Hyperlocal marketing for gym owners

H yperlocal marketing is targeting your marketing efforts to a highly specific, geographically restricted area. In other words, targeting people conducting “near me” searches on their mobile device.

Why focus on hyperlocal marketing?

Majority of the people prefer a gym either close to their homes or to their office. Because it becomes really difficult to stay committed if commuting to the gym takes a lot of their time.

As a gym owner, understand that your target audience is always going to be in a vicinity of few kilometers. If you are based in a small town, it would still make sense to look for your potential customers in the entire town.

Ideas for hyperlocal marketing

• List Google My Business
  Nowadays, people constantly rely on search engines like Google and Bing to help them find what they are looking for. To quickly look up fitness studios in the area, one can simply type in "gyms near me". The search algorithm pulls out the businesses listed under "fitness studios" to show as top results. To create a listing, all you need is a Google account. Make sure, to select the correct category and add logo and photos.

• Newspaper flyers
  A simple yet effective way to reach throughout your locality would be to send out flyer advertisement with newspaper. This can be done by contacting the nearest newspaper vendor and paying him to get your flyers delievered with the morning newspaper. While desigining flyers and posters, make sure to keep the logo design, fonts and color scheme consistent with your online and brick & mortat presence. Yet another pro-tip would be to use the regional language for more reach.

• Mobile friendly website
  A simple one-page website with photos of your fitness studio can do enough justice for your online presence. Make sure to include your contact information and a enquiry form to capture any incoming leads. The logo and the color scheme should be consistent and in line with your offline studio.

• Local brunch session
  With more people turning to fitness as a way of life, it wouldn’t be wrong to target an entire society or apartment to get warm leads. Pick a nearby society or an apartment and get in touch with the management. Ask for permission to host a free brunch session. Once decided, set aside a budget to buy food and drinks. If you plan to do this on a regular basis, you can also join hands with a local catering company to provide food and drinks in return of some discount.
  Put up posters in that locality and social media posts informing about the event. On the day of the event, set up iPads with your enquiry form so interested people can quickly drop-in an enquiry. As an addon, you could also advertise a day or a week’s free trial.

• Local workout session
  Some people, being introverts are apprehensive of taking the first move of joining a fitness studio. For them, you can host an outdoor workout session to give them an experience of what they can expect. Get in touch with a nearby sports or convenience store or an apartment. Offer to host an hour’s outdoor workout. You can also partner with a nearby food outlet to offer the participants a discount on their purchase after the workout. This is another great way of generating warm leads for your fitness studio.

If done consistently and correctly, hyperlocal marketing can bring a steady flow of monthly leads and at a comparatively lower cost than online ads.