas Plummer: Yeah. I wish we could share with all the clients, everybody that’s listening to this. You’d have to understand that it takes us an hour of talking to each other, actually to get warmed up, to get here because we always have so much that we want to talk about visits. So. Tell him, you actually get to talk about stuff.
We’re like, oh my God, we’ve been talking for an hour already. I know. And that’s what I
Sumit: love about this, Tom, because I get so much ink, actionable insights from my own business. And there’s so many similarities as well. So it’s, it’s, it’s a treat to get you here, pick on your brains and it helps me tremendously.
And I don’t know if you can see this. I have my notebook ready with a pencil.
Thomas Plummer: Um, just let everybody know that we’re warmed up. All right. So. Uh, it’s good. It’s. It’s a strange time again, to be in the gym business. But, uh, I been talked to a lot of folks in the last few weeks and, um, the thing we talked about, one of our previous calls was what’s going to happen in the fall and it is happening, um, and pretty much true to what we discussed.
It was a monitored. August. And the first two weeks of September have proven to be pretty strong and that’s going to set the tone for the next 12 months. So the virus is cycling back through. It’s affected some states worse than others, but. The guys that were ready, the guys that did all the preparation, their members are coming back, people are still feeling safe in the gym, you know, certain degree that there might be some mandates that will slow some of this folks down a little, but you know, you’ve been there before.
These will be much shorter, but overall I’d say the gym business is in the best shape it’s been in. Since 2019. I see a lot of hope here. I have a lot of guys talking to not just here, but again, I usually talk to me all around the world every week. It’s pretty exciting. And it’s, uh, you know, we’re, we’re kind of back and it it’s just like, yeah, you know, it, it feels good.
It feels like we’re getting stuff done together.
Sumit: No, that’s true. And you know, you’re. The episode. I actually episode still got a lot of people, pinging me, Hey, what what’s Tom saying about the Delta variant? Like what’s going to happen. So it’s really refreshing for you to bring this piece of out about how things are turning for the better.
[So let’s, let’s dive right in there. I think there’s a question there that that’s brewing in my mind. Let me see if I can do a good job in articulating that, which is
what do we do from a gym owner perspective? What market is. Stuff. Should I be employing what marketing tactics should I be doing today with all of
Thomas Plummer: this
Sumit: stuff going around me, which is bound to get me results.
Like tell me your top nuggets there. If you will.
Thomas Plummer: You’re setting me up for a really strange story I had last week. So I’m talking to a client, I’ve known the guy for a long time, and he’s a weird wacky sense of humor, great guy, but he has other businesses. And so he hired this marketing person and right out of school.
Um, and so she’s on the call and we’re talking about marketing and. About 20 minutes of the call, you know, I was talking about email and I said, there seems to be a resurgent, you know, email. Uh, we’re kind of out of favor a few years ago, but now it’s a major tool and she, she cut me off and she says, you’re so out of touch, you’re such a boomer
slap. And I go, well, say that again, you know? And the, and then my friend, you know, Uh, he’s, you know, he’s cringing. He’s like, she goes, you’re such a boomer. And she goes, and I go, why do you think that she goes, well, marketing has changed. And I go, how? And, and she goes, well, you know the emails and she goes, now it’s.
You know, social media. And I said, what social media? And I go, Facebook stumble. Instagram is still good, but under 40 year old, I said, you know, how are you going to reach that over 40 client? Most change hymns have, and she’s was talking about YouTube and, uh, even Tik TOK. And she was into some other stuff and she was she’s in that influencer generation.
But the thing besides. You know, you get to be a guy a certain age, and they finally tell you that you’re out of touch and call your boomer. It’s like, oh my God, my days are over. I have done, you know, it was so it was so putting it, you know, she’s just like slapping me down. It was hilarious. I go. But the thing that.
I think she doesn’t understand. And I see a lot of these small regional workshops where, you know, some guy will have 30 clients sitting in a room and they’ll have speakers, but they’re all speakers of a certain age younger usually. And they’re, you know, they’re paying them three or $400 to speak and they want, they’re selling their product where the gym owners stumbles is.
