We are all somewhere on a continuum when it comes to anything. We in the fitness space are used to observing clients in movement. They sometimes are a hot mess and sometimes eloquent and art in motion. Fitness marketing is not so different. Can you relate? When you’re blind to it, you could go on and on loving it and get no results but not even realize you could be! If you know that feeling (or your boss or investors do) then you love marketing! But you’re not all that good at it. It happens to a lot of us so you’re not alone. On the other hand, you may be great at it, but have skills that are far more valuable to your organization that you should be doing and it’s not that.Although, marketing has to be at the top tear of valuable tasks… because if you’re no good at it, you’ll be very limited at some point. There are only so many people who will drop in your lap.
This post is part of what hit the cutting room floor while I’m finishing the last draft of a Social Media for Fitness Professionals book that I hand off to the publisher this week. It’s interesting and it’s true, but it’s more humorous and may be a little sarcastic than the book – which is really intended to help you if you’re in the trenches solo, develop a solid strategy, use some tools that will make life easier, and connect the dots between social media and sales.
Find yourself here in this list. Where are you on your way to master fitness marketing?
What fitness marketers in conscious competence say:
We consistently post messages that our fans and followers love. Our organic traffic to our blog has increased dramatically. Traffic from the blog to the website store has followed that same pattern. We’re attracting fans and followers that fit our ideal customer avatars. Social media is a fast way to test interest in products, and get feedback directly from our buyers about what they want us to create next. Questions from fans and followers about products and services come in daily. Communication on social is replacing email. We’ve got a system in place for tracking, measuring, and responding on social media that flat out works! We pay someone – or have learned how ourselves – to integrate social with our overall marketing strategy. We totally understand it takes understanding of marketing and social media.
What fitness marketers in unconscious competence say:
We get great results sometimes, but it’s hit and miss. We had a few posts last month that got tons of engagement. I’m attracting customers who say they’ve been following me on social media for months. The organic reach of some of our social media channels is so good – it’s responsible for most of our email list growth. Some people say organic is dead and you have to pay to be seen on social but we’re getting great results so far. I wish I could repeat those amazing posts every single time. We’ll just keep throwing things up and see how they do though. Sooner or later we know from our history of good luck we’ll hit a good one again.
What fitness marketers in conscious incompetence say:
I’m lost when it comes to how to monetize social media. We have a dedicated social media manager but she’s just putting things up like a bulletin board. We don’t have any more website traffic from social media. We get very few likes, comments, and shares. I wonder what kind of results we should be getting? How do I know what’s good or what our goal should be? I’ve begun to notice lower and lower numbers of engagement for the same effort. I don’t know if I’m paying too much for social media marketing support or if what we’re doing is really helping or not. It seems to take a lot of time for very little return. I’d like to change that. I’m not sure what to ask or where to start.
What fitness marketers in unconscious incompetence say:
I use all of the social media channels! I’m posting, pinning, tweeting and so “on” all these channels! We’ve got a wide social media presence.
I’m not really seeing any success from all my time, money, and energy but I know it’s important to be there! I’m too busy posting, tweeting, and pinning to spend a lot of time doing anything else. I’m checking this marketing task off as “done.”
I’ve been on social media forever, it takes time but it’s easy! We’ve got an intern doing that: she knows more about social media than we do! She says it’s going great!
You can master fitness marketing. Social media is just a part of it. If you seek to get better watch for the book. If you’d like some support now, reach out for a consultation about how I can help.
