Effective Gym Advertising: Attract More Members with Fitness Ad Campaigns

Gyms enjoy a range of potential advertising advantages. They’re aspirational businesses that sell a dream, almost anyone could be a potential customer, and the opportunities for eye-catching content are plentiful.

But advertising your gym brings more than its share of challenges too.

The fitness industry is incredibly competitive. If you’re like most gyms, you’ll have a number of local rivals vying for the same customers as you, some of which may be big brands with potentially big budgets.

Then there’s the ever-growing threat posed by online-only competitors - virtual training, for example, is expected to achieve an incredible compound annual growth rate of 30.5% over the next eight years.

In short, standing out in this landscape is no mean feat. But a smart advertising strategy can help you do just that.

In this guide we’ll guide you on how to craft both a broad ad strategy and individual advertisements that will help your business grow.

Understanding your audience

Before advertising or marketing your gym, you first need to understand exactly who you’re advertising to, as this will determine what your ads look like, where you place them, and potentially how much you spend on them.

Defining your target audience is a process all its own. If you haven’t ever considered what your ideal customer looks like, you can get an idea by following these steps:

1. Analyze your current members: Identify the common characteristics of the members you currently tend to attract. Consider gender, age, fitness level and workout preferences.
2. Gather feedback from current members: Send out surveys or conduct interviews to learn why certain members chose you, and to better understand their needs and preferences.
3. Research your local area: Research demographics relating to age, ethnicity and socio-economic status to understand the type of member you should try to attract.
4. Examine your competitors: Who do your rivals tend to target? Should you go after the same sort of members or a different group?
5. Define the fitness goals you help members achieve: Determine if the gym caters to beginners, athletes, weight loss, strength training, wellness or whatever else.
6. Create buyer personas: Develop a few buyer personas who you can create your ads for - fictional profiles that represent a particular target customer, e.g. Greg, 45, husband, father, high-earning office worker, interested in MMA.

Once you understand who you’re targeting, you should then work to understand their fitness hopes and pain points. What do they want from their gym experience? What might stop them from becoming a member at your gym or make them quit after they’ve joined?

The answers to these questions will help you to develop advertising that speaks to the needs, wants, preferences and limitations of your target audience.

Gym advertising platforms

You need to place your gym ads somewhere your target audience will see them. There are a few advertising platforms to choose from, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

In very broad terms, these platforms can be placed in three groups:

Social media

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok can be uniquely valuable to the fitness businesses who utilize them well, as they allow you to target a very specific audience, which you can choose when you create your advertising campaign.

Social media ad campaigns also tend to be very visual. Content can be aspirational, like documenting a member’s transformation, or eye-catching, with beautiful people showing off their fitness or form. Such human-centric ads can generate huge engagement, which can help you get far more bang for your advertising buck.

The social media platform you focus on will change depending on who you’re targeting and the content you’re sharing:

• Facebook: Image and video. Best for targeting older members with clear offers.
• Instagram: Image and video. Best for attracting younger members with beautiful content.
• TikTok: Video only. Best for attracting younger members with useful/fun/relatable content.
• LinkedIn: Image and video. Best for targeting corporate clients.

Search engines

Search engines like Google and Bing offer you the opportunity to secure a spot at the top of the search results through pay per click (PPC) advertising. The most common form of this ad is the text result marked [Sponsored] at the top of the Google results page, but you can advertise within Google’s Shopping, Images and Maps tools too.

This form of advertising is incredibly powerful, because it places you in front of people who are actively searching for precisely what you offer, at the exact moment they’re interested in it. And with PPC, you only pay for your ad if someone actually clicks on it.

Offline ads

While digital advertising gets all the attention these days, there’s still room for traditional advertising, particularly for local businesses like gyms.

Because the majority of your potential members will live in your local area, dropping flyers into letterboxes can be a highly targeted and surprisingly effective strategy, particularly if you offer an initial trial, deal or discount. You might also consider:

• Outdoor ads: Bus stop and billboard ads in your local area.
• Print ads: Ads in local newspapers and magazines.
• Sponsorships: Sponsoring local sports teams and community events.

Crafting a gym marketing strategy

Now that we understand the ways you can advertise and who you’re advertising to, it’s time to develop your strategy.

