At this point Deal of the Day offers are pretty commonplace among the fitness business pros that I talk with. 

But even with them being so common most trainers struggle to extract even half the value they can provide to a business.

With that in mind I’ve put together a little primer on how you can get value from Groupon, Living Social and the rest as the market has matured.

 

 

Determine What You Want – Are you looking for 200-800 leads?  An influx of cash?  Would you rather get fewer leads, but at a little better quality?  You need to know what you’re trying to get out of a Deal of the Day offer before you ever start.

 

Remember, They Need You More Than You Need Them – Very few businesses are as well equipped as a group training business to sell through a Deal of the Day site.  For their main offers, these sites basically want to sell ‘Look Good, Feel Good or Taste Good’ packages – and a lot of the providers of those are less anxious to do a deal than you’d think.

Most massage therapy businesses are ill equipped to handle big volume.  Restaurants costs go us proportionally to their sales and they don’t really offer continuity.  So a lot of these types of businesses negotiate with the Deal of the Day site to make the offer work for them – and you can too.

Remember, without something to sell, these sites don’t exist and there are a finite number of businesses in each community – so they need you in order to be successful – so negotiate to get the deal you want.

 

Build The Right Offer – Pretty much anything you sell through one of these site will convert best if it’s a full month deal.  My suggestion is not to offer unlimited.  A deluxe package that includes 3 days per week of bootcamp should convert well if you add a few bonuses like:

• An assessment
• An orientation
• A meal plan
• A motivational program (you could just send a series of emails)

I’m sure you can think of others.  Something like this will usually sell for $25-49 and generate the highest volume of leads. If you want fewer leads, offer something at a price point from $49-99.  This would typically include semi-private or even 1 on 1 training.  Typically your offer will sell between 15-35% of normal value.

 

Add Time Slots – My suggestion is to add additional temporary time slots if you have an influx of leads. The key word here is temporary.  Tell your clients your adding these time slots for 4-6 weeks to accommodate the influx of new people and the new times will disappear unless you hit a certain number of ongoing members for those times.  This will help you keep your current people happy.

 

Staff Up – If you need to add staff – do it.  Get superstar campers to help out as needed with orientations or as assistant coaches. The way to manage an influx is to plan for it.

 

Have An Online Registration Form – Ideally the Deal of the Day site will allow you to have a link on the page to a registration page on your site where the buyers can activate their coupon.  On this form you’ll want to capture name, phone and email at minimum.  On the thank you page, I’d do the following:

Step 1: Have a One Time Offer To Upgrade – have a sales page where the Deal of the Day buyer can upgrade their membership to 3 additional months where they pay just $1 for the next month and regular price for the following 2 months.  While you won’t convert a lot of these, you’ll get a few.

Step 2: Give Them a Special Bonus Page – after they exit the one time offer or take the upgrade, have the new buyer land on a final thank you page that has the following:

• An Opt In Form For A FREE Unannounced Bonus – a special report from Prograde. Prograde offers a couple great free special reports that not only will deliver some value to your new client, but will also ‘tag’ the lead under you in Prograde’s system so that Prograde will start marketing to them and you’ll get the commissions to any sales that are made…while they do all the work.

 

• Tips On How To Get The Most From Your Program - this is a big win/win where you can strengthen the relationship with the new client by giving them valuable tips and suggestions – and you can also promote things like Meal Movement as key success factors to get them most from the program.

 

Plug Them Into The Conversion Funnel – Ideally, you’ll then move the prospect into this type of Conversion Funnel:

Step 1: Initial Call To Build Value – If you have a number of leads that is manageable, you should try to spend 15-20 minutes on the phone with each new client during an initial call to ask them what their goals are, why achieving those goals is important to them and then explaining how your program will help them achieve what they want.  You’ll also schedule them for an initial orientation.

This step will help you get far more people to show up and pre-sell your program so that when you make an in-person offer they already feel comfortable with how your program will help them achieve their goals.

If you don’t have time to talk to everyone – call as many as you can and send questionnaires to the rest.  To convert at a high level you need to ‘find their pain’ and be able to explain how your program will alleviate it.

Step 2: Make a Confirmation Call – Everyone should receive a confirmation call to remind them of when they need to be at orientation, what to wear, where you’re located and anything else they need to do to get the most from the experience.

This will help alleviate some of the anxiety associated with a client coming to a first session.

Step 3: Run An Orientation – An orientation is the perfect bridge for your new clients to get them into your regular programs.  You can go over expectation, common exercises and do a mini-assessment where you at least assess how they might do in your regular program.

This time is also when you’ll really emphasize how your program will help them achieve their goals. You can make some personal connections. It’s really a great opportunity to separate yourself from any other fitness experience they’ve ever had.

At the conclusion of the orientation, make an offer.  Something simple like this:

“We really appreciate you becoming part of the Fitness Revolution Family.  If you already know that our program is going to be a good fit to help you achieve you goals, I’d like to make you a special offer.  You can trade in your one month membership for an additional month FREE if you enroll in our 3 month program.

Then you’d be able to train with us for the next 4 months and have only 2 monthly installments of $179 in February and March.