They, they, they, they do not understand the difference between concept and delivery center. Okay. The concepts in marketing do not change. They, they, they have been pretty consistent since 1950s. You know, you’re thinking, you know, that’s 80 years ago, they were 70 to 80 years ago. They were. We’re really using a lot of the same principles and they’ve proven to be good.
So the concepts of marketing have changed. What changes weekly and where this girl did have a legitimate point is the, it changes weekly based on the delivery system. How do we get those concepts to the public? So. I know this wasn’t on our list today, but I just, it was, it’s so fresh in my mind. So I’m going to throw it out.
But if you go back to marketing, you have to go back and look at, okay, what, what are the basics for one? It, uh, I’m shocked how few gym owners can answer. This question is. Who’s my target market, you know, who am I trying to chase? And they, they like, okay, I’m chasing, you know, a wealthy person that wants one-on-one, but you’re, you’ve got team training.
You’ve got small group, you’ve got one-on-one, that’s three different clients. So a lot of guys don’t understand the demographics of their client’s target market. They don’t understand where they live, what they drive, what they drink. They don’t, they really don’t understand who they’re chasing. So if I have a target market and I need to do target specific marketing toward that.
So if I’m chasing this guy, how do I reach him? And it’s, so what tools do I use? Um, you know, I, I, I don’t watch much TV anymore, but I was watching a new show the other day and the ad broke in. It was, I think, USA that insurance company for veterans. Um, all testimonial base, I’m watching this going the heirs, they had two or three different people on that were real customers, real veterans talking about their experience with the insurance company.
I’m going, what does that woman see when she sees that at, you know, here’s a concept going back for ever, you know, 200 years of marketing, testimonial based ad where somebody says I used the product, I had a good experience with it. And that that concept of marketing has not changed. And you, you get into the, if you understand the concepts, you can make much better choices sitting in that meeting and having five people trying to sell you the trick of the week for the delivery.
But th there, they, there is not much change is it’s like a two for one special or a discount or something like that. Well, that’s, that is part of marketing. That is a concept. That’s how you sell a tangible life. So tangible and intangible that has not changed. And that’s what gym owners don’t understand about our businesses.
We sell an intangible, we sell a future service. Future services, you know, you got to trust me and pay me money.
And somewhere in the future, you’re going to get results from this. I’m going to get you a better shape. So future service is never put on sale. You don’t see a financial advisor putting his services on sale. You don’t see an attorney. You don’t see, uh, accountants or doctors or anybody put future service.
So we discount, you know, so somebody is up there going, yes, I did. You know, this discount, it’s unbelievable. Uh, if anything works for a week, but then you burn down your brand, but we’re professional trainers. So concept was wrong for us. The right concept is how do I get the most money for the most clients that protect my integrity?
I you’re back to basic tools like testimonials, target marketing, and then the delivery systems. But I think like email was proven our last favor because when, what? 12, 14 years ago now what, somewhere in there when Facebook really was ascending, uh, pre-Instagram Facebook was the tool. Uh, but it’s not much tool now.
You still to beat need to be on there, but it has a tab, maybe a 20th of the power used to have Google ad search that’s this week. That seems to be big people put in because of the pandemic personal trainers. And you gotta be at the top of the list. So you spend 30 or $40 a day on Google ad search. You should pay that money that’s delivery system.
Current this week, emails are coming back. Emails are still strong because now people, because of the decline of some of the social media outlets are looking at basic tools again. Oh yeah. I still newly getting an email. I still look at the emails. I still scroll down on the emails. So people are like rediscovering them again after, you know, Going back to whenever Al gore invented the internet.
You know, we’re going back to email all of a sudden it’s a Bible tool again, but it’s a tool. What do I put in it? Testimonial based stuff, the soft bat software, you’ll never fail again, all these types of things. It’s just, so we’ve lost touch with this. I guess I’ve long ranchers of getting as when people make mistake in the gym, business and marketing it’s because they mix up the concepts with delivery system.
