As far as I’m concerned, referrals should be at the core of any good fitness pro’s marketing system. The only problem is that using the same referral strategy over and over can get stale fast – so here are five ways you can keep the referrals coming in without sounding like a broken record.
Fitness Referral Strategy #1: Make it a Condition of Doing Business
Description: Make it a mandatory part of being your client. I know – it sounds easier said than done – but hear me out. This is especially effective if you have an in-demand service. State from the onset, as a condition of working with you, clients each need to refer 2 friends. Obviously, you have to be tactful about it.
Here’s an example of what you could say:
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Every fitness professional knows the importance of generating referrals as it relates to business growth – so why do so many struggle to implement referral programs in their business?
My guess is that they don’t set deadlines to implement what they know. So I’m going to set some deadlines for you. Here are 12 months worth of referral generating ideas. All you have to do is follow the formula and watch your referral business grow!
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25 October 2009 - by Pat Rigsby
If you want a Six-Figure Bootcamp, then you need to have a systematic approach to generating referrals. Here are three strategies that you can implement immediately – and they’re guaranteed to produce big time results!
Bootcamp Referral Strategy #1: Send a Gift To Work
This is a great method to use, especially if your client has just finished their first month or achieved a specific goal. Send a big bouquet of balloons to your client’s work congratulating them on their success. The balloons don’t need to have any logo or writing on them… they just need to have a card congratulating the client on their success.
What will happen is that everyone at the client’s place of work will ask who the balloons are from. The camp member will tell everyone about you and how much you’ve helped them. The balloons act as a talking point about how happy the client is with the camp.
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29 July 2009 - by Pat Rigsby
Yesterday we generated 48 new leads for our health club without any expensive newspaper or radio ads, without a member appreciation event or even a referral contest.
We got 48 new leads for around 8 T-Shirts. (Might have been 9…I’m not sure.)
But let me back up a second.
About a week ago I was talking with our Club Manager, Lisa (who is awesome, I might add), and we were trying to decide the best approach to ask our current members for referrals.
We run a variety of referral systems, all with success, but the most effective is when we simply ask our new members to give us the names of friends and family members we can offer a free trial to. So we decided to try to do the same with existing members, but we needed a ‘hook’ to get them to give us the names.
Enter the T-Shirts.
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13 July 2009 - by Pat Rigsby
Here are 53 random tips that will help you generate more new clients and then get those clients to stay longer, purchase more and refer often.
If you have any tips of your own to share – leave a comment below.
On Developing Marketing Materials
1. A good headline makes or breaks you.
2. The first paragraph has to be great to get the prospect to continue reading in any copy.
3. The P.S. is the next most important component of successful copy.
4. Test, test, test.
5. Marketing materials are most effective when presented to people that already know, like and trust you.
6. Use testimonials with pictures.
7. Have a strong call to action.
8. Recognize that marketing materials are just a means of getting prospects in front of you.
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23 March 2009 - by Nick Berry
So Pat explained to you the thinking behind a solid reactivation campaign, and I’m gonna show you a couple of ways you can set up a reliable and effective system for managing it.
Reliability is paramount here – as we can’t afford to have people slipping through the cracks – and that wouldn’t be much of a system would it?
Efficiency is equally important, because we can’t commit all of our time to a single campaign, right?
The first thing you’ve got to have it a complete list of your former clients. If you have a client management software you use, that should work well. We’ve also always kept a backup excel spreadsheet that had the names and info of any clients who had decided for whatever reason to leave. It’s very important to include dates on the spreadsheet, the cancellation date as well as the date they began using your service. This is where reliability comes into play – you have to manage this list over time and make sure the correct data is entered when a client cancels. It’s not a complete list if you only remember to add someone to it sometimes – and that means it’s not reliable. So keep a complete database of your past clients.
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