The Anatomy of the Post [Ideal Outline of a Blog]
You may have heard that blogging is essential for content marketing success, but did you know that blogging helps to position you as an expert in your field, presents a valuable resource for your site visitors, and creates new opportunities for your site to rank on Google results? So what is the ideal outline of a blog for SEO?
Businesses that blog acquire 126% more leads than those who do not.
Do I really need a blog?
It’s critical to have a blog on your site so that you can help answer your visitors’ questions. Sharing your expertise, assisting the visitors to solve issues that they are encountering, and improving your overall site experience with your blog is what helps to get your rankings on Google up.
Don’t be confused, though. Blogging for SEO requires more than simply stuffing keywords into your posts and waiting for traffic to pour in. Bloggers should focus on writing content about subjects surrounding target keywords so that they can provide a breadth of knowledge on a given topic with the intent to help visitors rather than merely trying to drive traffic to sell more stuff.
Blogging on topics is great for user experience, helps people answer their questions, and will keep people returning to Google (and hopefully your blog) to solve future issues, the reason Google created the ranking algorithm after all.
However, there is a formula that works for creating individual blogs well for SEO. And, yes, it does involve ensuring that your target keywords are included in specific sections in the post to squeeze the most out of each article.
Blogging for SEO
So how can you ensure that people see your posts and that you blog yields traffic? We encourage our clients to use this method:
Keyword Research
Use multiple tools such as SEMRush, Keywordtool.io, and Answerthepublic.com to find long-tail keywords that surround your area of expertise and your industry.
Long-tail keywords are phrases that are more specific to your niche. They will usually have a lower number of monthly searches, but also fewer people competing for top results.
Look for words that have high traffic with relatively low competition.
Let’s consider one of HARNESS’s areas of expertise: video marketing.
The search term “video marketing” has 4400 searches per month, which is relatively high.
However, it also has a keyword difficulty (a score between 0-100 rating how difficult it is to rank on the first page for that keyword) score of around 68.58.
That search volume means it’s a popular keyword and one for which we want to rank. On the other hand, it has a high keyword difficulty (KD), so it will likely require many blog posts to hit that front page with this search.
What if we modified that keyword to find a long-tail search on the same topic?
Let’s try this one: video marketing services.
The term “video marketing services” has 480 searches per month with a keyword difficulty score of 41.01. The search volume level is lower compared to “video marketing,” but we can rank for this keyword with only a few blog posts.
Further, even if the 480 people are searching for this term, we want to talk to all of them as they are likely to be qualified traffic to our website. Heck, if only one person is searching for one of our high-value keywords, I want them to hit my site rather than my competition’s page.
We consider these low-competition keywords the low-hanging fruit, so we advise clients to start there. Higher difficulty keywords will have more traffic but require more work. Those are long-term goals, so work on those over time.
Titles - Use Your Keywords
Use your keyword to create a title that makes sense to your reader. Note: you must use the exact phrasing of the keyword in the title; otherwise, the keyword difficulty and volume will be different.
Your title should read naturally and help to start the process of the blog to educate, solve a problem, answer a question, and/or entertain. Creating titles can be one of the most challenging parts of the process.
You want a title that will grab attention and make people want to jump in. However, do not use clickbait titles unless you want to aggravate your readers. While clickbait titles will generate more traffic on the front end, if it’s all flashy title and no substance, you will send your readers to the next site looking for better, more informative content.
Title Generators
There are many title generators out there that can help with ideas. Hubspot offers one, but it tends to be pretty superficial in the ideas it generates. Portents is another option.
Let’s use our example of “video marketing services” in these title generators.
First, let’s plug it into the Hubspot Blog Idea Generator:
- Video Marketing Services: Expectations vs. Reality
- Will Video Marketing Services Ever Rule the World?\
- The Next Big Thing in Video Marketing Services
- Video Marketing Services Explained in 140 Characters or Less
- This Week’s Top Stories About Video Marketing Services
Mostly garbage, right? It does, however, illustrate the way we work to include the phrase in the title.
Next, let’s try the Portent title generator:
- The Hunger Games Guide to Video Marketing Services
- 8 Freaky Reasons Video Marketing Services Could Get You Fired
- How Video Marketing Services Aren’t as Bad as You Think
- True Facts About Justin Bieber’s Love of Video Marketing Services
- Where Video Marketing Services are Headed in the Next Five Years
These are also pretty rough, but they are unique at the very least. Number five is not terrible, but will this compel our users to click? That’s the question you have to ask yourself.
Do you need a title generator? No, not at all. You can quickly brainstorm 50 ideas with your keywords. Answer the Public (referenced above) provides some great ways to phrase questions around your keywords.
Some of your phrases will require more creativity than others to arrive at a compelling, natural sounding title, but that’s part of the fun.
A Note on Title Length
Let me make it slightly more complicated :)
- The perfect blog post title is 60 characters
- Titles with 8 to 12 words are shared more often on Twitter
- Titles with 12 to 14 words are shared and liked most often on Facebook
Keep those additional thoughts in mind as you work on your list of title ideas.
The Outline
Note: there are many ways to write a blog. The following is just one example format, but it tends to be very successful because it is the same format that many successful public speakers use to present information on a massive scale. It also brings the keyword in at appropriate times for SEO.
