NOVEMBER/DECEMBER
2007
Attracting More Participants to Your Fitness Classes
By Amanda Vogel, MA
The fitness industry provides plenty of information to help personal trainers attract new clients through marketing, referrals and networking. Group exercise instructors, on the other hand, tend to rely mostly on word-of-mouth to entice new students to their classes.
Word-of-mouth works well when your classes are already busy. If, however, you want to build attendance from a small group to a large crowd, you must first get participants in the door.
Here are tips you can use in the slower holiday season and into the busy new year. They’ll increase your visibility as an instructor and promote your class(es) to a wide range of members at the facilities where you teach.
Become a Familiar Face
- Increase your visibility as an instructor by attending other instructors’ classes. Introduce yourself to instructors and participants in these classes so they recognize you as a group exercise leader.
- Make a point of subbing classes with similar timeslots and/or formats to your own. This allows you to show your teaching skills and style to participants who might not have known about your classes but would enjoy attending them.
- Participate in your facility’s special events, such as team-taught classes or fundraisers. The more you mingle with prospective participants, the more opportunities you have to attract them to your classes. And participants feel more comfortable attending a new class - yours! - when they are familiar with the instructor.
Make a Good First Impression
- Provide an up-to-date and professional bio and photo of yourself to facilities that post these items on the wall. An outdated or amateur bio/photo may create the wrong first impression about the style and quality of your classes.
- Contribute to your club’s member newsletter. Writing articles is an effective way to increase your visibility, promote your classes and educate participants before they even enter the group exercise studio.
- Start strong. A fun, energetic and dynamic warm-up lets participants know right away that your class is worth attending.
Cross Promote with Other Staff
- Team up with another instructor to promote each other’s classes. If, for example, you teach an athletic cardio class on Tuesday mornings, approach the instructor who teaches the interval step class on Friday morning and suggest a cross-promotion. Participants who are interested in your class will likely be interested in his/her class, and vice versa.
- Invite a personal trainer to help with participants’ technique in your strength or flexibility classes. The trainer gets to market her services to a group, and, in turn, she’ll be more likely to recommend your class to her clients.
Getting creative with how you promote your classes may be all you need to boost attendance and show more participants what you have to offer.
Amanda Vogel, MA Human Kinetics, is a Can-Fit-Pro-certified group exercise instructor and presenter in Vancouver. She owns Active Voice, a writing/editing service that helps fitness pros and organizations improve the quality of their promotional and educational material. Read Amanda’s fitness writing tips on her blog: http://FitnessWriter.blogspot.com. And receive your free copy of her e-book 51 Need-to-Know Writing & Marketing Tips for Fitness Pros at www.activevoice.ca.
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