Author: Kathryn Dressler

By now, we’ve all seen the extent to which COVID-19 has disrupted the fitness industry—from the physical location where people work out to the heightened expectations consumers have regarding how gyms should operate and what health and safety protocols should be in effect. 

Fitness business owners should understand that gym members’ expectations have changed dramatically since the pandemic hit. And with more fitness options than ever before—in-person workouts, online classes, and hybrid options—you need to determine your gym’s competitive advantage, and really hone in and highlight that in your marketing materials to attract new gym members, keep current members engaged, and improve member retention rates.

5 Ways to Increase Member Retention Rates in 2022

Getting new members to join your gym is only half the battle. Once new members join—how do you keep members engaged and member retention rates high?

Below are five easy strategies to give your gym retention rates a boost.

1.   Communicate health and safety protocols

With the Omicron BA.2 Subvariant sweeping across, health and safety protocols are once again top-of-mind for most gym members. Customers now expect gyms to have health and safety standards in place to minimise the transmission of COVID-19—and they want to know what specific steps you’re taking to help keep them safe and comfortable when visiting your gym.

Consider creating a one-sheeter that outlines what steps your gym or health club is implementing and post it throughout your facility, ideally in highly trafficked and visible locations—for example, at the front desk, near the water fountains, on the bathroom doors, etc. You can also easily copy and paste the information from the one sheeter into a newsletter template, and send out an email blast to your database

2.   Focus on the member experience

In today’s increasingly digital world, delivering a positive member experience is more important than ever. Providing an exceptional member experience not only helps you attract new gym members—it gives your facility a competitive edge, and improves customer satisfaction and retention rates.

It’s important to remember that the member experience extends beyond just signing up members—it needs to be emulated across multiple platforms and touchpoints. Additionally, you need to understand how your members think, and what they want.

3.   The hybrid model

The hybrid gym model has become the new norm in the fitness industry. With a hybrid gym model, your digital offerings are meant to complement your brick-and-mortar operations. A hybrid gym offers the best of both worlds. It includes a combination of in-person and online workout options. For example, your gym may offer in-person exercise classes that are also live streamed or available on-demand for members who want to continue with home workouts.

Because the pandemic continues to create new challenges and restrictions on society, a hybrid fitness model puts gym owners in a more secure position to navigate the current climate, as well as future obstacles that may arise.

4.   Small Group Training

As a gym or health club owner, you’re constantly thinking about ways to keep members engaged and improve member retention rates—especially considering 50% of members quit the gym within the first six months. One solution is to provide consistent motivation.

Small group training classes are a great way for gym members to meet, interact and socialise with each other. It also helps them bond with each other, and creates a sense of belonging at your gym. When you have a community of members that are excited to come to your facility and interact with one another, it creates a better overall member experience for everyone. 

5.   Utilise gym management software

If you’re a gym owner, you already know how much time and energy it takes just to manage the day-to-day operations. From scheduling staff and fitness classes to overseeing equipment maintenance and inspections, the number of moving parts at any given time can be overwhelming.

Gym management software continues to grow in popularity given its ability to increase efficiency and productivity, improve communication, save time and money, and enhance the member experience. On top of that, the low upfront cost structure of a cloud-based software solution makes it a financially attractive option for fitness businesses of all sizes.

Conclusion

The fitness industry is still treading uncharted waters, and the pandemic will continue to impact the ways consumers engage with gyms and health clubs. During these uncertain times, maintaining ongoing communication is fundamental to attracting new gym members, as well as keeping member engagement and retention rates high.

To learn how EZFacility’s comprehensive software solution can help you create custom membership plans and effectively manage gym member relationships, schedule a free online demo or personalised product tour today.

If your background is in sports and athletic coaching, you may find yourself struggling to understand “the whole marketing thing”—let alone, which strategies and tactics you can use to effectively promote your youth football program, increase registrations and enrollments, and build stronger relationships with your team, players’ parents and the community-at-large.

But that’s why we’re here to help!

Read on to learn why building a strong, seamless online experience is more important now than ever, and three things you’ll want to keep in mind when developing a digital strategy for your youth football program. 

The Impact of COVID-19 on Youth Football

The COVID-19 pandemic completely disrupted youth football participation when local governments began imposing business closures, stay-at-home orders and social distancing policies. On top of that, online usage and mobile rates skyrocketed as more people flocked to their phones than ever before.

And now that many children and families are ready to re-engage with youth sports, it’s important to understand how the landscape has changed so you can figure out how to assist and improve future registrations and participation.

