How Many Emails to Send? Which Social Media to Use? My Functional Aging Content Webinar

This week's episode is the recording of a webinar I did with Dr. Dan Ritchie of the Functional Aging Institute. Dan was kind enough to let me present on seven "Do This/Not That" communications examples for gym owners who want to grow their businesses with more people over 50.

There were quite a bit of questions after my presentation. I'm going to share the Q& A next week, but for now, I just want to give you this presentation.

I also want to put in a plug for the Functional Aging Summit this July in Los Angeles, where Dan and Cody have invited me to present. If you have any interest in Learning how to grow your business around this demographic, you can't do anything better than go to LA for a couple of days and meet with the FAI folks at the summit. You'll learn a lot, meet great people, and get to visit sunny Southern California. Can' t go wrong!

Online Resources
Functional Aging Summit

Prime Fit Content – Engage the over-50 market

Transcript

Jay Croft: 0:00

Hey everybody, it's Jay Croft here. Welcome to the Optimal Aging Podcast. This week's episode is different. Rather than having just me talk with a guest, it's me being a guest with Dr Dan Ritchie of the Functional Aging Institute. Dan was kind enough to invite me to do a webinar with the Functional Aging Institute membership, to do a webinar with the Functional Aging Institute membership, and so we did that this week. Actually, we tried it last week and the weather here in Atlanta was so terrible that my power went out. So it didn't work and we had to try it again today and I'm happy to say that the power was maintained.

Jay Croft: 0:41

So this webinar is a bit of an introduction to content marketing for fitness businesses that want to reach people over 50. And I use the format of coming up with seven do's and don'ts in your social media content marketing, your email newsletters, your blog posts, that kind of thing. There were quite a bit of questions after my presentation. I'm going to share the Q&A next week, but for now I just want to give you this presentation If it doesn't make sense. If I'm referring to something that you can't see, it's because it was a PowerPoint and I was showing slides along with it. It was a PowerPoint and I was showing slides along with it, but I hope you get the gist out of it. I hope you enjoy it.

Jay Croft: 1:30

And I also want to tell you that Dan Ritchie, when he introduces me, he talks about the Functional Aging Summit and that's coming up this summer in Los Angeles. If you have any interest in learning how to grow your business around this demographic learning how to grow your business around this demographic you can't do anything better than go to LA for a couple of days and meet with the Functional Aging Institute membership and attend the seminar, learn a lot, meet a lot of great people and they'll change your business. It certainly changed mine, and I'm happy to speak with Dan and the FAI membership at any time. I will be there in Los Angeles. I hope you will be too. Go to the functionsummitcom website for more information on that. I'm going to turn it over to Dan on the webinar now and come back next time for the Q&A, okay?

Dan Ritchie: 2:20

thanks, welcome everyone. It's Dr Dan Ritchie, president of the Functional Aging Institute, and I am here with Jay Croft. As you can see from PrimeFit content, one of the reasons I'm having Jay on is to shamelessly plug our Functional Aging Summit, which is coming up July 12th and 13th. And here's Jay Croft. He will be speaking in one of our breakout sessions on defining your brand essence, standing out in the local marketplace as the ultimate solution. Lots of other usual speakers are back Dan Metcalf from 60Up is back, mike Studer with Kaiser and Dr Emily Splickle with Noboso. So if you haven't purchased your ticket to the Functional Aging Summit it's July 12th and 13th Jay and I will both be there. You get to hang out with two really cool dudes and have a good time. Idea World is also happening July 11th through 14th and you get access to what has always been the largest fitness expo in the world. That's included with your ticket, so that's kind of a bonus this year. If you've never heard Jay speak, you're really in for a treat.

Dan Ritchie: 3:28

Met Jay in 2000 in Orlando at a functional aging summit, which is why I got a plug. You got to show up at these things. You never know who you're going to meet and build relationships with Jay reached out. He's like, should I come to this event? Because I'm not really a fitness trainer, I'm a writer for CNN and a freelance journalist. And I said, well, what's your interest? And he said, well, I think I really want to do some writing for the fitness industry, and especially on people my age in their 50s and beyond.