Setting goals

The most effective gym marketing campaigns have a clear and achievable north star that guides all efforts.

A brand new gym might simply want to get its name out there: local brand awareness is key to driving gym memberships in the initial stages of a new business, as customers can’t buy from you if they don’t know about you. A more established gym, meanwhile, might focus on conversions - turning target audiences into paying customers.

Whatever the goal of your ad campaign, it needs to be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. For example:

• Awareness: Your gym wants to increase brand awareness by 30% among local fitness enthusiasts within three months, by running a targeted social media ad campaign on Instagram and Facebook, reaching at least 50,000 people and achieving a minimum engagement rate of 5%.
• Conversion: Your gym aims to generate 200 new memberships within the next six weeks, by running a limited-time promotional ad campaign offering a free first month, with a minimum conversion rate of 10% from landing page visitors and a cost-per-acquisition of under $20.

Allocating budget

A well-balanced gym advertising budget should optimize reach, engagement and conversions by distributing funds across multiple channels. Your budget breakdown will depend on your goals, preferences and limitations, but could look something like this:

• Digital advertising (40-50%): Invest in social media and search engine ads to target potential members based on location, demographics, interests and behaviors. Allocate funds based on performance. Set aside around 20% of this budget for retargeting efforts.
• Content marketing/SEO (20-25%): Create high-quality content, including professional photos, workout videos, blog posts and local SEO strategies to improve the organic reach. Set up email marketing campaigns to grow and engage a captive audience.
• Influencer and community partnerships (10-15%): Collaborate with fitness influencers, personal trainers and sports clubs in your area to establish your brand within the local community.
• Offline marketing (10-15%): Use traditional advertising methods like flyers, banners and local sponsorships to target potential members in your local area. Consider classes in local public spaces (checking with your council first) to further enhance your visibility.
• Testing and optimization (5-10%): Reserve a portion of the budget for A/B testing ad creative, experimenting with new platforms and optimizing your campaign based on performance data.

Developing ad creative and messaging

Good news: your gym or fitness business is blessed with the ability to create an endless stream of engaging advertising content. You’re selling the dream of achieving your body or fitness goals, and you have beautiful, interesting and inspirational people walking through your door every day.

The most effective fitness marketing efforts will capitalize on this opportunity, creating gym ads that resonate with your target audience, that highlight the benefits of becoming a member with your gym, and that sell the dream to new members.

Headlines, visuals, calls-to-action

Gym ad creative needs to grab the viewer’s attention in the blink of an eye, then needs to be relevant or relatable enough to hold that attention. The call-to-action (CTA) must then compel the viewer forward to the next step.

Let’s look at some tips for crafting compelling creative, whether for Facebook Ads, Google or email marketing:

Headlines: grab attention, spark interest

• Keep it short and punchy: Aim for 6-10 words (e.g. “Transform Your Body. Join Today!").
• Highlight a key benefit: Focus on member results, not the gym (e.g. “Stronger, Fitter, Faster – Start Your Journey”).
• Create urgency: Try to drive immediate action (e.g. “Limited Spots! First Month Free”).
• Use power words: Words like ‘exclusive’, ‘proven’ and ‘guaranteed’ can boost engagement.

Visuals: connect, engage, inspire

• Show real people: We’re hard-wired to be drawn to human faces, so feature the friendly smiles of members and trainers.
• Use high-quality imagery: Invest in professional photography to properly capture your members and space.
• Incorporate brand colors: Build familiarity and trust by maintaining a consistent, recognizable aesthetic.
• Use video: Videos can grab attention and tell your story better than static images.

CTAs: encourage immediate action

• Be clear and direct: Tell the audience exactly what you want them to do (e.g. “Sign Up Now”, “Get Your Free Pass”, “Book Your First Class”).
• Create urgency: Use exclusivity or limited time offers to get your audience to act.
• Lower the barrier to entry: Offer free trials or special deals that minimize risk for new members.
• Make it pop: CTA buttons should visually highlight your message - use a clear, bold typeface and contrasting colors.

Tracking and optimizing campaigns

You won’t immediately stumble upon the most effective gym ad campaign possible. The best gym campaigns are developed over time, with every element being tested, tracked and optimized.

