Expanding a fitness club often involves the aspect of digital marketing, and most Canadian gym owners are confused if they should invest in getting funding for their marketing needs. Luckily, your gym may be qualified to BDC’s offer of 100% funding for technology upgrades. Read on to learn about gym digital marketing funding in Canada.
There are many things that you need to take care of throughout the year. For instance, you need to create a compelling website that is SEO optimized so that your audience will be enticed to even look at your gym and at the same time, you need to post on social media consistently so that your target market can see and feel what your gym is like. In this blog, we will be talking about how you can use digital marketing funding for your gym and put place your gym in the top 11% of gyms in Canada.
1. The biggest marketing mistake I learned when I ran one of the biggest Gold’s Gym in Canada.
2. How much marketing $ should you ask BDC?
3. Where to access Business Development Canada’s Gym Digital Marketing Funding and see if you qualify
The Biggest Mistake: I am going to save money if I get my staff to do my marketing
I have been in the same boat, when I ran one of the biggest gold’s gym in Canada, I tried to get my sales staff, my front desk staff and personal trainers to do the gym’s social media, and even send marketing materials so that I can save some marketing dollars.
The truth is that it was one of the most inefficient use of time for my staff.
My staff just cared about getting their “hours in” so that they could “finish the job”, and lets face it, you will never find staff who will care about your gym business as much as you do. So if you keep getting your staff to do the marketing, it will always be inconsistent.
So what should my gym staff do?
Your staff should be focusing on interacting with members in the gym.. From my previous blog: “Gym Case Study: Member Retention” IHRSA found that: ““members at risk of cancelling who received a “successful commitment interaction” were 45% less likely to cancel in the subsequent month”“
Gym Digital Marketing Solution:
Option #1: Hire an in-house person who is solely in charge of marketing. The challenges with this are the fact that you will be training them from the ground up. When I ran Gold’s Gym and got 1 person to do our marketing, I found that I ended up spending so much time trying to train this person. To make it worst, I had to research the improvements myself and teach it. If you choose to go this route, feel free to download free fitness marketing tools at http://tool.konnectme.ca
Option #2: Outsource your gym digital marketing to experts like Konnectme By going through a digital marketing agency that specializes in the fitness industry is that: 1. it’s cheaper than having a full-time staff, 2nd: it’s what we do all day! So you can rest assured that we will always be looking for the next best thing for your business.
How much marketing dollars should you ask BDC?
Most gym owners go years without having some a marketing budget. The amount of marketing dollars a gym should budget for varies greatly between the size of your gym.
The Small Business Administration defines the variable for a proper marketing budget to be between 2% and 10% of sales. Some companies spend up to 20% of net sales. The average is between 4% and 6%.
Let us say that your gym charges $14.99 bi weekly and you want to use the lowest marketing budget of 2%, how much should you be allocating per month?
50-300 members: $2,300 a month (calculated at 300 members)
300-1000 members: $7,800 a month (calculated at 1000 members)
1000-2000 members: $15,600 a month (calculated at 2000 members)
Calculation used: members X $Bi-weekly X 26 weeks / 2%
Do not use all of your gym’s marketing funding or budget in Digital Marketing
You should not use all these marketing dollars towards digital marketing. You should be dividing into 3 segments:
1. 40% to Offline Marketing: such as events, joining your local business community, outreach flyers and lead boxes that can be given to local business around you. Free swags to get more reviews in club.
2. 40% to Digital Marketing: such as Pay Per Click, SEO optimized website, Gym Drip Campaigns, Social Media or using konnectme as your full gym digital marketing agency
3. 10% to Softwares that can help your gym operations. such as: Loyalty Monster, Club OS Gym prospecting System, ABC financial, Monday.com, or Asana.
How much does Konnectme Cost?
When you are ready to get in touch with us, we will provide you with an actual quote that is custom made for your gym. But we are happy to say that we stay below the 40% of your monthly Digital Marketing allocation cost. .
BDC’s Gym Digital Marketing Funding in Canada
With the help of this technology financing, you can finally hire a full-time gym digital marketing agency that will help you scale your gym. It will help you to cope up with the excessively sporadic marketing needs of a gym. These funds will also benefit you by revamping your digital presence.
Business Development Canada will provide you with 2 different options regarding your funding your gym digital marketing.
Option 1 : More than $100,000
BDC can give you up to:
1. 100% financing To cover the cost of your project and up to 4 years To repay your loan
2. Up to 6 months Principal payments postponement at the start of the loan
Qualification (from checking out the application)
1. Been in business for at least 12 months
2. Canadian business (and other qualifications may apply)
Link: Click Here to access MORE than $100,000
Option 2 : Less than $100,000
BDC can give you up to:
1. up to $100,000
Qualification (from checking out the application)
1. Been in business for at least 24 months
2. Canadian business (and other qualifications may apply)
3. Good credit history.
Link: Click Here to access LESS than $100,000