‘Oh my word, have you seen how much weight they’ve lost? They look like a different person.’
How many times have you heard that phrase or something similar?
That’s the power of Before and After photos. They get people talking!
Now, imagine if your Health Club was able to deliver reactions like that every day, by showcasing different members and their amazing achievements as often as possible?
The good news is it can be done.
It may take time and effort initially, but it will be worth it.
I’ve made this pretty clear on other blogs, that if Health Clubs want their sales and marketing to be effective, they need to deliver flawless, personalised brand experiences and tell stories.
Featuring a members’ success story, to an audience of people who are hoping to elicit similar transformational changes, can be very inspiring for those who see it.
When it comes to creating brand perceptions, I’m sure all Health Clubs would also like to be thought of ‘as a place to come to achieve life-changing results’.
Agree? If so, the regular unveiling of member success stories is the best type of content your Health Club can offer. It tells a story of what you’re about, and at the same time, it can spark conversation, emotion and a change in your members’ attitudes.
What does that mean for your marketing? If it’s the best type of content you can offer, then it should be prioritised when it comes to discussions around your budgets and the execution of your campaigns.
Right, we’re on board. But how do we do it?
The first step, as I said, is to treat the idea of generating success stories as the most important objective.
If you make your number one goal to produce and showcase as many ‘success stories’ as possible, you must believe that in turn, this will improve your sales later and not question the power and influence of success story-based marketing.
So if that belief is fully instilled, you’re now ready to go!
The first step is to host a huge transformation competition.
This is where as many of your members as possible join together for a set period of time to train towards a body transformational goal, usually involving fat loss or muscle building, or preferably both.
At the start of the competition, each person records their starting body stats (for example, body weight, height, body fat % and any progress pictures etc) and you as a Health Club, help them to track their progress throughout the competition.
At the end of the contest, entrants compare statistics to their starting position. A winner is announced based on the most successful transformation.
There are a number of things to consider before you host one, and I’ll go through these next.
What is the ideal time length to run the competition for?
I believe a 3-month timeframe (12 weeks) offers the optimal time for a transformation competition to run.
If it is any shorter than this, people generally don’t achieve strong enough results to showcase at the end of it which defeats the object of hosting it.
If it’s any longer, from my experiences people give up or in some cases, forget they have ever even entered. Drop out rates are much higher and the competition tends to fizzle out.
To sustain maximum engagement, running the competition over a 3-month period is perfect.
As an operator, it also entitles you to run a competition every quarter so you can add structure to your marketing calendar.
What’s the motivation for your members to take part?
In running these, it’s important to appreciate that members are motivated in different ways. In short, they are either motivated intrinsically or extrinsically.
If they are motivated intrinsically, then they are motivated for the love of feeling fitter, healthier and stronger. These motivations lie within the individual and they exercise for personal satisfaction and accomplishment.
If a member is motivated extrinsically, they are motivated by outside demands, obligations or rewards. The motivation arises from outside of the individual. For example, they may work out because they are competing in an up and coming Bodybuilding Show.
Most of your members are motivated both extrinsically and intrinsically. For example, they may work out to feel healthier, alert and good about themselves on a daily basis, but they also know in three months time when they go on holiday they will be able to flaunt their changes in physique, so the extrinsic pull is ‘the walk down the beach.’
In hosting a competition, the idea is that you appeal to those who are extrinsically motivated and slowly over time, adjust their attitude and behaviours so they become more intrinsically motivated.
To draw as many of the extrinsically motivated members in as possible, you’ll need to decide on an appropriate prize for the worthy winner.
The bigger the overall prize, the better. The more valuable it is, the more people will take part.
If you prioritise this type of marketing within your marketing budget, you’ll be happy to put some serious money behind it.
Of course, just how big the prize is, this depends on the size of the gym you are and your turnover, if you’re a multi-chain gym you can perhaps afford to spend more than an independent operator, as you’ll likely get more participants from across all your facilities.
From my experiences, I’ve found cash prizes and big holidays tend to be the most popular.