Three Ways to Build Your Youth Football Leagues Online Presence

Here’s a rundown of three things to keep in mind as you build your online presence:

1.     Keep your website up-to-date

It’s not enough to just have a website—you need to make sure your website stays up-to-date, and that it’s mobile responsive. When players’ parents are looking for youth sports programs in their area, their first stop is likely an online search engine or social media platform. To appear in searches, make sure your club is updated regularly with recent and relevant content.

Make sure you create noticeable links or buttons on your site so that players’ parents can find them easily and be able to follow them. This will also help minimise the amount of time your staff has to track down various practice schedules, tournament dates, and so forth.

2.     Use your social media accounts

Social media is an easy and free way to help parents looking for local activities to enrich their kids’ weekends and summers. Having a strong social media and online presence for your youth soccer program is important as it can extend your reach and spread information quickly.

Another easy way to build up interest in your youth football program is to regularly post photos of players, their parents, and any related events you may have. People, especially youth football players and their parents, love seeing themselves being featured in Facebook posts.

3.     Keep in touch with the community

Stay in touch with both past and present players and their parents. Use your email database to easily send reminders on the new programs, check up on the ones who have missed registrations, and let them know why they should not miss the next.

Offering incentives, referrals, or discounts for early registrations or referring new players is another effective way to give your registration numbers a boost.

The complete solution for your youth football league

Your youth football league’s path to success involves everything from facility scheduling to online registration and more.

Here are three ways our comprehensive software solution can help:

1. Registration: Provide clients the flexibility to register as a team or as individuals. Utilise online waivers and simplify fee collection with the use of registration deposits and a variety of processing options.
2. Scheduling: Generate schedules for your leagues and tournaments reflecting team preferences, venue availability, bye-weeks and tournament seeds using our automated scheduler.
3. Public Website: Provide clients real-time access to view standings, stay up to date on current league leaders, check scores and even browse through classified ads from teams looking for players.

Want to learn more? Schedule a free demo and personalised product tour today.

When you manage a sports league, the most important job during the offseason is promoting your league and securing players. The nature of your sports league will dictate your target audience and potential customers—so the first step is to figure out who they are, what they want, and what forms of marketing they’re most likely to respond to and engage with.

Once you have a solid understanding of your target audience—which, for the purposes of this blog, we’re assuming you do—you’ll be able to effectively utilise the strategies outlined below to guide your marketing efforts, as well as the tone, language and structure of your communications.

Read on to learn five quick and easy ways to increase your sports league’s online registration numbers.

1.     Organic Social Media Efforts

Consumers are more dependent on digital content than they’ve ever been in the past. In fact, one recent global study found that engagement on social media has increased 61% over regular usage rates since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two of the hottest and most rapidly growing social media platforms you should consider using to generate more online registrations are TikTok and Instagram.

TikTok

TikTok has overtaken Google as the world’s most visited online destination, and boasts a staggering 105% user growth rate over the past two years. TikTok is a free, short-form video and social media app, and is available for download on both Apple and Android devices. The major difference between TikTok and other social media platforms like YouTub, is that TikTok is based on small, short video clips.

When utilised as a part of your larger social media marketing strategy, TikTok can be a great way to promote your sports league by creating fun video content, tapping into a niche community, and engaging with a younger demographic (if applicable to your league).

Instagram

Instagram now has over 1 billion users worldwide, and the social media giant has been shown to have a strong impact on consumer opinions. With the right approach, you can utilise your Instagram page to increase your number of followers, build meaningful connections with your audience, increase your sports league’s online registrations, and gain unfiltered feedback that you can use to evaluate the success of your league management.

2.     Paid Ads on Social Media

As of January 2022, there are 3.96 billion total social media users across all platforms. With the average consumer now spending an unprecedented amount of time online, utilising targeted advertising is one of the most effective ways to reach your target audience. And, fortunately, there are a number of tools at your disposal that make it easier than ever, regardless of which social media platforms you choose.

3.     SMS Marketing / Text Message Marketing

Text message marketing has come a long way since the early 2000s. Today, it’s one of the most highly effective, and cost effective, marketing methods available.

With roughly 97% of people owning some type of mobile phone—and approximately 85% of mobile phone users having smart phones—everyone’s more connected, and constantly connected, than ever before. On top of that, the average text message conversion rate is 30%.

It makes sense, then, to utilise SMS marketing to promote your sports league’s online registration page. It’s also a great way to touch base with your contact base, keep them informed of any important changes or updates, and to continue building the relationship in a nonintrusive way. Keep your texts short, friendly, and informative, and be sure to let subscribers know where to find your online registration.