If you’d like to take advantage of this, you can turn back in this form today or by the end of our class on Monday.”

You’ll convert some lead right there and some others by the end of the next session.

Step 4: Send a Follow Up Text - Something simple like:

“Just wanted to let you know that you did a great job today.  Can’t wait to see you Monday!”

The highest attrition point fitness pros see from Deal of the Day buyers is those that buy but never show up.  The second highest?  People who never come back after Day 1.  This will help improve that.  It will also help sway those people thinking about taking you up on your special offer.

Step 5: Assessment / Consultation – Ideally the assessment would happen before someone is actually starting your program – but if you don’t have time due to volume, try to meet with everyone who is active to do a personal goal and physical assessment.  This will help not only deliver a better training experience – but will also help you build value in your program and form a stronger personal connection.

During this session you can give them a second chance at the initial special offer.

Step 6: 7 Touches in 21 Days – During the Deal of the Day Client’s first 21 days, you should set a goal of 7 touches.  This can be any combination of:

• Personal calls from you
• Personal emails from you
• Personal texts from you
• Assessments / consults
• Newsletters
• Thank You Cards
• Brief personal chats before or after sessions

Something that I’ve fallen in love with as a ‘touch’ recently is a tool called Postcard on the Run:

http://www.postcardontherun.com

You snap a photo with your smart phone and you can send it as a postcard straight from your phone for $1.49.  This is a great personal touch that will certainly separate you from your competitors.

Step 7: Make A Second Offer – Around the end of week 3 you can make a second special offer.  My suggestion is to phase it something like this:

“I’d like to go ahead and get you enrolled in an ongoing program so you can continue to see results.  We have a 2 session per week option for $129 and a 3 session per option for $179.  If you’d like to go ahead and lock in your spot I’ll go ahead and give you the first month for $39.  Which option would you like to continue with?”

By asking in the 3rd week, if they say they need to think about it, you still have a couple sessions remaining to secure their enrollment.

Step 8: Final Offer - On the next to last day of their Deal of the Day membership you should remind them of the offer you just made and let them know this is their final opportunity to get their next month at the discounted rate.  The deadline will convert the people on the fence.   If you have a downsell offer like a DVD of your own, a Fitness Coaching Program or a Bootcamp To Go type of program – sell it here.

 

Referrals, Connections & Back End Offers - Once someone becomes a client in one of your 3, 6 or 12 month programs – you should be leaning on them for:

• Referrals – as at the Point of Sale and periodically thereafter.
• Connections – opportunities to do speaking engagements, connect with charities or run corporate programs.
• Back End Sales – Nutrition Coaching, Workshops, Meal Movement, Supplements like Prograde, Bands and anything else that will complement their current program.

 

Maximize Their Value – Hopefully you convert 20-40% of the Deal of the Day Buyers that attended your camp into 3, 6 or 12 month clients. Using the above mentioned conversion process will certainly help.  But even with those conversion rates, you still have 60-80% that didn’t buy so we need to maximize their value.  Here are a couple ideas:

Follow Up With Low Risk Offers – If you run Transformation Contests, 21 Day Drop a Dress Size Deals, Workshops and other offers like that – make sure you’re sending them to this list.  If you get $47-197 from a half dozen of these prospects every time you run an offer – you’ll end up generating an additional $5000 – $10,000 from this list.

Sell Affiliate Promotions – Again – our goal at this point is to generate value from these leads so you can run offers to affiliate products like:

• Information Products like Fit Yummy Mummy
• Supplements like Prograde.
• Products like bands.
• Other solutions like Meal Movement.

These people have shown an interest in fitness and fat loss, so if you continue to present them with offers for solutions or tools that can help them with their fitness or fat loss goals you’ll generate some sales. This just requires to keep mailing them a newsletter with good information  – which you should be doing anyway.

If you approach Deal of the Day Offers like this, then you can potentially generate revenue at 12 different points:

1. Initial Split with the Deal of the Day Site
2. One Time Offer At Online Registration
3. Prograde sales through Unannounced Gift Report
4. Sales at Orientation
5. Sales at Assessment
6. Sales at Second Offer After Week 3.
7. Final Special Offer Opportunity
8. Downsells at Final Meeting
9. Referrals from Clients
10. Upsells to Clients
11. Low Risk Offers to Unconverted Leads
12. Affiliate Offers to Unconverted Leads

At least 12 different ways to profit from Deal of the Day buyers – and that’s not counting back end offers individually.  A little bit different than the way most people approach it, right?  Most take the split from the Deal of the Day site and maybe make a single offer and convert 5% of the leads.  Don’t make that mistake – follow this plan and make Deal of the Day offers work for you.

Good luck with your fitness business.

Tell me what you think below.

 

Dedicated to your success,

Pat

 

 

Related posts:

1. Fitness Professionals Get The better end of the deal
2. Are You Making Your Personal Training Clients Better or Just Making Them Tired?
3. Part II – Are You Making Your Personal Training Clients Better or Just Making Them Tired?
4. Fitness Referral Strategies: A Sneaky Way to Put Your Clients to Work
5. Making Your Fitness Business Viral In Four Steps