[00:00:00] James Breese: Strength Matters Media. Video. Print. Podcasts. Today's
[00:00:06] Josh Kennedy: topic is how to market your gym online in 2024. And obviously marketing is vitally important if you want to get clients and grow your business. And James, we've built a sort of a framework for people to follow. Do you want to give us the outline of the framework first, and then we can dive into each piece
[00:00:21] James Breese: a little bit more?
[00:00:22] Yeah, absolutely. So no matter what business you're in, whether it's personal training, osteopathy, chiropractor, physical therapy, or owning a gym, we've got to look at this new framework of marketing in 2024. Where it's all about being helpful. I think that's that's let's talk about that first It's about being helpful in 2024 because everyone's trying to push and do the hard sales everywhere So what we're going to think about is being helpful and being helpful starts on Google essentially because that's what people search for stuff when they're looking for answers for questions.
[00:00:54] So our framework is very simple We've got to look at your website. If have you got a website that's [00:01:00] fast loading, they can get found in Google and it offers a clear actionable advice to help people with the questions they have. For example, best gyms in your city, right? Do you have any topics about that to share case and showcase maybe the fact that why your gym is one of the best in town?
[00:01:17] Because people ask that question or other questions like, you know, weight loss tips, all these sorts of things, right. In your local town. So you're going to be helpful. Have a website that's helpful, that provides information. But has clear, a clear client avatar of who you're trying to attract on it as well as fast loading that Google loves.
[00:01:33] That's the first basically here, which then ties into the blog post section where to be able to rank and get high, you've got to have blog posts and content to show, to prove to Google that you are worthwhile entity in your worthwhile business. So you need a few blog posts on there to just give value and give this expertise and authority to give Google a very good reason why they should rank you.
[00:01:53] Now, the third thing is like Google Ads, fourth thing is then social media, and then the fifth thing is then running paid ads with [00:02:00] social media on top of it. There's a reason we're having this framework in place with the websites first, because that's the pillar, that's the infrastructure for your whole business.
[00:02:07] If you don't know who you're serving and what you're doing, and you give a professional, uh, look to your business. Right, and that authority I keep talking about, you're never, you're never gonna have everything else dialed in at all. So it's like, the website's the pillar, the helpful content is the second bit, and then we can start doing ads.
[00:02:25] Google Ads being one, which is quick and easy and simple to do, and then we do the social media stuff, which is much harder and much more labor intensive. So that's a very quick rundown of the framework. Yeah, cool. Let's
[00:02:35] Josh Kennedy: dive into the website then. What makes A good website, what makes a bad
[00:02:39] James Breese: website? You can, great question.
[00:02:45] A bad website is a website that doesn't have a clear message of the person you're trying to attract and having a clear client avatar and a call to action. So in three seconds or less, when someone lands on your website for the first time, they need to know who you are. What do you do? [00:03:00] And what do I do next?
[00:03:01] Most people do not have this nailed down. I'll give you an example. Uh, Samantha Atad, we're working with her closely at the moment. She's an Ayurvedic practitioner. I think I've said that right. I keep getting it wrong all the time. Most people won't have a
[00:03:14] Josh Kennedy: clue
[00:03:15] James Breese: what that is, by the way. No, I, I didn't either.
[00:03:17] I, I didn't either. But on her initial website, it was a case of, well, actually, hang on, what is this? I don't know what you do. And I said that to her over the phone. Whereas now I know she specializes in helping, helping women overcome PMS and period pain relief naturally. So that's the clear message we have on her website, for example.
[00:03:36] So if you're in gym, who do you target? Who do you help? Well, who do you want coming into your gym? Because there's different types of gyms. So that's the first thing. It's having a clear message. The bad website also has something. Well, you don't know how to book in or take the next steps. That's essentially what it is.
[00:03:48] There's a lot more technical stuff I can talk about, but you can get away with the technical stuff. If you have a really good, clear message and good action steps of what to do next. And you got to then in the next framework is the blog [00:04:00] post is when people first landed, they're going to have a look at it.
