closer to a more digital user.“ I also reach out and talk to digital users around the country, whether they are with PF or not, to gauge their success with each new platform I move toward,” he said.
This is similar to how Mike Dobrynio, franchisee with the 37-unit Black Duck Partners, approaches his digital advertising strategy.“ Our digital marketing plan was primarily derived from best practice sharing and referrals from other franchisees,” he said.“ We continually use new vendors and strategies.”
Black Duck Partners utilizes the help of companies such as RevLocal and Ansira for review marketing, local SEO and branded and non-branded Google searches.
Dobrynio notes that the majority of his company’ s success has come from analyzing branded and non-branded Google searches – something that has been the main focus of his digital marketing strategy in the past.
Instead of honing in on keywords such as“ Planet Fitness” and“ PF” that are entered into a Google search engine, Black Duck Partners uses Ansira to track searches such as“ fitness centers,”“ places to work out” or“ gyms near me.” If someone searches for Planet Fitness that means they are aware the brand exists. By tracking non-branded keywords, owners are able to reach out to would-be customers that might not even know about the company.
“ We have coordinated our plan to ensure that Planet Fitness is on their device first if they are searching fitness gyms,” said Dobrynio.“ We have found that a ton of new and potential members are searching for us through mobile devices.”
Peters notes that the power of mobile isn’ t going anywhere any time soon.“ Mobile is big now and will only be bigger moving forward. Start thinking mobile first now, and you’ ll be prepared for the future,” he said.“ People aren’ t searching for‘ gyms in Chicago’ anymore. They’ re searching for‘ gyms near me’ and letting their phone’ s GPS handle localizing the results.”
Peters said users spend their time on their phones, and efforts should be made to meet members where their eyes are. People pick up their mobile devices 150 to 200 times a day and spend an average of 177 minutes on their phone. Understanding your audience’ s mobile habits is crucial and, if done well, can be the key to success.
“ The level of targeting a club can do with digital these days is leaps and bounds above what we had 10 and even five years ago. Advertisers don’ t care if their ad shows up while a customer is watching a cat video on YouTube if that customer just spent the past hour looking up fitness club reviews,” said Peters.“ Quality targeting allows advertisers to eliminate wasted spend and reach the undecided, not the uninterested.”
One emerging and effective way to target potential members is through geo-fencing, which uses GPS or RFID technology to define geographical boundaries, essentially setting up a virtual barrier.
Marketing strategies that incorporate geo-fencing allow an administrator to set up triggers so when a device enters or exits certain predetermined boundaries, a text message or email alert is sent. For example, an owner could choose to geo-fence a particular retail store in an area and send a coupon to a customer who has downloaded a particular mobile app when a customer and their smartphone cross the boundary.
“ We have seen a lot of success with geo-fencing around club and competitor club locations,” said Peters.“ Geo-fencing is a great way to get your messaging in front of customers when they
are in your area and using their mobile devices. It can also ruin a competitor’ s grand opening day.”
Peters predicts mobile usage and advertising spends will continue to increase year over year in 2017, and desktop shares will continue to decrease as more and more people abandon fixed computers and rely solely on their mobile devices for internet access.
This also presents a great opportunity to explore paid searches as part of a digital marketing strategy. Peters admits that paid searches garner a limited amount of local search traffic, but traffic is expected to spike in the coming months as New Year’ s resolution season rolls around.
“ Paid search will continue to be the highest conversion driving digital channel out there, and club owners certainly need to be utilizing it,” said Peters.“ While traffic is lower than with other digital channels, the people searching are much lower in the sales funnel and most likely to convert. The key is to provide them the information they need when they need it on their mobile phones.”
And while the realm of digital marketing can be very effective, Dobrynio said it is sometimes hard to track.
“ We continue to spend, but it is hard to get a grasp on the effectiveness of online marketing,” he said.“ The industry is forever evolving. We do calls regularly to explore different avenues. Just this year we looked at advertising through YouTube ads, Pandora, billboard flash ads and much more. The options are endless, but the more you spend, the better the results.” G
Christina Cannon is the PFIFA communications manager and the associate editor of Geared Up. You can reach Cannon at 678-797-5160 or christinac @ pffranchisee. org.
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GearedUp | 2016 Issue 3
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