Today’s mantra for most people is living a healthier life. Yet, you have not seen a significant increase in the number of the clients at your gym. You have your loyal customers and, every now and then, an influx of newcomers when you run a special promotion. But they don’t stick around for long.
The problem with gyms, as with any other business, is that it is increasingly hard to get exposure in front of the target audience. People are surrounded by promotions everywhere: on their mobile phone, in their inbox, on the streets and on TV. What are the chances that they will pay attention to your ads and decide to give your gym a try? Close to none.
Meet Your Prospects in Their Favourite Cyber Place
What you need to do to get new clients for your gym is show them your promotional messages somewhere familiar, and where they spend a lot of time: on Facebook™. This is the most popular social media platform, looking at its growing number of users. Family members and friends keep in touch on Facebook™. High school and university reunions are planned on Facebook™. Many people find their significant other on Facebook™.
But apart from personal interactions, many users connect with their favourite brands on Facebook™ and look for products and services there. Also, compared to other types of online advertising, Facebook™ ads are very effective because they can be incredibly precisely targeted.
Today we will show you the step by step process of generating new qualified leads for your gym using Facebook™ ads.
1. Start with a Clear Objective
Facebook™ ads can promote various end purposes. These are:
Awareness: with this type of ad you can boost your Facebook™ posts, promote your page, reach people near your business, increase brand awareness or increase your reach;
Consideration: send people to a landing page, increase app installs, increase event attendance, get video views or collect leads for your business:
Conversion: increase conversion rate on your website, increase engagement in your app, get people to claim your offer, promote a product catalogue or get people to visit your shop.
The objective of your ad campaign is closely connected to the position of your gym on the market. For example, if you’ve just opened your gym, you should start with an awareness campaign. You want people to get familiar with your gym name and become interested in it.
2. Select Your Ad Audience
As we said earlier, Facebook™ ads can be extremely detailed in audience targeting. This is because Facebook™ knows a lot of things about its users: if they are married, about to become parents, if they are vegans, if they are trying to embrace a healthier lifestyle, etc.
The first type of targeting you should apply is that based on location. You can estimate how far your prospects are willing to drive to reach your gym, or how easily they can reach you using public transportation.
The next targeting filters depend on your knowledge of your ideal customer. You can target:
Demographics: age, sex, new parents, busy professionals;
Interests: they like other health and fitness Facebook™ pages, they follow celebrities promoting a healthy lifestyle;
Behaviours: they jog, play sports, had another gym subscription in the past.
All these filters will help you weed out Facebook™ users who would not be interested in your ad.
3. Create Your Ad Visuals
Facebook™ ads have a specific format which mimics a regular post. Thus, the visual part (photo, video) takes up most of the ad area. You should consider what would make your prospects click the ad: the image of a toned athlete, with the promise that they may get that kind of body. Or short video made in your gym, showing regular people, without exceptional athletic abilities, happily exercising.
With proper A/B testing, you will be able to identify the exact combination of image and text that perform best.
4. Be Clear About the CTA
The call to action (CTA) button must clearly tell people what you want them to do. They are not mind readers and, even though they may enjoy your video ad or feel enticed by the photo, they will rarely do what you want them to do without prompting.
After all, they are just scrolling through their news feed, and they can get easily distracted and move on if you don’t give them the word to do something – to click on your ad.
5. Consider the Best Bidding Option
Now for the money part – a very important step in making your ad campaign successful. Facebook™ allows you to choose between five types of bidding:
Cost per click (CPC): you pay every time a user clicks on your Facebook™ ad;
Cost per mille (CPM): you pay every time your ad was shown to 1,000 Facebook™ users;
Cost per like (CPL): when your ad objective is “Page likes”, every time a user likes your page via an ad;
Cost per action (CPA): for website conversion objectives, when a Facebook™ user follows through with the CTA (for instance, signs up for your newsletter);
Optimised cost per mille (oCPM): this cost is higher than regular CPM, but your ad is optimised by Facebook™ by showing it to people who are more likely to follow through with your CTA.
As you can see, it all starts with the campaign objective: set it right, according to what you want to get out of your Facebook™ ads and you will get the right results.