[00:04:02] Think about your journey. When you're trying to find out information about a new company, what do you do? You stick around their website. You're going to find some more information, read a little bit before you then make the decision for the next action. So you want to have this content on there that's useful or helpful answers questions and leads people to the next steps.
[00:04:19] That's a good website in my opinion.
[00:04:22] Josh Kennedy: Andrew, uh, obviously you've worked with a lot of trainers and gyms over the years. What, uh, what are you looking for from a website?
[00:04:28] Andrew Wallis: Exactly what James says. And I look at it of the who, what, why, and how, um, you know, who you are and who are your target clients, because then the message you're relaying through your website and through it.
[00:04:43] All of your marketing content that you look to produce is speaking directly to that individual then and no matter what that marketing material would be in this instance of website, they're getting drawn in and they're nodding their head essentially as they read each line [00:05:00] because you're speaking directly to them.
[00:05:02] You're addressing. The problems that or obstacles that they're they're looking to overcome, and so they're becoming intrigued. You're building an element of trust and you're guiding them along the journey, showcasing that you understand the pain that they're currently experiencing. But equally, you you've got a tried and tested approach on how you help them overcome that.
[00:05:28] And that's the how piece. And as James says, then we're just guiding them down the page to ultimately lead into a call to action. That could be a strategy call, or it could be, um, um, accessing a consultation or whatever that might
[00:05:45] Josh Kennedy: be. Yeah, fantastic. James, the next piece of the framework is that blogging content?
[00:05:50] James Breese: Yeah, blog posts, blogging and content. Because when people land on your website, they want to find out some more information, particularly if they're new. And you've always got to assume that they don't know anything about you at [00:06:00] all. So they have certain questions they're looking for. So most of the time, if they're looking for gym marketing, guess what they're going to be typing into Google?
[00:06:06] Best gyms near me, best gyms in county, best gyms in state, best gyms in my town, that type of thing. So you want to be helpful and say, well, you know, explain maybe, write a blog post maybe about who are the best gyms in town. You obviously put yourself in there, but explain why you're the best for a specific niche and specific market.
[00:06:25] Then you can happily tell and share other competitors in there. Because they may be a completely different demographic and you can do it because you want to be helpful. So by coming across as being helpful, you're answering their questions. They're getting more buy in. And it's all about this idea of being helpful.
[00:06:39] So 2024 in all marketing, be freaking helpful, right? Less of the sales, less of the pushy, be helpful and let them like. Understand who you are and what you're doing. So that's the type of thing here. Now, most people that we should do a separate podcast about this, write blogs all wrong. They do, they go about blog writing for themselves instead of thinking and putting themselves in [00:07:00] what are the questions I should be answering to get found in Google in the first place.
[00:07:03] So it's about finding out what questions your clients have, particularly new ones, right? And also your current clients to bring this mix of this idea of bringing them to your website. Which then creates more traffic to your website, which then gives Google going, ah, this cool. This website's pretty cool.
[00:07:18] Let's rank it even higher. So that's the idea behind the blogging. It's answering questions, being helpful, but it's sending signals to Google to show intent and show you a good authoritative expert in your field. And also you have trust, basically, and they can trust you. And that
[00:07:33] Josh Kennedy: gets you ranked higher in Google, right?
[00:07:35] James Breese: If you do all that. It does. There's loads of other factors that help you rank higher. That's a very simplistic overview, but it's a big part of the strategy.
[00:07:42] Josh Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. I was gonna say, we should definitely do a podcast about that because I think. Trainers listening, gym owners listening, thinking like, Oh my God, I've got to do blogs.
[00:07:48] Where do I start? What do I do? Uh, and obviously we have a lot of experience with that and we can certainly help. Okay. The next, uh, next pillar. Is that going to ads now?