Dan Ritchie: 3:58

And I noticed the Functional Aging Summit and I said, well, just come, I think it'll be a good event for you. You'll meet a lot of people. And I wound up launching a whole new business for Jay called Prime Fit Content, where he creates done-for-you social media posts, done-for-you emails, blog posts. He helps basically become your professional writer behind the scenes, helping you put out better content. And that all came about because he took a chance and came to the Functional Aging Summit in June of 18, and I'm so glad you did, jay. So I'm going to turn it over to you, jay, for your do's and don'ts slides, and then we will come back for live Q&A, really as long as everybody wants to hang out and ask good questions. So, jay, please take it away.

Jay Croft: 4:39

Okay, thanks, dan. Hey everybody, thanks for coming and I'm really thankful to Dan for having me today and for giving me the second opportunity. We tried to do this last week and, literally as we were starting, the storm outside, my house did one of those thunderclaps or something and the power went out. It was out for an hour and so I tried to do it on my phone connecting that way and it just didn't work. So thank you everyone for your patience and for your support and for coming back. And, as Dan said, come to the summit. It's awesome, it's changed my life, it gave me this business and it's why I'm here today. And so, if you're thinking about it, just come on out. It's downtown LA, it's an easy flight from just about anywhere and the weather will probably be good, so you can't go wrong with that, right, okay? So I just want to go over very briefly here what we're going to discuss a little bit, just this little bit much about who I am, so that you don't, so that you're wondering why am I listening to this person? Very briefly, what we mean when we talk about content and how powerful it is in helping you grow your business, and then the meat of this presentation is going to be seven do's and don'ts that I came up with for your social media, followed by a brief discussion of just a few hot things that are happening right now that might be interesting to talk about, and then we'll have some Q&A.

Jay Croft: 6:02

Okay, so this is me and I am a lifelong writer and communicator. I was in newspapers for about 20 years until the internet came along and more or less killed newspapers, and then I stumbled into corporate communications. I worked for some giant corporations here in Atlanta in their marketing and internal communications departments, and then I met Dan Ritchie and everything changed departments. And then I met Dan Ritchie and everything changed. And so I do prime fit content, which where I promote or produce and sell marketing content that you all can use to reach people who are over 50 to convince them to commit to your business. I'm not a trainer, I'm 60. I'm a lifelong gym goer and I have a podcast called the Optimal Aging Podcast, which is related to, but not exactly the same thing as, prime Bit content. And so the thing about me being 60 is I got into this in my early 50s, after I turned 50, and realized that the fitness industry just wasn't catering to me at all, wasn't really interested in me, and it didn't make sense to me because I finally had some money and I knew what I was doing at the gym and knew what I wanted and was willing to spend money on it. And yet all the marketing was toward kids. And so I started looking into it, found the Functional Aging Institute and realized that a lot of gyms out there are either missing an opportunity by not pursuing the slightly older market, or they might want to pursue the market, but they don't know how to communicate to them. And so that's how I came up with the idea for for Prime Fit content, and when we talk about content, we mean things like articles and photographs and infographics and recipes and videos, everything from YouTube to a podcast. It can be as sophisticated and elaborate as you want. It can even be print. I'm an old guy. I still enjoy seeing something in print and holding on to it, and a lot of people in our demographic do as well.

Jay Croft: 8:10

I believe that all of you are in business. You are a brand, and it is now, in the current media landscape, the way things are. Now it's up to all of us, as individual brands, to promote ourselves, to tell our stories. People find information now by going on to the internet and by looking at social media and by searching. It's on you to tell your story through content, and content is different from advertising. Content is more about providing value and establishing a relationship with a key audience, a specific audience. My specific audience is gym owners who want to reach people who are 50 and older. Your specific audience might be people who are 50 and older and want to get in shape or need to get in shape or are curious about it or what have you. So the content that I write tries to help you reach that audience in your community. It's helpful. It's useful, it's engaging. Sometimes it's just entertaining. It doesn't have to be all about selling all the time or a two-for-one discount or anything like that. You just want to grow your business by letting your audience get to know you and like you and trust you through these channels that we talk about social media, email newsletters and your blog, and I'm going to try to wrap this up so we can get to the good stuff. Content in your marketing helps build brand awareness, draws traffic to your website, which can help you grow your email list, because you're going to have a good lead magnet on that website, because I know Dan has told you to do that. You want to grow that email list because you own your email list and content helps you increase sales retention and referrals. So think about that. You're getting new people into your sales pipeline, you're nurturing those people into becoming members and you're keeping those members around longer all for a fraction of the cost of advertising, and all of this helps you tell your own story.

