New gymnastics marketing ideas can help your gym refresh and expand its reach. But, before jumping into the next marketing trend it’s important to understand what’s currently working.
So, if you don’t have a method for tracking how your members heard about your gym, create one now.
To start, add the question “how did you hear about us?” to your registration form. Then provide a list of your current marketing tactics for your clients to choose.
Example: How did you hear about Townsville Gymnastics?
- Word of mouth
- Google ads
- Social Media
- Print/Radio/TV advertising
- Public Performances
- Partnerships with local schools
- Competitive team media coverage
As you collect your client’s answers you’ll begin to see exactly which marketing tactics are working for your club.
When looking over this data, remember the golden rule of marketing: do more of what works.
Don’t overcommit to flashy new marketing trends if they don’t produce results for you. Instead, redirect your money into the most productive marketing tactics and continue to keep your eyes open for new opportunities.
Today, gymnastics clubs have to stay flexible and be willing to test new marketing opportunities.
That means staying open to new gymnastics marketing ideas.
Looking for ideas now? Checkout our 11 gymnastics marketing ideas listed below.
1) Search Engine Optimization for gymnastics gyms
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a big and complex topic. But you can experience a lot of SEO benefits by covering the basics.
First, make sure your website is optimized for search engines. This means including relevant local gymnastics keywords in your page titles, descriptions and image alt tags.
If you manage your own site, you’ll want to make sure your content management system will allow you to easily edit page titles, descriptions and alt tags. (On Uplifter, you can edit these elements by simply clicking “Edit Page Details” when logged in and viewing the page you’d like to edit).
Having a search engine friendly site also means creating a clean site that is easy for search engines to scan. Make sure your site’s navigation is decluttered and simple. Keep your contact information up to date on your contact us page. And, create a simple site map to help search engines understand your site.
Lastly, make sure your site is secure with an SSL certificate. Search engines prioritize secure sites because they want to protect users and the information they share.
Not sure if your site has an SSL certificate? There’s an easy way to check. Secure sites are hosted using https:// instead of http://. So, if you visit your site and see https:// at the start of your URL, you’re in the clear.
If you don’t see https:// at the beginning of your URL, you could still have an SSL but you may need to set the https:// as the primary version of your site. Get in touch with your webhost to figure out if you have an SSL and how to set it as the primary version of your site.
Today, your website is your home base. If someone hears about your business, they need to be able to easily find you online. That’s why basic search engine optimization should be a top priority.
2) Get a Google My Business profile
Take your SEO efforts one step further by getting a Google My Business (GMB) profile. Getting a GMB profile won’t necessarily help the global ranking of your website but it can push your business into relevant local searches.
Because GMB listings take up such a large portion of a user’s screen, creating a GMB listing can also help you visually dominate searches for your own business.
See our example below.
In the above example, Uplifter’s website is the top result on the left. Plus, our GMB profile dominates the entire right side of the screen. This helps users find clear and relevant information about our company.
Creating a GMB listing also allows users to quickly contact your business, get directions to your gym and submit and see customer reviews.
It doesn’t take long to setup your Google My Business profile and it won’t cost any money so this tactic is easy to complete.
3) Market to other sports and fitness industries
Gymnastics is known to produce the most functionally fit athletes of any sport. That’s why you’ll find elite athletes like world champion mixed martial artists training in gymnastics to achieve higher fitness levels.
Despite this respect, some athletes may be intimidated to enter the gym. They may think, ‘where am I going to start?’
Give these athletes an entry point. More specifically, give these athletes the strength training they desire.
Create a program that runs athletes through extensive gymnastics calisthenics and body weight training.
You’ll be sure to tire them out and if they’re competitive it should leave them wanting more!
Get started by reaching out to local competitive sports organizations to gauge their interest.
4) Eliminate barriers with Free Trials for Friends
Offering a free product is one of the best gymnastics marketing ideas for your business. Why? Because when you give something away for free, you eliminate one of the biggest barriers to entry: cost.
A lot of kids may want to try gymnastics but parents may be afraid to commit to an entire season. What if their child doesn’t like it after all?
When you offer a free trial class, you’re able to make kids comfortable in your space and show them how fun gymnastics can be.
However, offering free trial classes to everyone may be daunting for some clubs, especially those that require liability insurance for anyone who steps in their gym. For these clubs, covering insurance fees for a dozen free trials could add up to hundreds of dollars at the end of the month.
To help curb the risk of paying insurance fees out of pocket, clubs could choose to focus on only offering free trials for friends of current members.
Why? Because friends of your current members are more likely to become members themselves.
There’s a few reasons why this is true. Firstly, these free trials have the added benefit of knowing someone who enjoys your services. This word of mouth marketing is the most powerful form of marketing there is.
Furthermore, because these free trials are friends with your current members, they have the benefit of feeling comforted in challenging situations. For example, if they struggle with a movement during their free trial class, they can laugh it off with a friend, or get a friendly dose of encouragement.
Ultimately, when you give free trial classes to friends of members, you help make your club more welcoming and familiar to trial members.
5) Expand your reach with payment options
Often times the most powerful marketing tactics can be built right into your product or service. That’s the way we view flexible payment options for gymnastics clubs.
Some prospects may like your gymnastics services but they need more flexible payment options. You can meet these needs with installment payments.
Installment payments allow your club to serve families who may not be able to afford one seasonal lump sum payment.
With installment payments, your club can easily break-down lump sums into several smaller payments throughout the season.
Offering this payment method can significantly expand your market without any additional spend in advertising. Similar to promotions, look for gymnastics software that allows your club to easily offer installment payments at your club.