The basic concepts of good marketing seldom, ever change if they’ve ever changed yet, the delivery system can change on a week to week basis. So the woman was hilarious because I can’t imagine taking a professional gym and trying to do Tik TOK marketing. I’m not sure that’s going to help us much at this stage because our clients are just too old for that demographic.
You know, that’s, it’s a, it’s a great tool. If you’re a 14. It’s a great tool. If you’re a rapper, it’s not a great tool. If you’re a trainer trying to sell a 45 year old woman, that’s never been on that social media site. So delivery system is wrong for target market is where I’m delivering matched and target market.
It’s. One of the few things that consistently touches all three of those, um, and even texts campaigns, text campaigns are ones. Now that actually do work for retention. I think you guys use those very well with your software citizen. I think. Exceptional with that. But your, your ability to touch your clients through different levels, there are some consistencies now, but again, there’s something to change.
Sumit: As you were saying that, uh, you know, you broke down the target market, like these are three different clients, like you said, that’s you were saying that testimonial stuff, I guess. But I’m going to go back to the part about the delivery system, which is great.
I love how you made that segregation, Tom, but would it not be fair to say the tick talk audio? Is catering to the people who are into team training, who are the millennials, who are the newer generation, right. They are seeing that even reels. Now on Instagram, if you do something that does capture a lot of it gets you so much more views.
Now your brand is becoming more prevalent if you will. So. It is so shouldn’t we be doing it or you’re like, we should not be
Thomas Plummer: doing it. But if I was a team trainer, yeah. If I had a team concept, we know that statistically poles, um, another concept of basic concept is target market is it usually represents 80% of your population.
So if I have team training and we know that 80% of your members will be 24 to 36 years old, you’re going to have outliers that are older than. And you’re going to have some younger folks in there, but statistically 80% fall within that. So team training, if I’m scrolling on Instagram and I clip over to a real, and I see funny, um, you know, 32nd reel coming off of Tik TOK, it’s like that.
I might look at that. I look at that just to see what’s going on in marketing. I want to see what’s going on. And some of them are funny, but what’s the age group that could. Persistently exploring that. So if I am, if I’m chasing a one-on-one client and we know those statistically are 40 plus they’re usually the top 30 to 40% by a Florence in the market, we know they’re educated two biggest indications.
You’re going to join a gym or education and fluids. And that just. We’ll find that to be a one-on-one and they’re seeking privacy. I don’t know if that 45 year old woman that owns her own state farm office with 12 agents is probably spending a lot of time looking on Instagram reels that she, but she might be on YouTube looking at, uh, America’s got talent, you know, gold buzzer winners.
She might be that type of person. So if you know your target market, you can probably figure out where they are going to explore that. So that delivery system ticked off my work well for team training, woodwork, less effective for small group, because there are 35 to 55. I can probably totally effective for the one-on-one.
So I have to decide where I’m going to spend my money and how I’m going to build my brand based on my target. But if you don’t know your target market, which so many young owners do not know, they really don’t know what they’re chasing and it’s, it’s, it’s kind of back up, slow down, bro. Who’s my client and there’s not one client in the training gym.
There’s usually three to four different levels of clients determined by a flu. It’s an age group it’s wild, but the guy that would take an orange theory or F 45, or, you know, some really crazy team training concept, Frank batch comes to mind, you know, he’s, uh, one of the better players in the industry, but that person in that group is.
Even closely resembling the same one-on-one client.
The whole concept of the training gym, upscale and elite. And we forget that’s the power in the training gym is we’re the alternative to other gyms. Just that’s one of the hardest things for people to understand is what we do. It’s not, we, we don’t do it better than the mainstream gyms. We are a, a total alternative.
Sumit: I like the word alternative, because that truly is
the way to define training gyms.