Jay Croft: 10:14

For this presentation today, I thought it would be fun to come up with seven categories of do this, don't do that, and so we're going to talk about those things here today. The first do this, not that is do tell stories that focus on the people in your audience. Don't spend a lot of time talking about yourself and your multitude of certifications and how you have a passion for helping people and all of that. All that might have a place somewhere at the bottom of your bio page on your website, but it should not be the focus of your website or of your content. Instead, the content needs to be focusing on things that are going to be of interest to people you're trying to help, and you can get that by putting up stuff of your own member of the month, somebody's birthday, a potluck that you might have photos of that, and that you're going to do that with stuff that I send you or that you get from other sources that show the bigger picture. And these stories here are examples of some of the human interest type things that I like to promote that, I think, help your audience connect with you emotionally, going up to soap operas on the radio in the 40s and all the way up to Instagram now.

Jay Croft: 11:41

Good storytelling involves the sharing of facts and information and emotional connection, and so one of the ways we do this is by using real people, and the couple here on the left that's Betty and her husband, bob. Betty is kind of the star for me. She's one of the first people I encountered when I started this. I met Betty through Rob, who was the gentleman in the middle with his dog, and Rob is a trainer here in Atlanta. He's in his fifties and he focuses mostly on older people at his gym here in Metro Atlanta and he's been working with Betty two or three times a week for years and years and they really opened the world up to me in a lot of ways. Rob is in his fifties and he's a trainer and he's physically super fit and he's got this really lovely relationship with his long-term client, betty, and they have really helped each other and changed each other's lives and she's just an inspiration. So these are the kinds of things that I'm talking about. The woman standing here in red square is Kay. She's a client of one of my clients and she is a traveler. Her motivation for staying fit is so that she can travel, which is a very common motivation. Staying fit is so that she can travel, which is a very common motivation.

Jay Croft: 12:59

Number two, on the do this, don't do, that scale is do send emails, use, nurture your email list, build your email list and use it, as I know Dan tells you all the time, because it's not enough to rely on Facebook or any other third party, because you know Facebook could go away tomorrow, facebook could get bought by someone else. Facebook could change, does change its algorithm all the time. Facebook does not have your best interests at heart. So if you build your audience entirely on one of these channels like Facebook, you could lose it. You don't own it, you don't control it. All your people on Facebook could quit Facebook. They could just get tired of being on social media and leave, or Twitter got bought by a very controversial figure that a lot of people don't want to be associated with. That could happen to any of these social media platforms. So, again, as Dan tells you, you really need to be building your email list and you really need to use it. I recommend twice a week. Other people will tell you do it more than that. Again, email is one of those three main channels email, social media and your blog.

Jay Croft: 14:11

A lot of gym owners, like you, tell me that they're afraid to send emails because they don't want to be annoying, because they don't want to spam people. And so a couple thoughts on that. Number one when someone gets on your email list, they're asking you to engage with them. That's the agreement that you make with someone when you exchange emails. Is you want to communicate? So they've already said please send me information, and if they want to stop, they can click the unsubscribe button at the bottom. So that's on them this chicken recipe here. Or an inspirational meme with a famous quote and a movie star stories that are going to be relevant to their lives, things like this that when they see your name pop up in their email list, they're not going to think, oh, there's that spammer. They're going to think, oh, I like that person, she always sends me good stuff. What did she send me today?

Jay Croft: 15:13

Number three, regarding social media, a lot of people ask me if they have to be on all the social media channels, and the answer is absolutely not. I believe you do have to be on one of them. Pick one. You know, I generally advise Facebook, especially since now Facebook is very easily connected to Instagram. But if you're only going to be on one, probably be on Facebook, because that's where our demographic is mostly. Now, if you tell me that your community of over 50 fitness enthusiasts loves TikTok, then by all means be on TikTok. You're the expert on your community. I'm not, so go for it, but generally just be on Facebook. Post on it almost every day during the week, maybe on the weekend, and you want to post things that are a mix of specific things about your business, like you have a new class next week starting on Tuesday. We got a new trainer. You have a. You're putting together a team for the charity softball tournament. What have you? Things like that, and then this stuff that you get from sources like me, which are the broader picture of fitness over 50. So post something just about every day and, you know, don't worry about all the other channels. Okay, number four.

