1. Participate in Parades and Local Festivals
The key to increasing the visibility of your business is to make sure everyone knows about your business. Be sure to start participating in the local parades and other types of city festivals.
Beyond getting publicity and visibility for your gym, actually creating a gym-specific parade float can be a fun team building event for your current members. Once you’ve found a member who will let you use their heavy truck and flatbed trailer, here are a couple of examples of potential parade floats:
- Attach a BowFlex or similar training item to the trailer and have a member exercise during the course of the parade.
- Use a speaker system, and at certain intervals, stop the truck and have your members do a quick aerobic workout so parade spectators can see the kinds of fun workouts your gym offers.
- If you are a CrossFit affiliate, create a parade-specific WOD for your members to perform that includes jumping into the trailer, flipping tires, and flashing kettlebell swing.
2. Host “No Experience Necessary” Weekend Events in Public Parks
Many people are intimidated by gyms and exercise. To get people to try exercising, you need to host free, open-to-the-public weekend events in public areas. The workouts you offer do not need to be very intense. A simple sweat-inducing goal training ground will do the trick.
Remember, you are not trying to scare these people away from the gym. Rather, your goal is to make them have so much fun that they opt to become paying members of your gym. It’s all about increasing the public visibility of your gym.
3. Sponsor a local sports team
Another great way to increase your gym membership is to sponsor a local sports team. There are two main advantages to this type of marketing effort. The first is that you will get your logo screen printed on the uniform of the entire team. Athletes, especially bar league teams, tend to wear their uniforms outside of games, so your logo will get a lot of eye traffic.
The second benefit of sponsoring a sports team is that your gym’s name and logo will be placed on all team marketing materials, as well as on the “Sponsor Board” at all team games. People who were previously unaware of your business will now know that your gym is an avid supporter of the local sports team.