[00:07:58] James Breese: Google ads. So [00:08:00] people might be saying, well, why not Facebook ads or Meta
[00:08:02] Josh Kennedy: ads? Google rather than Facebook. We've got to start with Google,
[00:08:05] James Breese: right?
[00:08:06] Yeah, 100%. You start with Google. Why do we need to start with Google? Yeah, great question. It's because it's easier, it's simpler, it is the fastest way to do and get people potentially to see eyeballs on your place as opposed to Facebook and Meta ads. Now, you've got to think yourself, as a gym owner, as a fitness professional, how much time do you have?
[00:08:27] Right. There's a lot of time and effort going into creating videos, creating social media posts, checking Facebook. There's a lot of stuff going on in play here. Now, whereas as opposed to Google ads, if you have a website and you have some blog content, you can go into Google ads and you can say, Hey, Best gym near me in this in this position in town, all these sorts of things.
[00:08:45] You can just add on it's basically pay per click advertising. It's quick It's easier to set up and it's almost done and forgotten. So it's giving you time to go back into it but remember this you probably not gonna spend that much money if you get it, right [00:09:00] because Most people don't click on the Google ad anymore.
[00:09:02] If you think about it, you see sponsored ads at the top Right? Less than 2 percent of people click these ads. So what are you thinking? Why am I doing this? Well, guess what? By having an ad on here that's showing you top of Google, maybe appearing in the Google map pack, and then showing top of Google here, it gives you three bits of real estate when people are searching for you.
[00:09:20] Guess what that gives? It goes, wow, this gym must be pretty cool. This gym must be really, really good. It's, it's appearing everywhere. So you want people to click in and learn more. So it's a, it's a strategy play to get you found at the top. Yes, people will, some people will click it, but most people don't.
[00:09:35] In fact, 98 percent of people don't click on it anymore. But it's easy to set up. You can get found at the right place when people are searching for gym near me. For example, it'll appear in either the Google Mac pack, the click, the pay per click thing at the top and the AdWords, and also if you have everything else in play, it'll come into state, into interstate and go, right, this is an authoritative gym.
[00:09:55] I want to check this guy, these guys out basically. Here's a special
[00:09:59] Josh Kennedy: message from our [00:10:00] sponsor.
[00:10:01] James Breese: One more client without breaking the bank on ads. Google is your ticket. Imagine being the first name clients see when they Google your services near them. Sound impossible? It's not when you've got strength matters on your side.
[00:10:11] We'll build you a website and get you ranked high on Google for free. You'll save thousands on ads. Web design and SEO services. Plus get a suite of business tools to help you grow your business effortlessly. All you cover is our bulletproof hosting that comes with a full 90 day money back guarantee.
[00:10:26] Ever wonder how many new clients you're losing by not being Google's number one. Don't wonder act now, book your free strategy call at strengthmatters. com forward slash website today. Okay. And,
[00:10:36] Josh Kennedy: and, and Andrew, I'm going to throw this one over to you then. Um, James is saying 98 percent of people don't click Google ads.
[00:10:43] And I'm actually trying to say, thinking when the last time have I ever clicked a Google ad? I don't know. So. In your experience, is it worth having if you are still more likely to click on the map pack? Uh, and you know, as long as you are first or second in Google, what do you say? [00:11:00] What's your opinion?
[00:11:01] Andrew Wallis: Um, James is absolutely correct.
[00:11:03] We're looking to get, we're looking to dominate our area essentially. And this is, uh, in this instance, in this example. area is not our physical location per se. It's, um, on, on the Google search results page. But as James says, if we're appearing at the top with, uh, the, with the ads, we're appearing in the map pack.
[00:11:26] And in that map pack, we're showing that we've got a significant number of five star reviews. And then we appear a number of times in the, um, organic. search results elements with our homepage and perhaps some of our blog posts or content pages that are relevant to the term that the person searched for.