Jay Croft: 16:32

The first word in social media is social. So be social, get to know people. Communicate with others on social media when you're not asking for a favor, you know. I think we often have the tendency to reach out to people when we need something from them. Like if you want the newspaper to come and cover something at your gym, you might send an email to a reporter and say, hey, we're having an open house next weekend and I wish you would come and write about it. Well, the time to get to know that reporter is before you need them, right? And it's the same with other people, not just people in the media in your community, but community leaders and prospects of yours and members. It's okay to follow people on social media and if you see that they had a birthday, to wish them a happy birthday, or if you see that their kid had a graduation, to offer congratulations, just something. So you have that social back and forth, you're not just asking people for something all the time. And then the other thing is I'm a Southerner, my parents were Southerners and I don't know if other people in the country are serious about this, as Southern people are or were, but you don't talk about politics or religion or what's the other one money, sex, whatever these topics that you know it's impolite to discuss. And I often see gym owners on social media talking about the current president or the last president, or this cable news network or that cable news network, or what somebody thinks of the COVID vaccine or the other COVID vaccine or whatever, or the other COVID vaccine or whatever all these irrelevant issues.

Jay Croft: 18:22

When you're representing your business, you need to avoid all of that, because all you're going to do is turn off half your audience. You want people to come to you and become your customers and become part of your fitness community, and it's just too easy nowadays to turn people off really quickly. The other main reason for that is you will lose control of the conversation, and we've all done this. We've all been with some cousin at Thanksgiving and you harmlessly make a comment and before you know it, it's way out there in left field. That does not do you any good. So the simple way to avoid that is just to avoid that. Do this, not that.

Jay Croft: 19:01

Number five this comes down to the images and the words that you use in your content marketing, on your website, in your email newsletters, on your social media. You want to be sure that you're using photographs that show what kind of people you want to help. You need to show people who will stop them. As they're scrolling through Facebook or as they're looking for gyms to join on the Internet, they'll see something that makes them think, oh, that's me Like. This woman here is clearly in her fifties or sixties and she's out being athletic, right, so you might use that and that's going to be a signal to other people in that age group that that you're interested in them, in the same way that a photo of a young boy or a young man with his shirt off and six pack abs posing in front of a mirror tells other young men like that that you want them to come. Do you see what I'm saying? It's a way of showing who you're there to serve. And then, similarly, please be careful with the words.

Jay Croft: 20:03

I was at a gym not long ago doing a little consulting in person and one of the employees started telling me something and another employee said oh, who was that? And this person's this 25 year old gym employee said oh, you know, it was when those two cute little old ladies came in and I raised my eyebrows and I said, excuse me, what did you just say? And she said, oh, these two cute little old ladies. They were probably about 50. And you know, I very politely said well, you know, let's not say cute or little, or old or ladies, those are loaded words and 50 might not be that old. How old do you think I am? She kind of said I don't know 40. And I said no, I'm 60. You know, you're talking about people who want to come in and spend money with you and get to know you and you're dismissing them as cute little old ladies. That's not going to do it. So be careful that you're not condescending to people in our demographic. It's really easy to do.

Jay Croft: 21:02

I'll tell you an example from my own life my stepfather. He died a few years ago but he was literally a rocket scientist at NASA and by the time I knew him he was I don't know, in his 60s or so. He had white hair and wireframe glasses and he looked like the man in the cartoon Up and he was adorable. My stepfather was adorable. He was also brilliant. They don't let adorable people become NASA rocket scientists unless they're also brilliant, of course. And he was also kind of cranky, so he didn't like it when a waitress would touch him on the arm and say, oh, hello honey, aren't you, cute, number six, do update your blog every week. Out you, cute number six, do update your blog every week. I want to the photo here, um, underneath the text, where it says gaining planxpiration and want longevity. That's a screen grab I took from rose's website.

