How Gyms Can Define Their Brand to Stand Apart in a Crowded Marketplace

Could targeting the over-50 demographic unlock unprecedented growth for your fitness business? Listen to Jay Croft of Prime Fit Content as he reveals five essential strategies to make your fitness brand stand out in a crowded market. Drawing from his recent presentation at the Functional Aging Summit, Jay delves into the challenges of feeling invisible in the fitness industry and how understanding your brand essence can be a game-changer. Learn how to clarify your identity and purpose, boldly communicate your message, and utilize multiple channels to engage your audience continuously.

Jay also highlights the immense economic potential of focusing on consumers over 50, who control the majority of consumer spending and household wealth. By tailoring your services to meet the specific needs of this influential demographic, your fitness business can thrive. Discover actionable strategies to educate your audience on relevant health topics, ensuring you not only attract but retain loyal clients for the long haul. Tune in for valuable insights that can transform your approach and help you tap into this lucrative market, setting your fitness business on a path to success.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Do you ever feel invisible, like no one is noticing all the hard work and great value your gym brings to the community?

Speaker 1: 0:10

Well, sure, everybody feels like that sometimes, like their messages aren't connecting with the right people and it might be a problem with your brand. That's the topic of today's episode of Optimal Aging, the show about fitness, health and well-being for people over 50. On each episode, we explore what healthy living means for millions of people in this lucrative yet underserved market, with a focus on communications, content and making powerful connections. I'm your host, jay Croft of Prime Fit Content, and I want to share an amazing opportunity I had recently to discuss these very things. It was just last weekend at the Functional Aging Summit, which was held in conjunction with Idea World at the Los Angeles Convention Center. I was invited to speak about how gyms and fitness studios can define their brand essence and stand out in the local marketplace as the ultimate solution for people over 50. Now, through my business, prime Fit Content, I create and distribute premium content marketing materials to fitness pros who want to grow with the over 50 market. Marketing materials to fitness pros who want to grow with the over-50 market. The content is primarily used in social media, in done-for-you newsletters and in blog posts, and I hope to keep growing my subscriber base. So if you're out there wondering how in the world you're supposed to feed that always-hungry marketing beast, well, check me out at primefitcom, maybe I can help.

Speaker 1: 1:45

Now, today, I want to double dip and share the presentation that I gave at the conference Well, actually just part of it. I'm recording it fresh for better audio quality and also removing some of the back and forth with the audience and things that might not make sense without the visuals, and really just focusing on two aspects of what I discussed. First, I want to share five steps you must take to distinguish your brand and stand out in your community, and then I want to briefly discuss a few new opportunities that technology is making available to you all that you might want to consider or at least be aware of. Okay, here we go. Do you ever feel invisible, like a face in the crowd or a tree that can't be seen for the forest? Now, I don't mean you as an individual, I mean your business. I bet some of you have felt like your prospects just aren't seeing you Like you know they're out there trying to find you, but they're not. There's a disconnect. You have this great business or you're developing one, but you feel like you're just blending in with all the other fitness businesses in town. So how do you stand out? How do you connect with the right prospects and then stay connected with them after they become clients? Well, that's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about defining your brand essence, standing out in the local marketplace as the ultimate solution for people over 50.

Speaker 1: 3:17

Now, before we dive in a couple of basics, you're going to hear me talk about people over 50 and fitness over 50. And I don't want you to put too hard a rule on that. I know some of you are focused on helping people over 40. And the Functional Aging Institute, which is our host here at the Summit they talk about people over 55. It's all fine. I think you know what I mean. We're basically talking about people who are a little older than the 20 and 30-somethings that the fitness industry usually pursues.

Speaker 1: 3:51

The second thing I want to clarify is what am I talking about when I talk about branding? You might think of colors and logos and fonts and all of that, and that's part of it, of course, but for today's conversation, I want to focus on the idea of branding as the process wherein a business identifies itself to the public and shows how it's different from competitors, with the goal of becoming consumers' preferred option. So, yeah, we're talking about colors and logos and advertising and all of that, but we're also talking about identity what makes you and your gym special and how do you communicate that to the public in order to grow your business, nancy, but take some notes while you're listening to this and write that down. What makes you stand out from your competitors? And, further, how could you do it even more, even better? Now, why is all of this so important? Well, because anyone who's at the Functional Aging Summit should already know that this is a tremendous economic opportunity that we're talking about, the biggest in fitness, and one that still most businesses in fitness are ignoring.

Speaker 1: 5:10

I want to share with you just a few statistics from a book published by the Harvard Business Review Press. It's called Stage Not Age, and this book and similar research tell us that people over 50 account for more than half of consumer spending. They have 83% of household wealth. They will double in the next 25 years. We're talking about Generation X, baby boomers and millions more people who were born before the beginning of the baby boom in 1946. Boom in 1946. Today there are more than 54 million people in this country over age 65, with 10,000 more coming every day. Today's newborns will commonly live to 100.

