In most areas of the country, school is cranking up like Lance Armstrong on an uphill climb. What does that mean for us as gym owners?
In the circuit training fitness industry we see a ‘pop’ in sales twice per year: New Years Day and Back To School. The former is obviously a result of those New Year Resolutions, while the Back To School sales bump is due to the fact that mom now has time to actually do something for herself!
If you’re not taking advantage of Back To School as a promotional vehicle, then you’re missing the best opportunity of the fall!
While there are many, many ways to market to local schools the bottom line is that you need to do something. There are three distinct ‘school targets’ you want to hit with your advertising and marketing efforts, and each target requires a different approach:
1) Parents
2) Teachers & Administrators
3) Students (if they are old enough to join the gym)
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At this time you should have already placed your back-to-school ads and marketing packages for the schools. You should be planning to hit the schools HARD this year. Here are some ideas:
1) Invite the PTA to participate in a fund-raiser, which brings you more members. The fund-raiser can be virtually anything! Perhaps they can sell items in your gym, or maybe you can donate a percentage of revenues to the local PTA for a specified period of time – in return they need to advertise for you in their school newsletter.
2) Most PTA groups send home a monthly newsletter with all students, and ads in these publications are usually quite inexpensive. Get an ad in the PTA newsletter.
3) How about sponsorship of the school sports team or placing ads in the sports programs? If you have a local college or university, now is also the time to be placing an ad in their student newspaper.
4) Get a few brochures into the teacher’s lounge, or ask the school receptionist to put brochures and/or coupons directly into the mailboxes!
5) For the moms, be sure to capitalize on the fact that their kids are now back in school and they finally have the time to do something for themselves!
The opportunity to capture back to school sales is one we cannot (or should not) ignore. So what are you waiting for?!?! Get a list of local schools, which you can find on-line or in the local phone book. Send out some letters, make some phone calls, and get going!
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