[00:11:49] Then we're dominating that page and it becomes abundantly clear that we deserve further investigation. Um, into whether or not [00:12:00] we serve that particular client, but I can't remember the exact numbers, but when you're appearing on that first page, the first position generates James, you might know this certainly 70 percent of people searching and then second places.
[00:12:19] It's maybe something like 30 percent and that third is, is
[00:12:22] James Breese: 76, 76 percent of the search traffic goes to number one. And by the time he gets a position 10 on the first page, it goes down to less than 2%. So it's key. It's
[00:12:33] Josh Kennedy: key. Okay. So there you go. You've got to rank higher in Google. Absolutely. Key to rank higher in Google.
[00:12:38] What is the James back to you? What is the final piece of
[00:12:41] James Breese: the puzzle? Well, two more pieces of the final of the puzzle. Actually, you've got. Yeah, you got the, so you got, then you got social media and this is organic social media. So what I, what I see all the time is everyone spends so much time trying to invest in posting daily or posting on social media.
[00:12:58] But the problem is they've got nowhere [00:13:00] to drive them back to. Right? So you're just creating this mess of like just relying on social media, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, where wherever you're using, you are relying on this. The purpose of social media is to make people aware you exist. And to drive them to somewhere else, but it should be your website to learn more and build this overall impression, this professional image of you and your gym.
[00:13:21] So we've got to think of this in terms of like, once you have the time, once you have the basics and you have money coming into your gym, right, because you've done all the hard work and the hard graft at the bottom. We're then now layering the social media on top of it because we want to drive traffic to that website because the website should now be working and focused on getting you leads and booking in calls.
[00:13:40] To get people coming into your gym. So the reason we put social media at the higher end of the spectrum, yes, it's important and you should run it alongside everything else you're doing, but it shouldn't be the focus until we've got everything, the basics in play first, because it takes a lot of time. If you really want to dominate and like be, be top of mind everywhere, you should be [00:14:00] posting twice a day on your feeds and you should be posting at least four to six times on your stories a day.
[00:14:05] If you want to be specific. Who has the time to that unless they have a full time dedicated team. So this is why we're focusing on the basics first, getting some money into the business to help start building this team, to then think about the social media strategy. And the final piece on top of that is the Facebook ads, or the Meta ads, or the TikTok ads, to try and drive people into your business from the top end.
[00:14:24] Because without a strategy, without knowing what you're posting and how you post, and there's no point in doing the ads, because you're just, you're just guessing, basically. And you don't know what's going to resonate with your audience and what people like. So the organic stuff, we test in the waters before we go to Facebook ads.
[00:14:39] Yes, absolutely. We can get there quite quickly if we know what's working already. But sometimes it takes a month or so for people to get used to posting or understanding it because you want to do the organic plus the ad strategy to get found. And that's the full framework of I'd say how to market your gym online in 2024.
[00:14:56] We're having the basics in play, the grounding in place. I found in Google. Do you have a website? [00:15:00] You know, are you writing blogs and simple blogs to ask and answer questions that you clients have to create engagement and interaction and create the sticky feeling on your website to give Google the idea that you're a trusting person, you're a trusted business, and they want to send people to you.
[00:15:16] Then we do the Google ads. Then we do the organic social media. And then finally we lay it on the icing on the cake is the Facebook ads, which is the rocket fuel to your fire, essentially.
[00:15:26] Josh Kennedy: Fantastic. Any final thoughts before we wrap up
[00:15:29] Andrew Wallis: guys? Only that, um, it's alien this approach to a lot of fitness professionals out there because you know, they see so many ads Directing them to do the social, uh, media advertising first out the gate.
[00:15:44] Whereas we've seen and we're proving now with our clients that if we get the foundational pieces in place following this framework, it sets you up for greater success in the future.
[00:15:55] Josh Kennedy: Absolutely. Fantastic. Thank you so much guys. That is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review and [00:16:00] subscribe. And if you're sitting there thinking, do I have a good website?
[00:16:02] How do I know? And you want to get yourself a free website audit, go to strengthmatters. com forward slash audit.