Gymshark Founder Ben Francis Shares His Guerrilla Marketing Tactics for Gym Owners

In 2012, Ben Francis was a 19-year-old who owned a sewing machine, a screen printer and an endless supply of ambition. Just eight years later, his brand, Gymshark, would achieve unicorn status with a billion dollar valuation.

Gymshark’s success has been built on doing things differently. And by ignoring the status quo, the brand has managed to take a shark-sized bite out of the athleisure market long dominated by brands like Nike and Adidas.

How did Francis do it? The rise of Gymshark can largely be attributed to guerrilla marketing - the use of unconventional and often low-cost advertising tactics to generate buzz and capture new customers.

And there are a wealth of lessons that other fitness businesses can learn from Gymshark’s guerrilla marketing strategies, to find success in what is an incredibly competitive market.

Ben Francis’s guerrilla marketing philosophy

The Gymshark story is key to understanding the reasons behind Francis’s approach to marketing, and Gymshark’s subsequent success.

The brand initially targeted bodybuilders with supplements, but it took six weeks for Gymshark to make its first sale. Francis saw a need to diversify - he had been taught to sew by his grandmother, so invested £1,000 in a sewing machine and screen printer, and set about crafting fitness wear.

A fitness influencer pioneer

In 2013 he set up an exhibit at Birmingham’s BodyPower fitness trade show. After the event a Gymshark tracksuit went viral on Facebook, and generated £30,000 in sales within 30 minutes. The experience opened his eyes to the power of social media.

Gymshark soon became an early adopter of influencer marketing, bringing on bodybuilders like Nikki Blackketter and Lex Griffin. Influencers would often post about the brand in return for nothing more than free gear, in what turned out to be a strategy that was both incredibly affordable and incredibly effective.

Building communities

Trade shows formed another key element of the brand’s early marketing mix. Gymshark chose a direct to consumer (D2C) sales model - it only opened its first physical store in 2022 - so expos were critical for getting products into the hands of potential customers, and Gymshark committed to attending events not just in the UK, but in Germany, the US and Australia too.

But guerrilla marketing success would actually come after the trade show, when the Gymshark team would go and lift at local gyms with attendees.

“All the people that we lifted with would follow us on Facebook,” Francis told Vogue in 2022. “Over time we’d continue to post content and the community grew and grew. Surprise surprise, those exact locations are now our biggest community hubs, among our millions of followers.”

This experiential marketing made the otherwise online-only brand feel tangible and relatable, an important thing in the fitness industry, where new clients are so often attracted by a sense of community.

Key guerrilla marketing tactics for gym owners

What guerrilla marketing inspiration can gyms and fitness studios take from Gymshark? While selling a fitness class is slightly different to selling a sports bra, the use of creative strategies to create a buzz and resonate with your audience are much the same.

Leveraging influencer marketing on a budget

In recent years influencer marketing campaigns have become a far more common way for fitness businesses to generate brand awareness and revenue. But lessons can still be taken from the specific ways in which Gymshark built its brand through online personalities.

While Gymshark now markets to all gym goers, it initially benefitted from a focus on bodybuilders. Targeting a niche allowed it to identify influencers with highly relevant and highly engaged audiences.

As local businesses that tend to attract customers from within a few miles, a gym is wise to find equally local fitness influencers who are likely to have a more boutique and relevant following. This also means that they’re more affordable to collaborate with: like Gymshark, you might be able to work with them in return for a free gym membership.

Remember to get the influencer to tag your gym in every post, as this is key to accessing their audience.

Building a community through events

Just as Gymshark built up a community through trade shows, expos and informal training sessions, so too should your gym business put your brand up in lights by putting feet on the ground.

Again, a local approach is wise. Examples of community-building events include:

• In-house competitions: Run fitness competitions, such as lifting or endurance events, to bring in potential members and showcase your gym.
• Transformation challenges: Offer short programs where participants look to improve performance or change their bodies over a set time frame, supporting each other all the while.
• Sponsor local teams or events: Promote your gym by putting your name to an event or team, and set up a pop-up stall where you can shake some hands and make some fans.
• Outdoor bootcamps: Host free park or beach workouts to attract new members.
• Wellness workshops: Invite experts to share practical diet and recovery tips.
• Member milestone nights: Host social events where you celebrate loyal members and success stories, and where everyone is encouraged to bring a plus one.
• Local business collaborations: Partner with complementary businesses, from cafés to wellness brands, on joint promotions that grant access to each other’s customer base.