Sumit: Yep. Fair enough. But let’s, let’s bring it back to, I understand the point about never, well, one part of me says, if you don’t discount, how do you bring the people to even pay. The difference because in their mind, like when I was at the outsider, I’ll admit this, I just thought fitness is fitness and the gym is a gym, but it’s only when you get inside, you start, start seeing the differences.
Right. You see pulls apart. Like you said, like, you know, one is for the DIY crowd. One is for the coaching crowd. I mean, it’s just, it’s a whole different ball game, like you said, but how do you get people like me? And I’m a perfect candidate to get into a gym too, to make me see the difference.
Thomas Plummer: Let’s go back to that marketing goal for a second. It was a basic concept that most of our marketing people command on our stand is, and it’s like old school goes back to Zig Ziglar.
It’s like tangible intangible.
So how do I get this guy to try something new? Six white. Now we’re using six week trial. Try before you buy here’s sophisticated software, man. Here’s what we’re going to do. It’s $299 and six weeks. I’ll design a program completely for you. Uh, I don’t have any preset lists. You get to have this or for this.
Know, looking at you. I know you’re a CEO. I know you sit all day. You know what? Let’s do this six weeks, 2 99. Give us a chance to earn your business. Meet our members, meet my staff, experience our service. Please give us a chance to earn your business and let me try and build a program just for you. I’m going to.
A few more extra one-on-ones because I know you’re a busy man. You’ve got a whole staff will come in here, maybe privacy, small group, you know, we’ll play with some boxing and some other things, but let me put together a program just for you within that six weeks. And then once he gets experienced with it and says, yes, I trust you.
I like this good. Here’s our program. It’s not discounted. And this it’s just try before you buy that, that was designed for the top 40%. I’ve been screaming this for years, and yet guys want to come back and do these cheap $19 programs. That stuff that brings in cheap people that brings in cheap people like God, have you ever been to a wall?
That guy, if he was a little younger than Jim, he’s not looking for the discount. He doesn’t mind spending the money. What do I get for the money? You know what, sir, Mr. Software CEO, why don’t we do this? I’ve got a six week trial Trius experiences. And at the end, here’s what I charge. And the program, you once $900 a month, because you’re going to want personal training two to three times a week, and it’s a 12 month contract, but you know what?
Let’s get to that later. Let’s find out for, for you. So what I like you to come in and meet my staff. I’d like you to meet all my other members. I’d like you to really get a feel for what we do here. Experienced our service, please, sir, I know that you got everybody in the world chasing you’d give us a chance to earn your business.
And the trial is 299. Let me put together a whole program designed just for you. And let’s let’s, let’s give this a shot together. And then I tried to close the guy. That’s how you sell a money guy.
Sumit: I did want to, as you were just talking about it, I get the difference between loud and clear Tom, about the money guy and the bottom of this thing top 40%. But let’s talk about that middle tier, the moms that are still working out in the gyms. They’re, they’re probably in the top 40%, but they’re not your thousand dollar private one-on-one clients.
That’s the other avatar that you spoke with. What am I, how am I selling to them? Because I think having spoken to a lot of training gym owners, myself, that they do cater to that persona as well. That is still driven by value for the money to do look at their money. They can and want to be working out with a coach.
They want results. Yes, but they’re not the, they’re not the range Rover kind of people they’re still driving the Honda’s. Maybe they have an accord versus a simple. But they’re going to a training gym, especially nowadays because they realize health as well. And that’s, especially with the pandemic.
There’s this new realization of, I got to take care of myself. How do I market to these people? What’s my selling proposition. What’s the concept over here, if you will. Um, am I giving them those seven day free passes? Like I see a lot of my gym owners do that. Come on and experienced it. The same concept.
But they’re like, it’s free. Just come on in, give us, get, you know, one week free or whatever. What am I doing there for that crowd, which is not on the top of the pyramid? Definitely not on the bottom, but bottom of the poverty that we’re trying to, trying to cater and bring in.
