How to create successful Black Friday campaigns for your gym

In most western countries, the month of November is the shopping month. And all that because the majority of stores "celebrate" Black Friday. Although this "holiday" was initially adopted by only a handful of the leading retailers, sales have grown exponentially, and thus, more and more companies joined the campaign.

Consumers have come to wait for each year's best offers regarding a massive variety of products and services, from home appliances, IT, clothing, groceries, holidays, and plane tickets and, why not, gym memberships.

Although Black Friday was borrowed from the Americans, who celebrate this commercial holiday the day after Thanksgiving Day, the date companies begin this campaign is different each year, depending on the country, and has no relationship to the American holidays.

Why should you establish campaigns in your fitness club? The simple answer is – to sell as many memberships as possible. At the same time, it's a great way to create brand awareness campaigns and attract the attention of potential members. But, of course, it is unnecessary to sell all the memberships at meager prices. Still, you can create various campaigns with restricted membership sales at a reasonable and attractive price.

Black Friday campaigns are not much different than any other campaign, but they must be promoted early on so that more people find out that they can buy memberships on sale during that day.

Why create Black Friday campaigns?

As I've mentioned before, Black Friday campaigns not only increase your sales but also help you promote your club much more easily.

There are a lot of websites that put together all the stores and companies that offer Black Friday sales, and your gym could be on one of those lists, which many curious people check out constantly.

Regardless of the consumers' opinion of Black Friday, sales numbers recorded in the past years prove that many people shop during these campaigns.

Moreover, because these companies heavily promote themselves on all available channels, your club's offers weigh differently than your usual ones. Everyone expects to see sales on… everything during Black Friday and your club's offers will surely be a pleasant surprise for your members and many others.

What you need to have a Black Friday campaign

To ensure a successful Black Friday campaign, first, you must get ready for it early on. Online shops are always sales leaders on Black Friday because people can do any kind of online shopping out of the comfort of their homes.

Therefore, you must make sure that you offer this choice to your members and potential members as well. If your Black Friday offers are only available at the front desk of your club, your chances to convince people to show up in person at the gym during that day are pretty slim.

Therefore, an essential aspect of a Black Friday campaign is online payments for your memberships. So, how members and potential members can buy memberships and services online is essential. You must offer them an easy-to-access platform to select their desired membership or service as fast as possible and then proceed with the payment instantly—all of these without the need to go anywhere.

How to create a Black Friday campaign

Generally, fitness clubs' Black Friday campaigns concentrate upon membership sales. However, you can also include in your offer session packs for PT.

That doesn't mean that you have to lower the prices on all the memberships, but focus on long-term and, therefore, more expensive.

This way, you can offer various discounts according to the membership value. Focus on full-time memberships of 6 and 12 months, at which you can add a serious discount, or even include additional privileges, such as PT sessions, extra days on the membership, or free access to LIVE classes or video training if those are available.

It is also recommended to impose certain restrictions on these campaigns, especially if you offer a considerable discount. Therefore, sell a certain number of memberships, according to the maximum capacity of your fitness club. Also, force members to set the starting date of the membership in no more than two weeks from the moment of their purchase and not later.

Work out a dedicated marketing strategy

Serious promoting Black Friday campaigns is essential, especially if you haven't done such campaigns until now and members are not used to this. Start promoting your Black Friday offers at least a week before that day such that members wait impatiently for the campaign and know when it takes place.

The way you promote this campaign matters a lot. First, of course, you can create posts on social media, but surely your club's members' feed is full of Black Friday offers, such that your posts can get lost easily.

To ensure that your offers reach the people that are really interested, focus on other means of communication, such as direct email, SMS, ads on the club's website and the mobile app. Explain to your members what your Black Friday campaign consists of, what discounts they can expect, and how they can take advantage of them - how they can buy fast online on your website or in the app.

The reason why Black Friday campaigns have such a huge success is not just the mega-discount offered by the companies but also the fact that the offer is available for a short, limited time only. Therefore, avoid expanding the campaign for more than a few days. If the member has more time to contemplate the offer, the chances are big that he forgets about it or changes his mind. Instead, a great offer, which is available just one day or to the first 100 customers, these restrictions will be more convincing even if the discount is not as significant.

The only challenge for an offer of such a limited time is promoting it as fast as possible to all the members and potential clients, and that you can only achieve through emails, SMS, or push notifications in your app. That is the only way to make sure that your message reaches those interested and instantly receive details about the campaign and how to buy.

A quick catch-up...

Although when you think of Black Friday offers, it comes to mind discounts for home appliances, groceries, clothing, and other products, that doesn't mean you can't carry out such campaigns for your fitness club's memberships as well.

It isn't difficult to come up with a Black Friday campaign for your gym, but you need to watch out for a few aspects. First, to offer a substantial discount, meant to attract attention, to promote your campaign early on, so that everybody knows about it, and most importantly, to offer members and potential clients a fast and simple way to take advantage of your Black Friday offer other than the walk to your club to buy a membership from the front desk.

A serious Black Friday campaign is done online, with all the digital tools at your gym's disposal – from online payments for membership and services to the member app, a site with a portal dedicated to new members and email campaigns, SMS and push notifications using the app to promote your offer directly to those interested.

If we’ve convinced you to try a Black Friday campaign for your fitness club this year, we’ve put together a series of ideas for interesting campaigns that you can run.
Read the article>>>