7 Marketing Tips for Fitness Boot Camps + Free Flyer Templates
If you’re reading this blog post, it’s for two reasons. Either you own a fitness bootcamp and are looking for marketing and advertising tips for your boot camp or you need some free boot camp flyer PDF templates. If you need the flyer templates, they’re at the bottom of this article. If you need some marketing and advertising suggestions for your boot camp, read on my friend, read on!
Fitness bootcamps are all the rage these days. They were popular years ago as well, but with the new HIIT businesses popping up like mushrooms, the fitness bootcamp has been getting a lot more attention. Since you don’t need to have a facility to hold a bootcamp, the cost of starting one can be significantly lower than that of a regular gym.
We here at FitnessTexter have been helping bootcamp owners increase their membership for over 3 years now. We’ve talked with many bootcamp owners; both successful and unsuccessful. They shared what worked for their business and what didn’t and we’ve compiled a list of a few of them below. Enjoy!
1. Create a Solid Bootcamp Business Plan Before Starting
First thing first, let’s look at your business plan. Do you have a business plan don’t you? If you don’t have a business plan for your bootcamp, that’s the first thing that you need to get figured out. Bootcamps can be a great way to make money, if you know what you’re doing. It’s not as easy as just getting a group of people together and having them do pushups and sit-ups. First and foremost, people want to know that you’re a worthwhile trainer. What credentials do you have? Anyone can teach a bootcamp, so they want to know that the person they’re paying is worth the money.
Take a look at the our bootcamp business plan. It’s a great way to plan all the different aspects of your business before you get started. Are you doing to use digital marketing or old-fashioned flyers? Will you have a social media budget? How will you acquire clients? These are all important issues that you need to consider before starting the business. Then, you need to think about financials. Take a couple hours and spend some time writing the business plan. It’s not going to be easy, but having a good business plan pays dividends in the long run.
2. Get a Grasp of Bootcamp Financials Before Investing
Bootcamps are a great business model, because they usually don’t much equipment. If you’re doing a bodyweight bootcamp, you’ll only need an empty warehouse with some ropes, boxes, and maybe tires. Easy to come by and a small investment. If you’re going to incorporate lifting into your bootcamp, then you need to buy weights, grips, poles, stoppers, etc. The list goes on.
To get a good grasp on your financial outlook, take a peek at the bootcamp financial excel spreadsheet. You can input numbers and see where your money is going and how long it will take you to earn your money back. It takes money to make money, remember. You should also think about the amount of liquid capital you’ll need to get up and running. Figure you’ll spend 5K – 10K on the setup process. After that, you’ll be spending money every single month until you start turning a profit. Be prepared to lose a lot of money before your start making it back.
3. Hold Weekly Classes Outdoors to Get Eye Traffic
CrossFits have been doing this for a long time and bootcamps need to start paying attention. Outdoor classes are a great way to get people interested in your facility. Find your cities most popular park and hold a saturday morning bootcamp workout there. You’ll get many curious onlookers who will wonder what’s happening and how they can sign up. Plus, who doesn’t like to workout outside?!? Your members will be happy to get some fresh air instead of working out in the warehouse, and you’ll be there leading the class and handing out business cards to curious onlookers. Win win situation. Make sure to run this idea by your city officials before you start having class outside in city parks. You don’t want to run into any issues where you should have acquired a permit before starting. Do the ground work to make sure you’re legal and then get your ass outside.
4. Create Fitness Partnerships with Local Yoga Studios
Bootcamp and yoga go hand in hand. Most yogis are fans of bootcamp because it’s a less weight-intensive form of working out, and most bootcamp people wouldn’t mind becoming a little more limber and stretchy. That said, it’s probably a good idea for you to reach out to local yoga studios and see if they’d be willing to parter with your bootcamp. Your members will get discounted yoga classes and the yoga students will get discounted bootcamp rates. It’s a win-win situation. Your current members will be happy because they’ll now have access to cheap yoga, and the yoga members will help increase your bootcamp revenue numbers. You’ll need to figure out with the studio owner what kind of discount that you want to give each others members. Make sure it’s something worthwhile that keeps both of your members happy. Happy members increase word-of-mouth marketing.
5. Always Carry Boot Camp Business Cards with You
As we said in the outdoor class section, always carry business cards. You never know when someone is going to ask you about your bootcamp, and if you don’t have a bootcamp business card on you, you’re going to have to hope that the person remembers your business name, website address, etc. Make it a point to always keep 5 business cards in your wallet or purse. You might be at the local grocery store and get into a conversation about your bootcamp with someone in line. It’s as easy as giving them a card and asking them to stop by sometime. If you put your FitnessTexter promotion on your card, you might even get some people signing up for your deal. Looking at the example to the left, you can see how easy it is to incorporate your FitnessTexter code into marketing materials. Adding it to your business cards is just as simple.
6. Encourage Members to Bring a Friend with Them
The old faithful refer a friend. Everyone should be using it, but so few are. Tell are your current members that they can bring a friend with them once per week. This will be a great way to whet the whistle of prospective clients. That one time per week might be just the trick to getting a friend to become a membership-paying customer. Plus, your current members will like being able to invite a friend with them. They get to show off their newly acquired fitness level, and their friends get to see just how intense your bootcamp is. Your bootcamp is intense, right? Don’t worry about losing money by allowing your members to bring a friend for free once a week. If a friend wants to come two weeks in a row, they’ll eventually be convinced into signing up (no one wants to be the mooch). Plus, having a full bootcamp is much more enjoyable than having an empty one.
7. Cater to Local College Students & Young Adults
Are you actively pursing the college student market? If not, you’re missing out on a goldmine! College students are usually living on their parents’ dime. That means they have ample money to spend on fitness classes. Offer a substantial discount and get some FitnessTexter flyers up around your nearest college campus. You’ll be surprised. College weight rooms are filled with leering guys and sweaty machines. Not exactly the most welcoming of workout locations. If you’re holding a fun outdoor bootcamp that gets people breaking a sweat, you’ll see a noticeable increase in the amount of college students at your bootcamp. The easiest way to get into the college marketing is to start putting up signs around campus. Every campus has tons of places to put signs for free. Put up your FitnessTexter flyers and you’ll start generating more college bootcamp members in no times.