4.     Email Marketing

With time and resources limited, it’s understandable that you’ll want to make sure your marketing budget is being allocated wisely and effectively. You may be wondering if email marketing is really worth it, considering all the other marketing options available to businesses nowadays.

The answer is yes—and here’s why: Beyond being able to use scheduling software to create and distribute tailored email marketing campaigns to encourage more online registrations, email marketing has also been shown to be an extremely valuable tool in building upon existing relationships with customers, in addition to reaching new potential customers. 

Keep your emails short and sweet. The copy should be upbeat, visually appealing, easy to skim, and clear in nature. This applies to the subject line as well. And don’t forget to include a clear call-to-action button with a link to your sports league’s online registration page.

5.     Sports League Management Software

EZFacility’s sports league management software gives you a complete set of features bundled into one intuitive, responsive platform. Our cloud-based, comprehensive SaaS service simplifies the scheduling and management of fields, courts, leagues, tournaments, teams, coaches, memberships, and more.

Conclusion

All successful businesses—including sports leagues—are built on strong relationships. The stronger the relationship, the deeper the level of customer loyalty and repeat business.

Since successful league management is reliant upon community involvement and engagement, it’s absolutely fundamental that you clearly define—and understand—your target audience so that you can create a solid marketing plan around their needs and preferences to build long-lasting relationships. 

To learn more about EZFacility’s comprehensive sports league management, contact us today to schedule a free no-commitment demo and personalised product tour. 

According to Deloitte’s 2022 Sports Industry Outlook, the role and duty of sports in society will continue to receive increased attention, with a focus on sustainability and mental health. The study findings also predict the sports industry will continue to see an influx of money from new sources, shifting power dynamics in college sports, more widespread use of emerging technologies, and a greater focus on broader societal issues in 2022.

So even if your indoor football facility business is currently booming, it’s good business practice to always be planning for the future and to pay close attention to emerging industry trends to ensure long term success and profitability.

Read on to learn three examples of sports marketing efforts that can help build your brand, attract potential clients, boost sales, and increase your online presence and digital ranking.

Social Media Marketing

Utilising social media platforms is the fastest, cheapest and easiest way to reach your target market, drive traffic to your website, increase conversions, boost sales, and establish your brand identity and credibility.

Audiences are more dependent on digital content than they’ve ever been in the past. In fact, one recent global study found that engagement on social media has increased 61% over regular usage rates since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But it’s no longer enough for brands to just create content—to succeed in today’s digital landscape, sports marketers need to understand which social media platforms are best suited for their brand, how to create engaging content tailored to their target market, and how to deliver that content to ensure it’s actually seen by the right people.

While there’s no magic formula to dictate which social media platforms you should use or how often you should post, consistency is key. For this reason, it’s a good idea to start by focusing on one or two social media platforms at a time instead of trying to master them all. 

It’s also important to remember that social media platforms are always evolving to meet the needs of their users, so you’ll want to review your social media marketing plan throughout the year to make sure it’s updated to reflect the current industry landscape and emerging trends.

Two of the hottest and most rapidly growing social media platforms you should consider using to promote your indoor soccer facility business are TikTok and Instagram.

TikTok

If you haven’t heard by now—TikTok is a pretty big deal. So much so, that TikTok has overtaken Google as the world’s most visited online destination. TikTok is a free, short-form video and social media app, and is available for download on both Apple and Android devices. The major difference between TikTok and other social media platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, is that TikTok is based on small, short video clips.

The impact that TikTok has on consumers’ attitudes and purchase decisions is irrefutable. In fact, the social media giant’s influence is so widely acknowledged that the phrase “TikTok made me buy it” has over 4.1 billion views of the hashtag on the app.

When utilised as a part of your larger social media marketing strategy, TikTok is a highly effective way to promote your indoor soccer facility business by creating fun video content, building a niche community, and tapping into a younger demographic. 

(Read more: Why Fitness Businesses Should Be Leveraging TikTok)

Instagram

Instagram now has over 1 billion users worldwide, and 80% of Instagram users say they use the platform for help when deciding to buy a product or service. Instagram’s strong impact on consumers’ buying journey has created tremendous new growth opportunities in the digital sports marketing space.

Now more than ever, social media users want to build bonds with brands, and they’re more likely to base their buying decisions on a company’s purpose and mission. Instagram is a great way to promote a higher level of transparency, and features like Live Videos and Instagram Stories provide you with unique ways to offer behind-the-scenes looks and interesting insights into your indoor soccer facility business.

With the right approach, you can effectively utilise your Instagram page to increase your number of followers, build meaningful connections with users, and gain unfiltered consumer feedback that you can use to grow your indoor soccer facility business.

