The $500,000 Marketing Campaign

Opening your first (or next!) gym/studio location is a huge milestone for any business.

Yet it can be full of risk if you don’t know what you’re doing.

For many fitness entrepreneurs, the whole process feels like a big fat mystery.

And when you’re in the weeds working to get new equipment delivered, managing contractors to finish your build out, and hiring new team members… it’s easy to get overwhelmed and distracted.

The result?

Pre-sales and marketing rarely gets the attention it needs to set your business up to win.

Enter the Pre-Sold Playbook™

That’s why my team and I created The Pre-Sold Playbook™

Since 2006, we’ve supported over 53,000 fitness businesses in 96 countries in starting and growing to the next level.

And we’ve developed, tested, and proven a step-by-step pre-sales and marketing campaign to fill your boutique studio or gym with awesome clients (and create incredible experiences for them!) from Day 1.

What’s the key to making it work? We like to say, “Business strategy trumps marketing strategy.”

Which simply means, to open a new studio or gym with 100-200+ paying clients…you’ve got to do a lot of groundwork to set your business up for success. We use a roadmap to guide each step in the journey, which you should give yourself a 6-12 months timeline on to do it right.

We use a roadmap to guide specific milestones in opening a new studio or gym. Give yourself 6-12 months to do this right.

Business And Marketing Strategy

To set your business up for great pre-sales and marketing success, you’ve got to begin with creating a rock-solid business plan.

What’s most important in creating a winning business plan?

You must get very clear on answering three questions:

1. Who is your perfect client?

2. Why should they choose your business over the competition?

3. What total client/member targets are required to achieve your financial goals?

The more time you invest in finding really good answers to these questions, the easier (and faster!) you’ll hit your targets.

Success starts with getting 100% clear on your business and marketing strategy. This is a snapshot from The Pre-Sold Playbook™ we use to guide the campaign planning process with our clients.

Marketing Campaign Strategy

When you’ve got the right business strategy, then it’s time to get clear on your pre-sales and marketing campaign strategy.

Success is all about making the right decisions on:

• When will you market?

• How will you generate leads?

• What offer/incentives will you use to sign up new clients before you open your doors?

For best results, we recommend focusing on a 6-month timeline (4 months prior to your open date, and 2 months following)… with your marketing broken into four campaign cycles. I’ll cover more on that in a moment, but first let’s talk about creating the right marketing funnel.

Part 1: Your Marketing Funnel

We recommend keeping your marketing funnel simple.

The job of your funnel is to do one thing: capture leads. And it needs to do that one thing very well!

Results come from A) speed of follow up, B) the power of your offer, and C) ongoing nurture all the way through the entire marketing campaign timeline.

Here’s the workflow for the funnel we recommend using prior to opening your doors:

Too many business owners complicate their marketing funnel. We recommend keeping it simple… so you can put the majority of your time and effort into lead generation activities.

Part 2: Lead Generation

When you’ve got the marketing funnel setup and working properly, it’s time to generate leads.

This is the most time and labor intensive part of a pre-sales and marketing campaign.

But before you put time into the work, you must get the strategy and plan rock-solid to win.

We recommend using four (4) marketing cycles. This allows you to update calls to action, update messaging, and create urgency/scarcity to increase response rates.

For best results, think of your marketing campaign in cycles. Each cycle has a clear message, timeline, and reason to respond now… thus driving engagement and conversion goals.

When you’re clear on what to say and when to say it… then you must get the right channels and plan going to get your message to market.

We recommend using five channels for lead generation marketing including Local Search, Content Marketing, Organic Marketing, Partnerships, and Paid Advertising (both online and offline).

Take the time to create the lead generation marketing plan needed to win, while staying agile to adjust your activities based on campaign performance at key milestones along the way.

Take time to set the right lead targets, layout your marketing activities by week, and track your progress against goals for leads and new sign ups each day.

This will allow you to stay focused and in control of the most important variable required to win.

And adjust your plan based on performance as you’re tracking along each week towards your open date.

