Opening a Crossfit Box (Part 2): Marketing

Part 2: Your Marketing

Your marketing could make or break your success when opening a crossfit box. You can build it, but that doesn’t mean they’ll come. Some one could build a teleportation device to instantly transport anywhere in the world. But if nobody knows about it, then it won’t sell.

There are 3 questions you need to answer:

1. Who are your customers?
2. What are you REALLY selling?
3. How are you going to reach your customers?

Who are your customers?

It will be a lot easier when opening a Crossfit box when you know who your customers are. How old are they? What do they like to do? Where do they hangout? What kind of jobs do they work? What do they eat? What do they worry about? What are their goals? Where do they live?

Everyone is not a target market. Not everyone will do CrossFit. In fact, most people won’t do CrossFit. It’s your job to find out who will do CrossFit and find out where they are? Don’t try to sell to people who don’t want your service. It’ll save a lot of time for both of you.

What are you REALLY selling?

You’re not selling a workout. With the internet, there are millions of workouts at your fingertips. You’re selling someone a longer life? You’re selling someone freedom from their ailments. You’re selling someone more energy to play with their kids. Can you really put a price on any of that?

You need to communicate these benefits in your marketing. You can do this through you copywriting, your website, your social media, your images your video and especially the way you interact with people. Figure what benefits you can offer to a person and then show them how you’re going to deliver on it.

How are you going to reach your customers?

There are a million marketing tactics you can try when opening a Crossfit box. I’d suggest starting with a few and then see if you can optimize them.

• Organic Search: This should be part of your overall strategy, but it won’t get you leads overnight. It could take over a year for you to really start seeing results from your SEO. I’d say just focus on creating quality content and be active on social media. The two main words here are: Relevance and Consistency. You may also need to pay a company to do this for you.
• Paid Search: Paid search is a phenomenal way to get to get leads overnight. You can try setting up a Google Adwords or Facebook ads campaign. You have to bid for clicks, but it could still be a cost effective way to get new members.
• Referrals and Word-of-mouth: Referrals and word-of-mouth are probably the oldest way of marketing, but they’re still highly effective. Tell people about your new box and ask people who you think you be interested about coming in for a free trial. You can also try asking some existing members if there is anyone they could refer.
• Traditional Advertising: It’s a lot easier these days to pull off traditional advertising. You could try doing some radio ads, direct mail or even a TV commercial. Make sure you watch your budget and measure your Return-On- Investment.
• Public Relations: PR has changed since the internet, but traditionally PR can still be effective. Try writing a press release about your new CrossFit box and try to get it into local papers. Physical newspapers in your local towns may still have a good number of readers. It’s also a cost effective way of getting new members.

Find out more about opening a Crossfit box

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