(Read more: 5 Ways to Maximize Reach on Instagram)

Text Message Marketing

Text message marketing—also referred to as SMS marketing—is when businesses send text messages to promote their products and services to consumers, provide important updates, and to maintain ongoing communication with their target market.

While text message marketing campaigns can sometimes be more expensive than email marketing campaigns—they’re typically less expensive than many paid ad options, especially on popular social media platforms. And because SMS messaging campaigns offer such a high ROI, they’re considered cost-effective. 

Text message marketing and email marketing work similarly—but data shows that SMS marketing campaigns consistently outperform its modern-day counterpart, despite its simple and straightforward nature. Text messaging has six times the engagement as email rate of email, and 96% of marketers using text messages said it helped them drive revenue.

If that’s not enough to convince you—more than 69% of consumers would be extremely likely or likely to connect with a brand to receive SMS customer service, and 58% of consumers believe text messages are the most effective way for brands to communicate.

(Read more: What is SMS Marketing and What Are the Benefits?)

Sports Club Management Software

Sports club management software can help manage all aspects of your facility—from coach and lesson scheduling to player invoicing and payments. It simplifies and streamlines the management, marketing, and scheduling of leagues, trainers, memberships, tournaments, and more—all of which helps increase revenue by saving time, reducing error, and creating a more seamless customer experience.

EZFacility’s comprehensive suite of marketing tools allows you to customise and send advanced email marketing campaigns and automated text messages to develop new customer relationships or nurture leads throughout the buying process. With automated email and text message functionality–you can also ensure clients receive the right information at the most opportune time.

Want to learn more? Schedule a free online demonstration and personalised product tour today.

You may also be interested in:

Football Facility Business Trends

Key Considerations Before Building a New Sports Facility

How to Increase Revenue at Your Indoor Football Facility

Construction of sports and recreation facilities was largely stalled in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, creating the immediate need for business owners to quickly identify new and diversified revenues streams as they navigated forced business closures, stay-at-home orders, social distancing requirements, and the global shift to digitization.

The pandemic was catastrophic for many businesses and industries, but especially those that relied almost entirely on in-person sales, operations and participation—for example, sports and recreation facilities, football leagues and sports complexes.

The Accelerated Rise of the Digital Economy

With the entire world looking to technology to bridge the gaps left in the wake of the pandemic, we—as a global society—have become entrenched in a time of unparalleled investment and reliance upon emerging technologies.

The global shift to digitization, rapid and ongoing technological advancements and improvements, and paradigm shifts in the way people engage with sports—and each other—have ushered in an exciting new era for football leagues, sports complexes, and other sports and recreation-related business.

Three Football Facility Trends to Watch in 2022

Below, we’ve outlined three of 2022’s top football trends that are predicted to impact everything from sports complex design to football player and attendee experiences.  

1.   Multifunctional Facilities & Versatile Spaces

While many sports complexes were traditionally designed to serve a distinct purpose—for example, the investor needed an indoor football facility or an outdoor football stadium—we’re now seeing a massive shift to versatility in space usage and advancements in technology to create dynamic, multifunctional spaces that allow for seamless transitions between activities. 

Sport-specific complexes are great in the right context, but they’re rarely able to be used appropriately for recreation centers. And because you’ll want to host as many football events, sports games, training camps, and other sports-related events/activities as possible, you’ll need a venue that’s versatile and able to adapt to changing needs to ensure long-term growth and viability by diversifying your revenue streams.

For example, at Tottenham Stadium—home of the English Premiere League’s Tottenham Hotspur—the stadium’s pitch can be adjusted based on the sport that’s being played. The stadium typically hosts football events which require a natural grass pitch—but the venue also hosts two NFL games per season, in which artificial turf is used.

2.   Interactive Kiosks

Placing kiosks—small booths or structures—throughout common spaces of your sports facility is a simple concept that’s been around for a long time. And they’ve been around a long time because they’ve proven their worth.

Traditionally, kiosks were mostly used as information booths and required staff to operate them. But now, thanks to advancements in technology, digital kiosks offer more dynamic, interactive and user-friendly content—as well as advertising and sponsorship opportunities—and they don’t require staff to operate.

For example, AT&T Stadium—home of the Dallas Cowboys—offers interactive kiosks to help fans connect with their favorite football players. Guests can take photos of themselves at the venue’s selfie stations, and then simply press a few buttons to add their favorite players into the picture with them.

Photo kiosks usually prompt fans to input their email address so they can have their photo emailed to them, right then. Then fans are able to upload and share the photo across their social media channels—which, in turn, enables data capture while also boosting your venue’s digital presence, social media engagement, and online ranking.