Speaker 1: 6:01

Now I know some of you might be focusing on this demographic because, like me, you're in it. I'm 60 now and I imagine some of you are too. Some of you might just be interested in the process of aging and you want to help people who are going through that, and I'm sure that you all understand that tremendous economic opportunity that we're talking about here. It really is the greatest opportunity in fitness and it's going to stay that way in coming decades. The numbers are just too tremendous. So if you are not already building at least part of your business around people over 50, I'm telling you that you should. And if you are great, you might feel like you're not quite connecting with the audience, and it might be because of your messaging. It might be why you feel invisible, and it's interesting that consumers over 50 say in lots of surveys that they feel invisible. They feel ignored by marketers in all industries, that they feel ignored and marginalized and stereotyped.

Speaker 1: 7:03

So today I want to walk you through what I'm going to do. The first, I'm going to give you the five ways to stand out, and then I want to look ahead just briefly, at some of the possibilities coming up on the horizon. I'm going to ask you a few times to jot down notes, like I did just a minute ago. It's nothing formal, there's not any homework to turn in, you're not going to have to read anything at the end of this, but I do want you to have some notes so that when you go home, you can look back on this and think about it and maybe even talk to your staff about it, because I want you to learn how to stand out with confidence, purpose and a sense of service. And I think a lot of you are moving in the right direction. You're trying, you might even almost be there, but you're a bit over here to one side, and I'm interested in helping you move a little or a lot as much as it's necessary to hit the mark, to really reach the right people and, yes, to make more money.

Speaker 1: 8:04

So the first way to establish your brand is this you must know who you are and what your purpose is. Now, when I gave this as a PowerPoint presentation the other day I had a slide of Google Maps screen grab of my neighborhood here in Atlanta that shows 15 or 20 gyms or studios of some kind within a 10-minute walk of my home, and it's probably not different in your town, whether you're in a big city or in a more rural or suburban area. There are just so many options out there for fitness consumers area. There are just so many options out there for fitness consumers Everything from you know chains like Orange Theory to bodybuilding gyms to yoga studios to general audience family fitness centers, right. So you really have to know who you're in business for so that you can know what makes you stand out. That's the beginning of it. It can't be for everyone. You have to make some choices, and within those choices is freedom.

Speaker 1: 9:05

Now the second step is you have to be clear about that identity and that purpose. You have to be bold about it in all your communications. If, for instance, you're the only studio in your county that's certified and focused on helping people over 50, then you need to say that on your homepage, in your social media, in your email signature line and on your business cards Really everywhere, because you never want someone to wonder who you're for or what you're all about. You want them to find you and go. Yes, you're the one I've been looking for you. And this is how you develop your brand promise making clear that you want their business and that you're fully capable of providing first-class service.

Speaker 1: 9:47

Step number three to stand out is you have to communicate. Then you have to communicate some more. Then you have to keep communicating on and on and on until the end of time, basically, even when you think you've done it enough and that people are going to get tired of hearing from you and you're sending too many emails and you're posting too much on Facebook and all of that. I know the tendency is to think that everyone remembers everything that you sent them already, but believe me, they don't. They're very busy. They're getting bombarded with messages all the time. They're not going to remember what you sent. They might not have even seen everything you sent, right? People get information from a variety of sources. That's why you need to present it on a variety of sources. I always recommend three Facebook, email newsletters and your blog. That way, you're more likely to land with the people who you're trying to reach, and by repeating those messages, you're going to break through all the noise that everybody is inundated with every day, that everybody is inundated with every day. People need to hear messages at least seven times before they start to really absorb the information.

Speaker 1: 11:00

And while a lot of what you're talking about in your brand communications might seem second nature to you, it is not second nature to your audience. Most people over 50, 60, 70 years old probably don't know about sarcopenia, for instance, or that women after menopause need to lift weights to keep their bones strong, or that health and fitness keep them from falling as often, let alone things like how it's helping brain health right. So it's up to us to tell them, to inform and educate them on all of this. It's big news to them, so we have to say it over and over and over again.

Speaker 1: 11:40

Step number four on how to stand out is going easy on the hard sell. I want you to find ways to be of value before you ask for people's money. Now, what do I mean by this? Well, I mean things like participating in your community, bringing value to people to help them improve their lives. You want to present yourself as a trusted source of information, not just another business that wants their money, although you do want their money and there's nothing wrong with that. There's no reason to pretend otherwise. But remember that no sales strategy begins with a direct, hard pitch. So you want to stand out by letting people get to know you and like you and trust you get to know what you can do for them. Sometimes that means giving them stuff.

