How to Boost Attendance & Sales Over the Holiday Period
Traditionally gyms, personal training and wellness studios have quieted down towards the end of the year, but effective marketing and programing shows that this doesn’t have to be the case. Here are 3 top ways to boost sales and attendance in December.
Be strategic with marketing. Recently, we have run campaigns that have more than doubled the sales of clubs and studio’s previous December results. Simply, split the month into 3 sections:
End of Nov/ Dec: Cyber Monday sales campaign.
1st-3rd weeks Dec: Follow up leads well, close out, ask to buy.
26th-31st Dec: Boxing Day Sales. Have a staff member on during the 27-31st, or drive all enquiries to an online only sale, or even both as this works best.
Remember the retailers are spending lots of money in the social media and print space so try and use other methods of marketing along with your normal channels. Christmas markets are a great way to generate leads and cost effective too.
Change your mind set about objections. In December yes, the objections are higher, and the staff can relate to the objections they are getting. It’s not our job to empathize but rather inspire people to move forward with their decisions. Work harder to cover objections, provide real solutions and ask people to get started in December. Most people will have between 26th -31st December off work and this is a sweet spot to boost memberships. If you haven’t managed to close out your leads, and you have had good quality contact with them, your efforts will be rewarded with them joining in January. Always pencil them in for a tour early January, rather than a call back as it will be a greater commitment.
Run attendance challenges. The best way to get people back into the club or studio is to run a challenge of attendance during these months. These campaigns have increased attendance and decreased attrition in many facilities we have worked with. A challenge of 16 sessions over the December to January months will allow people to attend 2 sessions a week for 8 weeks and also have holiday time off as well. On the weeks they are away, they will need to make up the sessions in other weeks. It gets people back into classes or for a workout and works really well in personal training studios too to get the clients out of their busy social and holiday calendar and back into their fitness and wellness sessions. Everyone that attends 16 times during these months will go into the draw to win a major prize. We have used a $500 health voucher donated by the local clinic for acupuncture, massage and chiropractor, a travel voucher or a $500 David Jones voucher. All work well depending on your market and brand. They will need the campaign marketed to them with a halfway reminder text too and weekly emails. No record keeping is necessary, unless you want a visual motivational tool. Simply draw a member’s name at the end and check their attendance and keep drawing until you find a member that has completed the task. You could also put up a board of challenge participants and for those that have completed 16 ticks against their name, they go into the draw at the end of the period.