3.   Robotic Concessions

Concession stands are a must-have for football facilities because there will always be a demand for food and beverage options between the football players and other athletes, attendees, and staff. It just makes good business sense.

And, fortunately for venue owners—they’re also typically a huge money maker. But let’s not forget that concession stands do come at a cost to sports complex owners—one of biggest costs being the staff required to operate them. As technology continues to improve and advance rapidly, it’s only a matter of time before robotic concessions start popping up in sports facilities of all sizes, all over the world. 

For example, a robotic arm named Flippy was introduced at Dodger Stadium during the 2018 World Series to help manage increased demand for concessions. In 2019, Flippy became a mainstay in Los Angeles as the Chicago-based concession company is working on their technology to increase efficiency and reduce costs inside stadiums.

Flippy has since been spotted working hard at CaliBurger in downtown Pasadena, and White Castle recently announced plans to gradually roll out 100 new Flippy 2s over the next few years.

Conclusion

One big takeaway from the pandemic is that businesses need to prioritise working smarter—and the way to do that is by utilizing technology. We’re not yet clear of COVID, and businesses all over the United States are still facing labor and supply shortages.

As a football facility or sports complex owner, the best thing you can do to prepare the future during periods of uncertainty is to start saving money now by utilizing technology to streamline operations, reduce costly errors and inefficiencies, and limit risk.

To learn how EZFacility’s sports facility management software simplifies the scheduling and management of fields, courts, leagues, tournaments, teams, coaches, memberships, and more—schedule a free online demonstration and personalised product tour today.

You may also be interested in:

Key Considerations Before Building a New Sports Facility

How to Increase Revenue at Your Indoor Football Facility

Marketing Ideas for an Indoor Football Facility Business

Over the past two years, flexibility has become essential for businesses to survive all the changes and uncertainty brought on by the coronavirus.

Ensuring your indoor football facility can consistently generate a sufficient source of revenue is critical to long term success and profitability. In today’s business landscape, that means getting creative and adapting to changing needs.

If you’re wondering how to achieve this, here are four ways sports facilities can diversify revenue streams to increase profitability and growth potential.  

Multifunctional Sports Facilities

While many sports facilities were traditionally designed to serve a distinct purpose, we’re now seeing a massive shift to versatility in space usage to create dynamic, multifunctional spaces that allow for seamless transitions between activities.

One great example of this is Tottenham Stadium. Home of the English Premiere League’s Tottenham Hotspur, Tottenham Stadium’s pitch can be adjusted based on the sport that’s being played. The stadium typically hosts football events which require a natural grass pitch—but the venue also hosts two NFL games per season, in which artificial turf is used.

In order to host as many football events, training camps, group lessons and other sports-related activities as possible, you’ll want a sports facilities venue that’s versatile and able to adapt to changing needs in order to position your indoor football facility for long term growth by diversifying your sources of revenue.

Sponsorships

Sponsorships can bring in big money for your indoor football facility—but it’s important to be selective about accepting sponsorships. Because you will have to display sponsors’ marketing collateral throughout your facility, it’s important to be selective and only accept support from brands or organizations that reflect your company’s values.

Advertising

Advertising is one of the most effective ways to increase revenue for your indoor football facility. It’s a no-brainer to take advantage of idle space by selling advertising opportunities in the most popular areas of your facility where they’ll have the greatest visibility and ROI.

Examples include:

•  Entrance gate
• Concession stands
• Restrooms
• Scoreboards
• Perimeter Fences
• Seating

Sports Facilities Management Software

Sports facilities management software continues to grow in popularity given its ability to increase efficiency and productivity, reduce the risk of human error, save time and money, and enhance the customer experience. On top of that, the low upfront cost structure of a cloud-based software solution makes it a financially attractive option for football clubs and sports facilities of all sizes.

Benefits of choosing EZFacility

EZFacility makes it possible to manage your football club or indoor football facility, from any device with our fully responsive and easy-to-navigate user interface. Save time with simple, clean workflows and processes designed to anticipate your business needs. We’re securely hosted on Amazon Web Services and boast a 99.99% uptime.

Additional benefits include:

• Sports Facility Scheduling: Simplify your sports facilities management using our color-coded calendar to view resource availability, create reservations, and assign instructors, officials, and coaches.
• Check-in & Memberships: Scan in members, create detailed client profiles, automatically collect dues, verify player identities and registration status with branded player cards.
• Point of Sale: Speed up purchases, gain control over your non-recurring revenue, and allow members to make payments throughout your club by simply scanning their ID card.
• Online Registration: Allow players to register online for leagues, tournaments, camps and clinics. Provide online access to forms, waivers, and payment history.
• Coach & Lesson Scheduling: Manage all aspects of league and tournament scheduling and provide real-time team schedules, registration, stats, and standings on your website.
• Billing & Payments: Consolidate all revenue streams into one system to track the sale of packages, memberships, and point of sale items.

