When is the last time you put on an event at your box, offered a seminar, or just wanted to increase your membership but just weren’t sure the best way to promote it?
Promotional campaigns are marketing strategies with a specific goal to be achieved over a defined time period. Promotional campaigns feature limited offers to encourage people to act immediately.
Most boxes are looking to increase membership. A promotional strategy is an excellent way to increase membership at your box by offering an incentive for people to act immediately. The right offer can get a person who has been thinking of trying programs at a box to finally act, and give it a try.
A promotional campaign with the goal of increasing new members would look something like this:
Goal: Get 20 new members in 8 weeks
Offer: To encourage people to sign up, we will offer a box starter kit to every new person that signs up. In addition we will offer a free T-shirt and personal training session to everyone that signs up for the free intro class.
After developing a compelling offer to achieve your goal, it’s time to create a strategy to get the offer in front of the interested audience. Pay per click strategies are ideal for promotional campaigns.
Pay per click, PPC, is an ad system where you bid on keywords.
Your ads show up when a person searches using the terms you bid on. You only pay every time a person clicks on your ad. Ads are delivered based on the keywords, when a person enters a term you’ve purchased they see your ad. The success of a pay per click campaign is judged on how many people act, called a conversion. You’re paying every time a person clicks on your ad, you want something in return.
This focus on action is what makes PPC ideal for promotional campaigns. The whole purpose of running a promotion is to achieve the campaign goal. The ads, landing pages and messaging should all compel users to take action.
The first step in getting people to act is getting your promotion in front of an interested audience. Pay per click ads are a great way to get targeted traffic to promotional pages. Once a PPC campaign is set-up, your ads run instantly which means your promotion gets traffic instantly.
Successful promotions encourage action with urgency, so there has to be a “limited” offer. This is why promotional campaigns usually run for a specific, short period of time. Generally, 6-8 weeks. You can stop a PPC campaign at anytime, making PPC ideal for promotional campaigns.
Implementing a promotional campaign can increase interest in your box. Promotional strategies are ideal for gyms that feel that they have reached a plateau. They are also useful for new gyms who want to create a buzz. Established gyms can benefit from promotional campaigns to promote events and seminars.
Post by: Elle Wheeler
Elle Wheeler was born in Salt Lake City, UT. By the time she graduated from high school she had lived in 4 different states and attended 8 different schools. In 2007, Elle graduated from the University of Utah with a BS in mass communication with an emphasis on journalism. Since graduating from the University of Utah in 2007, Elle has focused her career on digital marketing. She has worked with a variety of clients including large corporate clients like Franklin Covey and OC Tanner and small businesses.
She is passionate about using online tools to effectively market client products and services. She is passionate about the environment and photography. Elle is an avid runner and enjoys being in the outdoors.