Speaker 1: 12:30

Finally, the fifth point on how to stand out is you got to deliver. The best way to build a brand and stand out in a positive way is to provide excellent service at every step and to deliver results. If you help people reach their fitness goals while providing value, safety and fun, you're going to have an endless source of organic leads and grassroots referrals. And this all begins even before they come in to see you with the content that you provide to get them interested in your business. They need to see right away and at every step that you want them, because most gyms don't, and that you can help them, because most gyms probably can't or aren't going to put forth much effort, and that you provide excellent value and results. This needs to come in all the content you share. It needs to be displayed in your pricing strategy and how you train your staff, the cleanliness of your facility. All of this and more, and that includes the ongoing communications you send, even after prospects become members, because, as you know, it costs a lot more to get one than it does to keep one right Now.

Speaker 1: 13:41

Next, very quickly, I want to bring up just a few next level topics that represent opportunities for your brand. I'm not suggesting you necessarily do any of these things, but you might want to think about it. And, more importantly, it shows that we need to be paying attention all the time, not necessarily reacting or responding to every new thing that comes along. Right. You don't need to be on TikTok, for instance, I'm telling you, but you need to be paying attention and thinking about changes that you see in the marketplace or in the communications landscape or in your community. The first one is that we're going to have more ways and perhaps more need to specialize further or niche down, because you know over 50 is really too big to be a niche. We're talking about millions and millions of people at every level of fitness, every income level, education level, all kinds of goals that they have for their lives and ways that they can respond to you and other fitness businesses. So just saying somebody over 50 isn't really a niche, and as more and more of them enter into the group and as more of them consider fitness as a way to help them thrive in this stage of life, you might want to consider actually niching down or specializing further.

Speaker 1: 15:02

I'll give you a few examples. Brain health is a hot topic right now that we're learning more and more about the relationship between exercise and protecting us from dementia and other health, so we're going to see opportunities for that as more people come into the fitness realm seeking help with that, not just with the traditional ideas of weightlifting and cardio. Right, many of you know that boxing techniques are helpful for people with Parkinson's and there are a lot of gyms that focus specifically on that. And I recently had a woman on my podcast who trains women over 50 in the gym so that they can then go out together on hiking and kayaking excursions. Right, isn't that great, very exciting stuff. And kayaking excursions right, isn't that great, very exciting stuff.

Speaker 1: 15:51

All these things tie into the next topic that I want to discuss briefly, and that is personalizing everything. You know we can do that with technology that's available to us. We can offer, for instance, personalized onboarding processes where we really make it clear to the new member that we know who they are, where we really make it clear to the new member that we know who they are, that we show that we want them and that we're there for them, specifically as individuals, that we're able to provide for them. Then we can follow up that onboarding process with ongoing communications and client tracking tools like those provided by Nomly, which lets you respond to your members when they don't show up for sessions. It lets you send them messages reminding them of changes in the workout schedule or important milestones or wishing them a happy birthday. These kinds of things.

Speaker 1: 16:41

And loyalty programs, like the airlines and hotels offer and a lot of stores have them where. And hotels offer and a lot of stores have them where you reward a long-term customer with some sort of freebie or discount, right, you know you say hey, john, you've been with me for X number of months or years now, so I want to thank you for your continued support. So next month you get 20% off everything at the smoothie bar, or three free sessions with a personal trainer, or the bottle of wine or whatever. It is Just something to show that appreciation, to deepen that personal relationship. Everybody likes being recognized and appreciated, right? Finally, the last newish way for a lot of gyms to extend their reach into the community is through podcasting. You can do a 10 or 15 minute podcast every week without much effort and tell people what's new at your gym, focus on a member of the week, give a health tip or share an interesting item from the news, whatever it might be, and then the people that you discuss in your podcast will share that with people on social media. It will grow on. It's just another way to get yourself out there and spread your word about your business.

Speaker 1: 18:02

Okay, so that's the abridged version of what I covered Saturday at the Functional Aging Summit. I hope you all get some value out of it. I also hope I get to do this at more conferences as well, because it was a lot of fun and I enjoy meeting people. The Q&A was really robust and I can talk about this stuff all day. I don't just mean talk about it, but I mean listen to other people talk about it as well. I really learned a lot from the people who attended, so I want to thank everybody who showed up for my presentation. I want to thank Dan Ritchie and Cody Seip and everyone at the Functional Aging Institute for having me and hey, if you missed my conversation on a recent episode with Cody about the upcoming Marbles Brain Fitness franchise, be sure to go back and check it out. Next week I'll be back with another interview, this one focusing on a new trend in active retirement living and how exercise and physical activity fits. Interesting stuff, and I hope you'll join me and my special guest. Till then, be well.

Speaker 2: 19:05

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. That's J-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.