6) Go to your customers with traveling gymnastics
When in need of new gymnastics marketing ideas consider bringing your gym to your customers!
In some areas, schoolboards have the insurance and budget available for after school activities like gymnastics. In these cases your gym may be able to broker a deal with the school board to teach gymnastics to kids after school.
Alternatively, you may have large local daycare centers that would be open to offering kinder-gym activities as part of their programming. Local cultural recreation centers are often open to increasing their offerings too.
In each of these instances, and with proper insurance coverage, your gym could have the opportunity to expand your customer base by loading up a truck and taking equipment across town each week.
Not only can these types of deals bring revenue to your club, they can also allow you to showcase your services and attract more kids to your regular programming.
7) Get new drop-ins with “parents night out” events
Parents love to watch the fun and development of their kids at your gym. But they also appreciate some free time.
Make a special drop-in event so kids can enjoy an evening of fun and fitness while parents enjoy some free time. Consider special events for Valentine’s Day or pick a few nights during the season that work best for your coaches.
Similar to offering programming off-site, “parents night out” events can bring new kids to your gym which can translate into new signups during your next season!
8) Simple and consistent social media
Social media doesn’t have to be a full-time job and it doesn’t need to be intimidating.
Often times the most effective social media posts are simple and consistent.
You don’t have to jump on hashtag trends or master the latest feature on social platforms.
Instead, just try and share a video or picture of your services once or twice each week. Over time, this media creates a great library that prospective members can review when they’re evaluating your gym.
As we explained in our Tik Tok article, if you really can’t find the time or resources to post once or twice each week, consider giving parents or kids “social media time” for pictures and videos at the end of your classes.
In this way, you can have your membership advertising your services to their friends and family for you. If possible, just ask them to tag their location or use a designated hashtag for your gym. Using a designated hashtag is an easy way to catalogue your gym’s photos in one place on social media.
9) Give social media ads a try
There are lots of ways to reach local audiences but none of them are quite as flexible or targeted as social media advertising.
Using a platform like Facebook, your club can run an advertisement for as little as $1 per day. These ads are easy to start and stop and it’s simple to adjust your budget.
Furthermore, you can target anyone nearby who has indicated an interest in gymnastics on Facebook. With a little extra work, you can also get your ads in front of people who have previously visited your gym’s website (this form of remarketing can be very effective).
Thanks to their insights and reporting, social media ads also give you a clear picture of how many people have seen your ad and how many have clicked on it to visit your website.
When it’s all said and done, you may find that social media advertising isn’t a fit for your club. Like we said off the top, that’s okay, do more of what works instead!
But, thanks to the low price point and no need for commitment, social media advertising is almost too easy not to try.
If you’d like to learn more about running successful social media ads, checkout our article on gymnastics advertising measurements.
10) Re-marketing with email marketing
Email marketing is a great way to send updates about your club’s upcoming season and promotions.
If you haven’t yet, start collecting email addresses for the purpose of marketing and promotions. This list will require opt-in consent from your members, so be sure to request permission (this means no pre-checked email fields during registration!).
With email marketing, you can re-engage past members that may have left your club, or up-sell your existing members to register for special one-time workshops and drop-in nights.
Tip: When you request permission to add someone to your email marketing list, make sure you’re enticing your prospects. Instead of having a checkbox on the bottom of your registration form that says something bland like, “Yes, send me club marketing and promotions,” entice readers with the value of your emails. Consider an opt-in message like, “Yes, send me early-bird registration, special drop-in class notifications, club news and offers.”
Nobody wants to get marketing spam in their email box, so it’s important to address that concern. By outlining a couple precise benefits of joining your list, you help ease apprehensions and generate genuine interest in your emails.
11) Monthly subscriptions with auto-renewals
As we mentioned in section five, often times the best marketing tactics can be built right into your club operations. While increased payment options can help expand your reach, monthly subscriptions with auto-renewals can help simplify member retention.
Reengaging your existing membership to register for a new season can be time-consuming. Add in the extra difficulty of collecting new payments and some club administrators may find themselves with a desk full of paperwork and weeks of phone calls ahead of them.
But, what if you didn’t need to promote a new season’s registration to your existing members? What if they automatically paid you each month?
That’s exactly what happens when your club uses monthly subscriptions with auto-renewal.
When your club uses monthly subscriptions, you don’t need to re-market to your existing members. Instead you can focus your full attention on engaging new members.
For administrators, this means you won’t need to run several registrations sessions each year. Instead, new members can register once, and pay a consistent fee that auto-renews each month
With a gymnastics management system like Uplifter, not only is this monthly subscription method easy for your club, your admins also have the tools to easily graduate members to new classes and track their skill advancements as they go. It’s a win-win.
Summary: Test new gymnastics marketing ideas at your gym
Testing new gymnastics marketing ideas can seem a bit intimidating but there’s no way to know what your local audience will respond to unless you test.
Make a list and begin scheduling your marketing and advertising tests today.
For tactics like social media ads, you can begin testing right away. For tactics such as parents night out or after school traveling gymnastics, proper health and safety planning will take some time. So, begin having the conversations with your coaches to narrow down availability and map out the logistics.
Of course, it’s also good to explore any new gymnastics marketing ideas as they arise so you can understand if they’ll work for you.
Lastly, don’t forget that some of the most powerful marketing tactics can be built-in to your club operations. To expand your reach and simplify athlete retention, consider built-in tactics like expanded payment options and monthly subscriptions with auto-renewal.
Want to expand your target audience by offering special promotions and flexible payments? Contact us to learn more about our gymnastics class software, including our free Uplifter LITE software.