How does the entry process work?
The competition should be hosted online through a link so it easy for members to enter, but because you don’t want any episodes of gamesmanship among your members, the entry process ought to be carried out in the gym.
In an absolutely ideal world, you should team up with a body metrics provider like InBody, Boditrax or Styku to host such competitions. This will mean that all data related to body metrics is accurate and time stamped.
If that can’t be done though, although more time consuming, having your Personal Trainers document data using a pair of weighing scales, a tape measure and skinfold callipers will still do the job.
Ultimately, you’ll need to build the functionality on your website, for members to upload their entries. You’ll need to consider whether you want the entries to be public or private and how this might affect participation take up and engagement. Both have their advantages, so I’ll leave that to you.
Just bear in mind, that you may need to outsource the website build for your competition if you want it to be slick, smooth and optimised. With that, you’ll need to factor in those costs.
How will people hear about the competition?
This will come down to how effective your marketing message is.
To create maximum buzz around the competition, you’ll need to initially inform members that the competition is coming soon and the entry date will be from X date to Y date.
You should keep the actual entry date window quite short, no longer than 2 weeks as you don’t want to give any competitors a hugely unfair advantage over others.
I would advise that you start your marketing for this one month before the entry date window opens so everyone is aware it is coming and knows exactly when the entry date window is!
This means in total your campaign lasts 4 months which means you can host 3 of these competitions every year.
The imagery and messaging you use for your competition must be bright, energizing and inspiring. It needs to stand out from all your other marketing while still staying ‘on-brand.’
It needs to highlight the prize yet also make clear that it’s a transformation competition.
Once that imagery and messaging has been created, it’s then just a game of touch-points. It needs to be everywhere members can possibly see it.
Here’s a checklist I’ve created;
Online
-Huge banner on the homepage of your website.
-Countdown on your website for then the entry window will begin
-Side banner on all members pages of your website
-An article on your website about the competition which you can access from clicking the banner.
-A banner on your app with a clickable link to highlight information about the competition.
-A Button on your app which provides more information about the competition.
– A banner on all emails with a bespoke email to all members about the competition
– Extra information about the competition sent to the member upon joining via email, text, push notification.
-A personal Instagram message to your biggest influencers and enthusiastic brand ambassadors.
Offline
-A Front-door archway telling people the competition is coming soon
-Posters in changing rooms highlighting where to go to find out more
-Pop up banners on the gym floor displaying information about the competition
-TV Screens on the gym floor displaying a video about the competition
-Staff wearing T-Shirts saying ‘ASK ME FOR MORE INFO’
-Different uniform for Personal Trainers which is voted for by the PT’s themselves.
-Mirror Vinyls on the gym floor and in changing rooms with a key hashtag
-Feather Flags in your fitness studio prompting Group X instructors to tell class members more information.
-Decorated reception area prompting front desk teams to tell members more information.
– VR Headset pop up stations to watch a video about the competition in 3D
– Video, imagery and hashtags on all Social Media platforms displaying information about the competition.
– Mascots used outside your gyms to promote the competition theme.
– Billboards and bus stop signage outside your gym to spike interest of the local community.
– A4 Posters in local offices to target people who work in the area to take part.
– Pamphlets or A4 posters in perspex frames in your Sales area to prompt Membership Consultants to talk about the competition.
– Banners and information on self-service kiosks so members and prospects can view more information as they please.
If you do all the above, then you should expect to see some success, which brings me on to my next point.
What does success look like in terms of entry take up?
If you’ve never hosted a competition like this before, it’s difficult to set a target as to how many people you expect to take part, without just plucking a figure out of thin air.
Don’t do this! You can be more strategical.
At the start of this post, I posed the question ‘Wouldn’t it be great to showcase different members and their achievements as often as possible?’. You need to decide what ‘as often as possible’ means to you.
I believe that if you can publicly display 2 outstanding success stories per week, then you will be in a better position than most Health Clubs!