Want to learn more? Schedule a free online demonstration and personalised product tour today!

You may also be interested in:

Key Considerations Before Building a New Sports Facility

Marketing Ideas for an Indoor Football Facility Business

Football Facility Business Trends

Sports club management has never been easier, thanks to the rise of sports facility and league management software.  Sports club management software helps facility owners manage all aspects of their sports facility—from coach and lesson scheduling to player invoicing and payments.

By streamlining the scheduling and management of your baseball facility, you’ll save time and money, improve member management, kickstart new growth opportunities, and more.

Benefits of Sports Club Management Software

Sports club management software makes it easy to manage your entire baseball or batting cage facility with a complete set of features bundled into one intuitive, accessible, secure, and responsive platform.

Improve Communication & Collaboration

Communication barriers can lead to misinformation, misunderstandings and errors, all of which end up costing valuable time and money. Sports club management tools make communication and collaboration between staff members easy by providing a centralised platform for real-time collaboration, brainstorming and problem solving.

Having one central hub where your team can quickly access and communicate about vital information in real-time helps them collaborate faster and more effectively, reduces the risk of miscommunication, improves team performance, and increases operational efficiency.

Save Time & Money

Being able to accurately track and assess the actual amount of time, staff, equipment, and resources required to cover everyday operations is absolutely vital to long-term success. 

When all of your customer and league information is organised in a central database, your staff can easily access all the information necessary to keep track of rentals, financial records, status of participants’ forms, rosters, and contact information.

Benefits of Choosing EZFacility

EZFacility’s comprehensive software solution makes it easy to manage your entire business with a complete set of features bundled into one intuitive, accessible, secure, and responsive platform.

Here are just a few ways we can help you grow your baseball facility:

Accessible anytime, anywhere—and always secure!

Manage your facility anywhere from any device with our fully responsive easy-to-navigate user interface. Save time with simple, clean workflows and processes designed to anticipate the needs of your staff. We’re securely hosted on Amazon Web Services and boast a 99.99% uptime.

Streamline Scheduling

Maximise coach productivity, save time and increase your cash flow. Define availability, quickly update schedules, create single or recurring sessions, and send clients automated emails and text reminders.

You can also generate schedules for your leagues and tournaments based on team preferences, venue availability, and tournament seeds using our automated scheduler.

Streamline Billing

Choosing a sports club management software that includes integrated payment processing is a huge plus. Simplify your billing process with customised payment schedules, automated invoicing and expiring credit card reminders. Accept online payments and track package, membership and equipment sales.

League Management

Enroll, maintain, track and retain players. Quickly access detailed player profiles, create packages, track attendance, alert members to schedule changes, and target new revenue opportunities.

With EZFacility, clients have real-time access to view standings, stay up to date on current league leaders, check scores and even browse through classified ads from teams looking for players.

Automate Billing Invoicing & Payments

Simplify your billing process with customised payment schedules, automated invoicing and expiring credit card reminders. Accept online payments and track package, membership and equipment sales.

Conclusion

There are countless advantages to sports club management software–and ours can be customised to meet your specific business needs!

Want to learn more? Schedule a free online demonstration and personalised product tour today.

If you haven’t already done so, now is the time to start planning your fitness company’s 2022 marketing calendar.

Creating a marketing calendar template and keeping it up-to-date is essential for generating revenue and meeting your gym’s financial goals in the year to come. It also helps to ensure that all of your marketing efforts are strategic, and that your marketing campaigns directly contribute to your facility’s goals and objectives.

And, by mapping out your marketing plan in a calendar, you create a centralised hub that helps your marketing team plan and navigate marketing campaigns more cohesively, efficiently and effectively.

In this blog, we’ll talk about the basics of a fitness marketing calendar—what it is, and why you need one—as well as tips on how to create a 2022 marketing calendar for your fitness business.

What Is a Fitness Marketing Calendar?

Think of your gym’s 2022 marketing calendar as a visual roadmap for all your marketing activities for the year. It should serve as a chronological guide to executing your marketing campaigns, and it’s an actionable tool that helps you achieve marketing goals within a set timeframe.

Why Do I Need a Fitness Marketing Calendar?