Jay Croft: 21:59

Rose is a client of mine, a friend of mine. Uh, I don't know if she's still in the mastermind at functional aging, but she has been, and so she updates her blog every week. You can see there April 10th and April 22nd, and these happen to be things that I sent her. They don't have to be, but one of the things that I send every week is designed specifically for a blog post. It shows your potential audience what you're interested in and what your values are. This shows people that Rosa's business is interested in older people and that she's interested in helping them live longer, healthier lives. That's really powerful and you do that.

Jay Croft: 22:39

One of the ways you do that is through really good blog material, and don't forget to have a lead magnet on your website. If you're not familiar with lead magnets, we can discuss it in Q&A. But basically, a lead magnet is something that you offer on your website, on social media, in your email newsletters, everywhere you can, that says hey, I'll send you this thing of value, whatever it is, in exchange for your email address, and then I'm going to put you on my email list and you're going to get stuff from me, but in exchange for that you get this valuable thing. And lead magnet can be very simple. It can be like three dessert recipes. It can be 10 things to remember next time you come to the gym. Just a sheet of paper with some text typed on it. Or it can be something really elaborate, like Nomly, which is a company I know that puts out this checklist of ways to find clients without using Facebook ads, and that's pretty elaborate. That's a pretty substantial document. Yours can be, yours doesn't have to be, but you should have something on your website all the time that's doing that work for you. The last do this, don't do that.

Jay Croft: 23:53

Number seven be consistent in your communications. You tell your fitness clients all the time that consistency is the number one thing for them. I'm guessing you tell them that. And it's the same with communications and it's the same with communications. So you want to be out there regularly, often, frequently. You want to have a steady point of view, a steady voice, a steady approach. You don't want to have different styles and clashing messages coming at you all the time. You want to have some consistent messaging and some clarity about who you are and what you can do for people and stay on top of it. Bake it into your business, just like you bake into your business your suppliers and the guy who brings your laundry detergent. So you can do towels at your gym or the plumbing company and have one call for when the plumbing backs up or whatever. Bake communications and content marketing into your business, just like everything else. It's that important, otherwise you won't do it, it'll fall by the wayside and then it's just another missed opportunity to engage your audience. So that's the seven do this and don't do that.

Jay Croft: 25:01

And I want to just share here before we get to questions. And I want to just share here, before we get to questions, a few hot things right now. One is brain health. That is the idea that more and more research is coming out all the time that tells us that exercise can improve our brain health and even create new brain cells and neuropathways. So that's really fascinating. It's going to be of great interest to everyone, because we're all concerned about our brain health as we age. Another is hybrid training the idea that after the pandemic, you might still want to offer some sort of virtual training in some mix that you decide, but something just so people have that option, particularly if you're dealing with a lot of snowbirds. Shelly, who's a subscriber, who is in Canada a lot of her people go south for the winter and now through virtual training, she can still train them and she can still charge them during winter. So that's a really important thing. Older people are now concerned about their holistic health after the pandemic and how fitness can play a role in that. So be aware of these topics as well. Wagovi and Ozempic really interesting stuff going on with that. I had a podcast not long ago and I wrote an article for WebMD recently about Lifetime and Equinox are now making these drugs available in their clubs. These drugs are changing the game for a lot of people, so stay up on that.

Jay Croft: 26:27

And then, of course, artificial intelligence. Everybody wants to know if you can just have artificial intelligence to write your content, and the short answer is no, you can't. You can use it for a few things. You can use it to make your life easier in certain ways, but it can't just automatically do all your content, at least not yet, thank God, or I'd be in big trouble. Okay, so that is pretty much everything from me. I want you to reach out to me if you have any questions or concerns or what have you. You can see my information there. Please call me or email me anytime, .

Dan Ritchie: 27:01

Thanks again for your time, jay, and thanks for everyone being on live with us.

Jay Croft: 27:05

Thank you, dan. My pleasure and thanks for everyone and love to hear from you, so be in touch.

Dan Ritchie: 27:11

All right, see y'all, bye-bye.

Jay Croft: 27:12

Thank you for listening to Optimal Aging. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you'll subscribe, tell a friend and write a review. All of that helps me grow my audience. You can learn more about me and my content business at primefitcontentcom. You can send me an email at jay at primefitcontentcom. That's jay J-A-Y at primefitcontentcom. I'm also on Facebook, linkedin and Instagram so you can find me anywhere you like and be in touch. And again, thanks for listening. Join me next time.