So all you need to do is ensure every 4-month competition you hold produces enough compelling transformation stories for the next 4 months. There are 16 weeks in 4 months, so 2 stories a week is 32!
If you, therefore, approach the campaign with the idea you need to secure 32 success stories by the end of it, then you can start to work with some ratios to determine an ‘initial number of entries’ figure.
If just 1 in 30 of your entrants achieves a success story, which is certainly possible if they are engaged in the process, then you’ll need to get 960 initial entrants to register in total.
Now, if you’re a multi-chain operator that boasts over 7,000 members per facility, this should be considerably easy.
If you’re a small independent with only 400 members, then it will be an impossible challenge, so you need to be more honest about how many transformation stories you’d like to showcase on a regular basis. Perhaps, one per month may be a more appropriate figure. This would mean you just need to secure 4 success stories and therefore get approximately 120 members taking part.
Once the competition is underway, what happens next?
You have now entered the ‘engagement phase’ of the competition.
Here the focus should be on keeping as many of the entrants who entered the competition thoroughly involved, immersed and logging their progress.
If you are clever, you should highlight that the winner of the competition is not JUST the person who has the best transformation pictures, but it will be judged on;
- Gym attendance
- Regular updates throughout the contest on social media
- Body metrics
This will encourage the participants to be as active as possible on your social media channels! As a result, your brand will benefit from heightened exposure throughout the 3 month period. Over time, it is this sort of engagement that will help cement your reputation as a ‘results based gym’.
In order to foster maximum engagement, I would also advise you to run weekly prizes throughout the competition. Here, you can team up with sponsors to give away protein, nutrition, clothing, high street goodies, or whatever else will go down well with your target audience.
If people see there is more chance of winning something, even if it may not be the BIG prize, they are more likely to step up their game.
Aside from that, it’s about using clever communication to these people to keep them keen.
Again I’ll create a checklist for you:
-Exclusive personalised emails/SMS/push notifications to participants
-Bespoke class or nutrition workshops just for participants
-Discounts on merchandise and supplements for actively engaged participants
-Separate FB Group, Whatsapp Group or App Group for all participants set up by Fitness team.
-Encouraging the posting of workouts, recipes, and any personal bests in the group.
-Instagram/Snapchat takeovers for members taking part
-Featuring members weekly on Facebook through albums and videos.
-Sponsored FB and IG posts just to those taking part with weekly workout tips.
-Retweeting members daily taking part.
-Reposting members workout progress pics on instagram
-Member appreciation days in-club for those taking part where they choose a class workout.
-Regular conversations with receptionists and Personal Trainers about their progress
-Personal Trainers encouraging participants to log body metrics weekly and track nutrition.
If you do all this, you’ll run a successful campaign. You’ll enhance your chances of more than 1 in 30 members who entered in the first place, being your future success stories.
Once all is done, how do you announce the winner?
From my experiences, the BEST way to announce the winner is to choose 10 shortlisted entrants based on the criteria you’ve outlined and then put it to a public vote!
You can host the vote on your website, or on social media via who gets the most ‘likes’.
As budding finalists aim to turn the competition into a popularity contest, you will see your website visits or your social media engagement rise astronomically. Yet, if at the same time you encourage all your members to vote, you will end up with a fair decision.
By asking all your members to vote for their winner, this cleverly plants the seed in their minds for the next competition and once again enhances your reputation as a ‘results focused’ gym.
Final comments on competition hosting…
If you’ve done as advised and made sure the focus is on achieving 32 transformation stories by the end of the 12 weeks, it’s now over to you to create the new marketing featuring these members and the inspirational messages to go alongside it.
Don’t just restrict your showcasing of success stories to social media, make a big song and dance about each members’ progress within your gyms too, using some of the touchpoints I mentioned earlier.
Take the time to regularly check up on all your members who took part so they continue their progress and don’t relapse after all the hard work. Kindly inform them first about the next competition you plan on hosting.
After that, let everyone catch their breaths back for a week and go again with your next launch.