You may be familiar with the saying “proper planning prevents poor performance”—and this couldn’t be truer of fitness marketing. Some of the most common reasons that fitness marketing efforts fail are due to lack of strategy, lack of understanding about your target audience, lack of testing, and/or lack of tailoring and retargeting marketing strategies.

When it comes to fitness marketing, planning ahead is often the difference between a good year and a rough one. And although a marketing calendar doesn’t guarantee success, it does establish the framework your marketing team needs to create, coordinate and execute tailored marketing campaigns.

Three Key Benefits of a Fitness Marketing Calendar

Below three other important reasons you should get to work on your gym’s 2022 marketing calendar ASAP:

1.   It improves communication and collaboration.

A fitness marketing calendar helps improve communication and collaboration among team members by clearly indicating who is responsible for accomplishing each task, and when it’s due. It also helps to identify any gaps in process or progress, allowing team members to tweak and tailor schedules if needed.

2.   It helps your marketing team stay on track.

A marketing calendar helps team members avoid missing deadlines by providing upfront planning and foresight. It also helps your marketing team see how tasks progress on a step by step basis, which then helps them adjust accordingly to maintain realistic expectations.

3.   It saves time and money.

When it comes to business, time equals money. And because a fitness marketing calendar outlines tasks and team member responsibilities upfront and in an easily digestible way, it helps reduce confusion and saves time (=money) that would have otherwise been spent trying to align your team and keeping everyone on the same page.

How to Create Your 2022 Marketing Calendar

If you’re ready to start working on your 2022 marketing calendar, follow these three simple steps:

Step 1: Plan

The first step is to define your goals and objectives. The more specific you are, the better results you’ll get—so it’s important to be very clear about what you hope to achieve.

While the ultimate goal of most fitness businesses is to generate more revenue—this can mean different things to different business owners.

Here are a few examples of objectives you may hope to achieve through your marketing efforts:

• Generate 100 new membership leads this week
• Sell 100 personal training services this month
• Attract 350 new email subscribers this quarter

Step 2: Brainstorm

After you’ve defined your marketing objectives, you need to determine how you’re going to achieve them. You’ll also want to include fundamentals like launch dates for new services, courses, programs, or classes.

To help decide which marketing campaigns and tactics are the best fit for your fitness facility, give yourself a set timeframe to brainstorm and jot down as many ideas as you can. Once you’ve written all your ideas down, go back through your list and determine which ideas are best suited for your various marketing channels and platforms.

After you’ve created your list of marketing ideas and determined your communication channels and launch dates, it’s time to input all that information into your marketing calendar template.

Step 3: Schedule

Now that you’re equipped with a list of topic ideas, it’s time to organise, categorise, and schedule them in your marketing content calendar.

Your marketing calendar template can be structured a number of different ways, and it can be as simple or complex as you’d like. For example, some fitness businesses use basic spreadsheets to create their marketing calendar templates, while others utilise more innovative technology like gym management software.

Regardless of which format you choose, start by inputting any important topics/dates that aren’t flexible, like product launch deadlines or major industry events. Then, plug in some additional content ideas in the weeks leading up to the special date or event to build up the hype and excitement. Finally, add in your content ideas that aren’t tied to a specific date, and organize them by theme or category.

Conclusion

In today’s digital age, the effectiveness of your fitness marketing calendar can be maximised by measuring the results of each marketing campaign once it’s completed.

By analysing historical data and performance metrics, you’ll be able to see which marketing campaigns were the most successful, whether or not they helped achieve your facility’s goals, and how quickly those goals were met.

This critical insight allows fitness business owners and team members to learn from past efforts in order to improve future performance, and to identify and avoid future potential pitfalls.

Did you know that EZFacility’s comprehensive report suite offers an in-depth look under the hood of your business–including financial, point-of-sale, marketing, payroll, membership and training reports?

Want to learn more? Schedule a free online demonstration and personalised product tour today.

If you haven’t heard by now—TikTok is a pretty big deal. In fact, a recent report from Cloudflare announced that TikTok has overtaken Google as the world’s most visited online destination. Read that again. Yes, it’s really that popular.

So, if you’ve been wondering whether or not you should be using TikTok to promote your fitness business, read on to learn more about how TikTok works, what makes it so undeniably popular, and how a TikTok marketing plan can be used to grow your fitness business, keep your fitness brand engaging and relevant, and improve your bottomline.  

TikTok: A Brief History & Overview

The TikTok app was launched in 2017 for iOS and Android in most major global markets—and today, the social media platform boasts one billion active users across the world. Comparatively, it took Facebook and Instagram almost a decade to reach a user base that size.