So, okay. So there’s the bottom of the 40%. Okay. So what’s the basic assumptions. They, they still, if I look at the fluence charts and what people make, if I look at the buy, I put income and I look at the top 25% of the people in the country by income they’re there, you’re still up around a hundred thousand dollars for a household.
So there’s a point where I have to set a bottom line on the type of person, what I will do. So that bottom 40%, they’re still probably going to be in that 180 to two 50 range. I still have to charge enough to pre-qualify them because it’s an old game. We used to play the workshop. So, so when I give you the perfect price, tell me what you think the person would have price for a gym is a.
2 89, 2 49, 1 99, 1 79 times. Okay. So, but if I keep dropping down while the cheap guys wanted $10 or $9, but there’s a certain point where the number of pre-qualify. So looking at that client, first of all, what’s what number, you know, do I, if I expect you to pay, so let’s say it’s just, let’s go. Well, let’s say it’s 180.
So basically start with the number in mind. So you
Sumit: work backwards, say, start with the bare minimum. Gotcha. Yeah, because you’re right. Like if you’re, if you’re selling me a $99 gym, this thing, or, and you say you’re a trading gym, I’m not coming in because I already know that. Or at least my perception is that I am not going to get the level of.
That I would want, or that I would demand So I get, I get what you’re saying
Sumit: that. And I just wanted to remind viewers that as you were seeing that we have actually did a really good episode, which I said really good, because I see the comments that I get back and the open rates on these, we did one on pricing that got a lot of love.
So I’ll just put in that link here, because I think we went a little bit into the pricing thing, but that would be awesome. If people wanted to connect and go back to that because I think you broke it down really well
Thomas Plummer: there.
So we forget that. So we get desperate. We want to lower our price, but every time you lower your price, you lower the integrity. How can you justify a hundred dollars an hour for me as a training client? And now you’re trying to do $99 a group training. We’re in the same gym dude. It’s, you know, different clients at some point in there, your prices have to match, but they are a part of your marketing concept.
If I know my target market, then I have to create. I structured. That makes sense to my target market. But again, I’ll say this one more time. Most gym owners are not clear on who their target market is, so they don’t know how to market. So they’ve, they’re susceptible to any, you know, gimmick of the week and marketing.
Oh my God. If I ever the software system, it solves all my marketing problems. Oh my God. If I just run this QI stuff over here, it’s never that easy. If I know my target market, I can figure it out the delivery system. I can figure it out the price system. I can figure out the service that we need for that.
Sumit: It’s really good point.
Sumit: That’s an amazing, so I didn’t mean to,
Thomas Plummer: but yeah, just attending the rant. It’s just, if I’m, if I’m that guy that’s paying you, let’s say an average of 300. So, you know, there’s 200 of us in this gym. Some are paying 800 somewhere pan 200, but let’s say our averages, let’s call it three 50.
Okay. So how do I take care of this? If you think about it, most us break down because the delivery system doesn’t, you know, doesn’t match this. So this is, and I I’d like guys to use these terms, elite, upscale, all these terms. One of the things I just took a couple of clients through last week, we haven’t used them for years and some of this stuff just pops back in my head.
One guy has a question, but we created a culture sheets for their gym. So what’s the 20 phrases. And I would do the same thing with your company. Uh, Sumit, same exact tool. A culture sheet is 20 phrases that, that explain my business. So if you ask me about my training gym, here’s what I want you to think about.
Try before you buy, please give us a chance to earn your business. Um, you know, you, you, you may have failed at other jams. You won’t be able this time, Tom, why don’t we make this a separate episode?
Sumit: Because I think a cultural sheet would be a fantastic. Next episode on its own. Oh, sure. Sure. As you’re talking about, so let’s do that and, okay.Yeah.
Sumit: And the other thing, as you were talking about target market, I remember we went down this exercise for ourselves and what I’ll do is for our audience, I’ll put this short one or two sheets that we looked at, which helped in getting a better sense of who our real audience is. And it like you were saying brings down.