Guerrilla marketing ideas are limited only by your imagination, and truly unique events tend to be more successful, so do your best to come up with some eye-catching ideas.

Creating viral social media campaigns

Along with influencer and fitness inspo content, Gymshark has leaned heavily into humor on its social media presence. The brand’s @gymsharkwomen Instagram handle, for example, calls itself “your fairy quadmother” and posts carefully crafted comedy content designed to go viral.

Local brick-and-mortar gyms can take a similar approach, creating and sharing funny memes to attract new followers who you can then convert to members with more promotional and aspirational content.

Instagram and TikTok are gold mines of comedy content inspo, and lo-fi memes can be every bit as effective (and far more cost-effective) at generating engagement as the high-end productions that Gymshark often post.

Using scarcity and exclusivity

Gymshark sort of stumbled upon the value of scarcity by accident. In the brand’s early days it attended a two-day Toronto fitness expo. After selling 90% of its inventory on day one, it realized that interest was even higher on day two, as the lack of stock turned the day one purchases into limited edition ‘exclusives’.

If the products sold out that fast, attendees thought to themselves, they must be good! As a result, Gymshark began to systematically use limited product drops to create buzz.

A gym can do much the same, offering memberships or classes with very limited numbers that instill a feeling of FOMO in customers.

Case study: applying Gymshark’s guerrilla marketing ideas to your gym

So, how exactly might you apply these tactics in your own gym? Let’s take a look at a (hypothetical) case study.

A1 Gym, a boutique fitness studio in LA, executed a guerrilla marketing campaign that increased memberships by 20% over the course of three short months.

The gym partnered with three local micro-influencers: personal trainers and wellness coaches with under 10,000 followers. They were offered free memberships in exchange for weekly TikTok posts and shout-outs on their Instagram stories. Each was given a referral code that allowed the gym to track how much new business each influencer generated.

To build community, A1 hosted a “Summer Shred Challenge” that combined small-group training, weekly progress check-ins and a closing celebration night for participants and their guests. Many of the plus ones joined the gym soon after.

On social media, A1 shared short, funny TikToks parodying gym stereotypes, which went semi-viral in the area and led to a spike in followers, then sign-ups. The gym also introduced a new premium membership tier, limited to 30 spaces. The scarcity created a sense of urgency and helped A1 sell out within two weeks.

Measuring the success of guerrilla marketing

Tracking results is essential for understanding the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, particularly for guerrilla marketing, which can be a little more untested and unpredictable.

The metrics you track will depend on the campaign you run, but a few of the most important include:

• Social media engagement: Monitor likes, comments, shares and saves to gauge audience engagement. Use Instagram Insights or TikTok Analytics to identify the type of content that performs the best.
• Event attendance: Track RSVPs and on-the-day sign-ups to measure the draw of your community events or pop-ups. Collect email addresses that you can use to nurture new leads after the event.
• Website traffic and conversions: Compare new sign-ups and renewals before and after campaigns. Tools like Google Analytics can reveal the specific campaigns driving visitors to your site and converting new members.

Continually review these metrics and refine your campaigns to focus on what delivers the greatest return.

Guerrilla marketing: a proven path to fitness business growth

Guerrilla marketing represents an incredible opportunity for your gym or fitness business. As Ben Francis and Gymshark have shown, when done well it’s an affordable and ultra-effective way to attract new customers.

GymMaster’s holistic gym management software can help you with your guerrilla marketing efforts. Our Marketing and Retention Tools allow you to:

• Accept new sign-ups directly through your website, and help you to identify where they came from.
• Send automated, personalized messages to members and prospects about new partnerships.
• Monitor member visitation and technology use patterns.
• Monitor email open, bounce and unsubscribe rates, and track social media performance.
• Create discounted memberships or concession passes in seconds.

Creative guerrilla marketing plans can put your brand up in lights and help you to attract new members. And by pairing campaigns with the right technology, you can drive serious marketing ROI.

Ready to up your marketing game? Let’s get to it.