A Fitness Sales System Blog Post by Bedros Keuilian
Why do over 99% of all new businesses fail within the first 3 years? It certainly isn’t because the business idea wasn’t fantastic; it almost always is directly related to the number of clients purchasing the product or service. Marketing is critical to a business’s success! For this very fundamental reason, when building your business, you need to develop a solid fitness sales system to work from.
Fitness Sales System- Lead Generation
The first area to address is lead generation. Without leads coming through the door, you or your sales team will have little follow up to complete, and few sales opportunities to close. Your fitness sales system should provide regular lead flow from a variety of sources. And, your fitness sales system should leverage both online and offline strategies.
Online strategies are often where a business should begin as part of their fitness sales system. Not only do online lead generation strategies reach a larger audience in a shorter time span, but they are less expensive than more traditional forms of marketing and advertising. Some of the online strategies you should consider leveraging in your fitness sales system include:
- Social Media– Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. Establish corporate or group profiles on each of these sites and proactively work to build a network of followers. In addition to developing contacts, your fitness sales system’s focus should be on providing regular value to your lead base as well as occasionally offering promotions specifically to these audiences. Specialized promotions are received well by consumers and often lead to successful sales.
- Email Marketing– While this space is more competitive than in years past, it is still effective and affordable. E-courses, specific information and promotions can all be delivered via email. While you can blast cold lists, this technique is significantly more effective with warm leads.
- Google AdWords– If your business has the budget, consider partnering with Google’s paid advertising program to drive leads to your company’s website as part of your fitness sales system.
While these concepts are only the beginning of what’s possible online, they will provide the basis for this portion of you fitness sales system. In addition to online lead generation strategies, your fitness sales system should also leverage traditional offline marketing technique such as fliers, coupon promotions, joint marketing ventures, and press releases sent to local newspapers and outlets. Once you have developed a consistent lead generation within your fitness sales system, you need to develop successful methods for lead conversion.
Fitness Sales System- Lead Conversion
A lead is nothing more than an expense if you are unable to convert it to a paying customer. Whether you are personally following up with leads, or you have a team of salespeople behind you, conversion is the key to the lead generation portion of your fitness sales system.
Who is going to lead your lead conversion efforts? What conversion percentage is considered successful for your business? How will you or your team follow up with leads as they come through your doors? Work on developing a course of action within your fitness sales system. And, be sure to share these expectations with your team.
Once a system has been built a communicated, you must follow up to ensure that it is being followed. A great fitness sales system that isn’t adhered to won’t produce the level of results you are seeking for your business.
Within the lead conversion portion of your fitness sales system, be sure to build in tracking mechanisms. How will you know if your marketing programs are successful if you don’t track the related conversion rates? For any lead generation technique employed, be sure to track its success. Schedule regular times to review this information personally, or with your sales team. It is inevitable that some techniques will require changes over time. And, you may decide that some lead generation techniques should be removed from your fitness sales system all together. Don’t be afraid to make changes- but in order to make changes, you need to have data to guide your decision making process.
Fitness Sales System- Drip Marketing
As a business owner, you are already aware that not all leads will become paying customers on the first, or even second follow up attempt. While many leads generated through your fitness sales system will never become customers, many will over time through successful drip marketing efforts. Much about lead conversion has to do with timing. If your ideal prospect is seeking what your business offers at the time your business’s name happens to be front and center, you will likely convert them into a customer.
As part of your fitness sales system, it is important that you build a drip marketing system to follow up with all leads that come across your plate. While the most common form of drip marketing is via email, more traditional offline methods such as mailers are also effective. Be sure to implement an email drip marketing program as part of your fitness sales and marketing system. Send out regular email updates, offering not only promotional opportunities, but valuable information that your target lead base would be interested in reading.
Fitness Sales System- Avoiding Common Pitfalls
As you have most likely started to generate ideas about how to build out your fitness sales system, it is important to consider what potential pitfalls you may encounter on your journey so you can develop corresponding solutions and plans of action to avoid them.
Common fitness sales system pitfalls include:
- Marketing Lack of Focus– Too many fitness marketing programs can become overwhelming to a business owner. Select 2-4 strategies to implement initially as part of your fitness sales system.
- Lack of Preparation– If you ask salespeople to generate or convert leads without providing direction, you are unlikely to succeed. Build strategies into your fitness sales system that your team can follow.
- Lack of Tracking– Without information regarding the performance of your fitness sales system’s lead programs, how do you know where to continue investing or what to change?
Focus on your business’s fitness sales system and you will yield better sales results! Many owners get wrapped up in the day to day operations of their businesses and miss opportunities to grow it successfully. As you create and implement your fitness sales system, keep all the aforementioned ideas front of mind.