To grow your fitness brand, you’ll need to commit to an initial phase of trial and error, where many ad ideas are tested then kept or discarded. You’ll then need to undertake a period of optimization, where promising campaign ideas are sculpted into ever more effective strategies.

Key metrics and analytics

How do you track and analyze the performance of your ad campaign? The relevant KPIs will vary depending on your campaign goals and implementation methods, but a few of the most important include:

Awareness and reach metrics

• Impressions: Total number of times your ad was displayed.
• Reach: Number of unique users who saw your ad.
• Engagement rate: The number of likes, shares, comments and clicks, divided by the number of impressions.

Traffic and lead generation metrics

• Click-through rate (CTR): The percentage of users who clicked on the ad.
• Cost per click (CPC): The price you pay per ad click.
• Page views: The number of users who reached your website or landing page via your ad.
• Cost per lead (CPL): How much you pay for each member sign-up or inquiry.

Conversion and sales metrics

• Conversion rate: The percentage of users who completed your targeted action (e.g. download, sign-up, free trial).
• Cost per acquisition (CPA): Cost to acquire a new member or trial user.
• Return on ad spend (ROAS): Revenue generated per $1 spent on ads.

Retargeting and retention metrics

• Retargeting CTR: The effectiveness of follow-up ads targeted at previous website visitors.
• Customer lifetime value (CLV): The total revenue a member brings over time (to justify ad spend).
• Churn rate: Percentage of members who cancel their subscriptions.

Testing and refining

How exactly do you test and optimize your gym ad campaign? Let’s walk through the basic steps:

1. Set a baseline: Establish a baseline for each key metric by running tests for a week or two.
2. A/B test: Create two versions of key elements like headlines, visuals and CTAs, then run side-by-side ads to see which of the two options is more effective. Iterate based on this feedback.
3. Monitor KPIs: Keep tabs on metrics like CTR, CPC and conversion rates, and adjust your strategy appropriately. You might adjust your targeting or bidding strategy in response to a high CPC, for example.
4. Refine your audience: Use strategies like location-based targeting, demographic targeting, retargeting and lookalike audiences (users who are similar to existing members).
5. Prioritize your budget: Pause underperforming ads and shift your spend towards high-performing ads and channels.
6. Iterate and scale: Once you’ve developed a few top-performing ads, scale your budget to fully capitalize on the opportunity. Refresh creative to maintain engagement.

Case studies: successful gym advertising

What does an effective ad strategy look like in the wild? Let’s take a look at a few gym owners and brands who have done it well, and who can serve as inspiration for your own ad efforts.

PureGym

PureGym has proven a market disruptor in the UK by offering unlimited gym memberships at discount rates. But rather than gain a reputation as a budget brand, the company went on the front foot with its “Way More Than You Pay For” advertising campaign, in which it positioned itself as an upscale option. Video ads were supplemented with a variety of social, search and offline ads, and the campaign helped the brand grow by 15% in 2023.

Club Bunker

A more boutique example of advertising success can be found in Club Bunker, a single-site gym that undertook a complete rebrand, featuring an eye-catching logo and brand colors, which then fuelled an advertising campaign that generated:

• 1500+ leads
• 4000+ new Instagram followers
• A page 1 Google ranking for four separate keywords

Effective gym advertising campaigns require the right tools

Understanding your audience, setting clear goals, forming a strategy, testing and optimizing it; effective gym advertising demands effort. But with the help of smart marketing and gym management software like GymMaster’s Marketing and Retention Tools, you can minimize that effort while maximizing the effectiveness of your campaign.

Our tool allows you to:

• Accept new sign-ups directly through your gym’s website.
• Send automated, personalized email and SMS messages to members.
• Monitor member visitation patterns to identify and engage with members who are at risk of cancelling.
• Track and guide leads through your sales funnel.
• Monitor email open, bounce and unsubscribe rates, and track social media performance with the Facebook pixel.
• Create discounted memberships or concession passes in seconds.

Ready to enhance your marketing and membership game and drive serious, sustained growth for your gym? We’re ready to help. Get in touch with our friendly team today.