While TikTok’s initial user base was almost entirely Gen Zs (born between 1997 and 2012), the app’s popularity surged worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic and has since captured the attention of users of all ages.  

TikTok’s user base is still dominated by Gen Zs, but it’s been attracting a strong following of millennials, too.

TikTok’s tremendous growth, which was achieved within just a few short years, make the app one of the fastest-growing ever in terms of the percentage of the market it’s captured since its launch. And with the fitness industry’s transition to digital in the wake of the pandemic, a record-number of consumers are now turning to social media platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook as their primary sources of online fitness content.

How Does TikTok Work?

TikTok is a free, short-form video and social media app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, and is available for download on both Apple and Android devices. The major difference between TikTok and other social media platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, is that TikTok is based on small, short video clips.

Up until recently, TikTok videos were limited to 60 seconds in length; however, the app recently expanded video length up to 3 minutes long.

How to Create Longer TikTok Videos: A Step-By-Step Guide

If you’re wondering how to create longer TikTok videos to promote your fitness business, just follow this simple step-by-step guide:

1. Open the TikTok app
   
2. Click the plus (+) icon, and select the 3-minutes option. Then press the “Record” button to start creating your 3-minute video.
   
3. Once you’re done recording, if you want to upload the video, simply click the “Upload” button.
   
4. After recording and uploading your TikTok video, you have the option to add effects, transitions, and other edits as needed. Then, click “Save” to save the changes.
   
5. Enter a description for the video, and be sure to include a few relevant hashtags.
   
6. Once you’ve modified the output settings and completely finished with your video, click “Post” to share it.

If you encounter any issues recording or uploading your TikTok videos, make sure your app is updated to the latest version.

How Can I Use TikTok to Promote My Fitness Brand?

The impact that TikTok has on consumers’ attitudes about fitness brands, and the influence it has over their purchase decisions, is undeniable. In fact, the social media giant’s influence is so widely acknowledged that the phrase “TikTok made me buy it” has over 4.1 billion views of the hashtag on the app.

When utilised as a part of your larger social media marketing strategy, TikTok is a highly effective way to promote your fitness brand by creating fun video content, building a niche community, and tapping into a younger demographic. 

Here are three TikTok marketing strategies you can utilise to grow your fitness business:

1. Hashtag Challenge

One popular way to use TikTok marketing to promote your fitness business is by launching a hashtag challenge—meaning, you encourage other TikTok users to create, or re-create, fitness content that has your hashtag branded to it.

A hashtag challenge also boosts user interaction and drives engagement in the app, and it gives marketers a look into who’s interacting with their fitness content. By understanding who’s responding to and engaging with your fitness brand’s TikTok videos, you’ll be able to tweak your TikTok marketing strategies as needed to more effectively reach your target audience.

2. Collaborate With TikTok Influencers

Another marketing strategy fitness professionals are using to grow their TikTok user base and build brand credibility is to partner with TikTok influencers. While TikTok influencers may not have the same reach as influencers on other social media platforms (for example, Instagram) just yet, they’re quickly becoming a “thing” given the app’s surge in worldwide popularity.

Partnering with TikTok influencers that your target audience already knows and trusts is a great way to grow your TikTok user base, increase credibility, and drive sales.

3. Advertise on TikTok

While advertising on TikTok is a relatively new paid marketing option, TikTok ads can still help you reach a ton of users given the social media platform’s precise targeting capabilities.

Here are the four main types of advertising on TikTok:

• Native Content: This type of ad is created to look and feel like a natural piece of the platform, and is found inside a TikTok user’s feed. It’s similar to Snapchat and Instagram story ads, and supports multiple features like app downloads and website clicks.
  
• Brand Takeovers: A brand takeover is when other brands can take over a TikTok account for a day. Created for mass awareness, this type of ad guarantees extremely high reach and performance rates because it occupies the entire screen, is fully clickable, and the first thing a TikTok user will see when they log into the app.
  
• Hashtag Promotion: A hashtag promotion gives you the ability to pay to promote a branded hashtag, which can help your fitness content go viral on TikTok.
  
• Branded Lenses: TikTok’s branded lenses are similar to the AR offered by Snapchat and Instagram, and act like filters for faces and photos.

Conclusion

TikTok continues to surge in popularity, with a growing number of fitness professionals turning to the social media platform to promote their fitness business, increase brand awareness, expand their reach, and drive sales. TikTok is still new enough that it isn’t overly saturated with competing businesses, and it provides a huge opportunity for organic growth.

If you decide to start using TikTok to promote your fitness business—remember to have fun with it, and get creative!

For more fitness marketing tips and industry insight, click here to check out our other blogs.