What about the demographics? What about. Are there, um, you know, income, what about their likes and dislikes? I’ll just put that template together and throw it in. And hopefully it helps our gym owners be able to sit down and, and kind of put, put, put details in. Um, yeah. And, uh, bringing it back to the testimonial shoot that you were talking about.
Testimonial based marketing, you know, I was taking notes and I, I recently saw Mark Fisher. Um, commercial, uh, you know, it is a really good commercial. I at least I think so, because brought in testimonials and it also gave you a glimpse into how the gym works. I’ll share that with you too, but I think, I think.
My viewers would like that, too. Just to kind of bring what you just talked about. It connects the dots really well. So it’s something that you can see the tangible, you know, and bring it and just be able to feel it and say, oh, this is how it could look like, because it’s also reminiscent of his brand.
Just, just as a, as someone. People know about, and then they can connect the dots and say, oh, this is what it could look like for our, um
Thomas Plummer: So don’t assume that you, you raised some interesting points. Let me, let me go back to one basic concept. That’s probably, I’m sorry. I ran so much that we, we always run over, but let me finish on this today.
If you would please. And. It’s the, one of the most basic tools of all is the testimonial. And again, I told you I was watching that commercial. I it’s a company that it’s insurance company deals with just veterans, but everybody in the ad was a testimonial and they showed the, the service that we’re getting.
They spoke that. So if I’m a training gym and I have a hundred clients, I want my clients to speak for me. And I want them to share all the good stuff, because if I’m sitting at home, a testimonial should do two things at one it’s. I want real people to speak like, okay, it’s um, this is my experience with this gem.
The service was unbelievable. They keep it so clean during the virus. I use the testimonials and shape them around whatever’s going on at that point, but they also need to pick up the experience of the gym. Uh, comma, a guardian did a really good job with that with Seacoast kettlebell, where I got this, but he would cut from the interview with the client, to them actually working with.
And put in some good music. So you’ve got a really good feel of what the gym look like and the energy. So he did a re uh, an interview that would last three minutes, four minutes. And then while the person’s talking, he would cut away from him and show him working out. But then they just kept talking. So they layered it.
And so that, that type of testimonial, but again, it’s such a wonderful tool, but it has to match the gym. But as we finish this day, we look at this. It’s just, there’s just basic concepts that you just, you don’t want to violate. You just don’t want to move away from, you know, we forget what we own, you know, we’re an upscale adult training gym.
W most of our clients, statistically are over 40. They are influence wise. Usually the wealthier people in town, even that lady, you know, home raising two babies and her partner is out working or something like this raise, you know, getting money for the family, but still they probably a lot of, you know, okay.
Or it comes a hundred thousand bucks. Okay. You’re you’re, you’re still in the top 40%. Yep. That, that type of a client, we forget, we don’t understand them because we. I think one size fits all. We don’t understand that our clients in our gym or people that would never set foot in the other gyms because they’re too cheap.
They’re too dirty. There’s too many clients, you know.
The basic rules of marketing, which we started on this, we kind of, you know, we’ll get in with them. Once I get that client, man, I profile them. I’ve been a billable, Jim, around his or her expectations. I’ve got to build a gym that my delivery system, the experience of working out with me, what is the, we’ll save that one failure.
Now that’s another one of my favorite type, but what is the experience of your gym? Right? What is the experience of a workout? Most people are shocked, especially if you send ringer. You know, you say, you know, somebody comes in and just takes a workout. And then all of a sudden they, they gave you the review.
It’s like, oh my God, this place was dirty. Or they started five minutes late. Or the guy was drinking coffee the whole time. The coach is like, oh my God, you know, you don’t even know what you’re experienced if your gym is anymore. And that’s a good place to start. What’s the experience of your product?
All right. No,
Sumit: thank you. And I think you’ve given me some great topics to talk about. Follow up conversations. So thanks
Thomas Plummer: Tom. This lecture is on forever. Thank you. Thanks for letting me rant again this week. All good. Thanks. Very much.