Part 3: Sales System

Leads are required for success, but the goal of a pre-sales and marketing campaign is not to generate leads… it’s to sign up new clients and hit your revenue targets!

Which is why we recommend funneling ALL leads, from ALL marketing channels, into a one pipeline management system.

Speed of response is the #1 factor in creating awesome customer experiences (and driving new sales and referrals!).

And your client experience BEGINS in their marketing experience.

The #1 key to success in campaign conversion (and differentiation with your brand) is speed of response. Ensure you’ve got ALL leads flowing into one pipeline that is fast and easy to manage real time.

Depending on the price point of your services, and your revenue streams, you can either A) collect a deposit (and hold all contracts for processing until your open date) or B) sell your full program and collect payment upfront (including paid in full payments).

The decisions to be made here relate to the category and positioning of your business. Are you going to position your new facility as a studio, gym, health club, or medical/physical therapy facility? AND depending on the choices you make there, this will affect regulations for bond policies with your state.

NOTE: The most challenging regulations are for health club categories of business, while boutique facilities can often avoid some of the heavy regulations.

For low ticket deposit pre-sales strategies, we recommend having a simple phone script and taking a deposit online or over the phone.

For higher ticket service sales, we recommend utilizing a face-to-face consultative sales process (online via video call or in person face-to-face).

The sales system we’ve been teaching since 2007 for both options is called NPE AUTO-CLOSER®.

It includes seven-steps to guide your conversations with prospective clients and set them up for success with achieving their health and fitness goals. Good client experiences begin with good sales experiences. Help prospective clients understand where they are now, where they want to go, and invite them to commit to the journey required to solve their problems and achieve their goals.

Part 4: Prospect Nurture

No matter how good your lead generation and sales systems, only a portion of your prospective clients will sign up now.

The fortune lies in the follow up.

Stay in touch with all your unconverted leads through a weekly email marketing campaign, regularly posting social content (and connecting with your leads through this channel), and events weaved into your pre-sales and marketing campaign cycles.

The closer you get to your open timeline, the more interest and (and urgency!) you’ll be able to create to drive response rates with your offers and campaign deadlines.

Part 5: Buyers Nurture

If you’ve done things right, you’re going to be taking deposits and signing up new clients/members.

Congratulations!

But don’t stop there.

This is where the journey begins.

Start serving your new clients now.

You can give value in lots of ways through 1) outdoor group workouts 2) online nutrition coaching, 3) goal setting content, and more.

Use these touch points to serve your new clients and deliver value before you open your doors.

Then ask for support in generating positive online reviews for your business and generating referrals to continue accelerating your pre-sales and marketing campaign success.

Part 6: Grand Opening Event

Grand Opening events are your chance to show off all the hard work you and your team have put into your facility, and create great experiences for those you serve. Take time to involve your partner ecosystem and launch our brand in a powerful way.

Once you’ve opened your doors and are in your first few weeks of operations things will be busy.

Use this time to lock in your team with delivering awesome client experiences.

Deliver more value than people expect.

Create buzz and energy.

Then plan a grand opening event for 60 days out.

This is where you’ll do one final push to all unconverted leads, new clients, activate your new partner network and more to drive awareness and more new prospective clients through your doors.

When you do this right, you’ll pull all the hard work you’ve done together and maximize hitting your new client and revenue goals.

Summary

Opening your first (or next!) facility takes a huge amount of time, energy, and effort.

Do it right and you’ll put your business in the black from day 1.

Get it wrong and you may find yourself opening broke and burning working capital each month.

That’s why it’s so important to take the time to create a winning plan that sets your business up to win from the start.

What new client and revenue targets will you set?

How will you maximize your business and marketing strategy and plan to win?

About Sean Greeley

Sean Greeley is a founder, coach, family man, author, and speaker who helps fitness entrepreneurs build sustainable and predictable 7-figure businesses. Since 2006, NPE has helped over 53,000+ fitness businesses in 96+ countries grow to the next level, and is responsible for driving over $1.1 billion in client revenue.