Check out our other posts for other templates such as the How To Post, the List-based Post, and Curated Content.
Now onto the layout -
Killer Title (H1 Tag)
- Use your keyword as discussed above
- Beautiful Picture or Graphic
- Ensure that your keyword is in the title of your photo and your alt text in a natural way
Introduction
- Keep it concise and punchy. Perhaps you can present a common opinion or idea and then disagree or agree with it. Ask a question. Tell them what you are going to say. Anything that will help to excite the reader and warm them up for the main content.
- Important: Be sure to use your keyword in the first sentence of your first body paragraph.
Main Content
- The main body is where you support your thesis from your intro. Why do you disagree with the argument? What is the answer to the question? What are the top five reasons that dogs can’t drive? Present the meat of your article here.
- Use synonyms of your keyword in these supporting paragraphs. You can reuse your keyword if it reads naturally. Don’t force it.
- Use subheaders to divide up content into easily scannable heading
Conclusion
- Don’t write your conclusion like an essay in high school but do bring it all together for the reader. Summarize what you said in a clear, concise way and present your commentary as needed.
Feedback/CTA
- Invite interaction and engagement by providing a space to comment or create a call to action to take users to the next stage of your sales funnel. You can link to a content offer here as well.
Meta Description
- The meta tag is not part of the post that your users will see, but will be the text that will display on Google search results. This description should be helpful to users in deciding whether or not it solves their query. Include your keyword in the meta info.
Important SEO Areas
These are the areas to ensure you use your keyword to maximize your chances of ranking.*
- Title (H1 tag)
- First Paragraph
- Image Alt Text
- URL
- Meta Description
*Remember that your main goal should be to create content that is inherently valuable to readers and then focus on SEO and rankings.
Just creating content based on keywords and stuffing them in as many places as possible can get you penalized by Google. The intent of your content should be to present information with practical value.
Avoid fluff content. Don’t waste your users’ time by presenting superficial garbage. Your blog must be high quality, comprehensively answer questions with relevant info, and it must be easy to read across devices.
Conclusion
So is blogging for SEO easy? Yes, once you get the hang of it, but it takes some planning and practice just like most things worth doing. This type of formatting becomes second nature after you write a few posts.
Does this seem like too much trouble?
Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. HARNESS is an inbound marketing agency that specializes in creating content for each stage of your unique sales funnel. We can help to get you in front of your target customers, taking them from a new visitor to brand evangelist.
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What Does “Video Marketing” Mean?
Video Marketing is one of those things that all of us are aware of, but we do not think about what it is. With so many different forms, and cutting edge digital camouflage, the line between content and marketing has grown thinner and thinner over the years. In some places, it is impossible to tell the two apart.
If you are thinking about turning to video to fulfill your marketing needs, though, it is important for you to know what you are getting into before jumping in with both feet.
What Does “Video Marketing” Mean?
Before we go any further, it is important for everyone to be on the same page regarding what video marketing is, and what it is not. According to the Internet Marketing Dictionary, video marketing is when a company uses short videos to promote their products or services.
That is it. If you are a lawn maintenance company, who makes videos showing your employees in action to entice potential customers to hire you, that is video marketing. If you are a cafe showing your audience how to make the perfect cup of coffee on camera, then that is also video marketing. In short, if a company is making a video whose purpose is to hook an audience to promote themselves, that is video marketing.
Content Marketing, and Changing Perspectives
When most people think of video marketing, they think of commercials. Moreover, while there are certainly plenty of companies who are using the wider reach of the Internet to get more eyes on the sort of videos that look like television commercials, that is not the only kind of video marketing going on. There's also something called content marketing, which has had great success with video.
What Is Content marketing?
According to Content Marketing Institute, it is when someone makes valuable content and offers it for free as a way to build an audience. The hope is that the more people who follow the content, the more people the creator will be able to mobilize to use their products or services.
Let's put that in perspective. If a gardening supply store made a video about how great its products and customer service was, that would be a commercial. You would be trying to hook customers into coming in right away to make a sale. If that same store made a series of videos offering gardening tips, it would not sell any products right away. It is not meant to. However, the series would gain an audience and buy that audience's good will. Later on, when the audience is given a call to action to come to the store and buy their products, they are much more likely to do so.
Put simply, content marketing is a long game, and it is meant to build a following organically.
Why All The Buzz About Video?
There are all kinds of ways you can market yourself, your services, and your products, but why has video risen to the top of the heap? Several reasons, according to the Huffington Post.
First and foremost, video is engaging in ways that print, and still media are not. A picture is worth a thousand words, but video is worth even more regarding traffic and views. The sound, the motion, and the human faces also engage the brain, making people pay attention.
Video requires less effort for those watching, which makes it more likely to be engaging. Video has a better chance to go viral, it makes consumers trust the creator more, and it can be accessed from practically anywhere in our technology-driven world. So, is it any wonder more people than ever before are trying to get into video marketing?
If you need help with your video marketing efforts, simply contact us today!
What is Video Email Marketing?
When you incorporate video into email marketing, you have two mediums that exist in beautiful harmony to help you achieve marketing and sales goals and improve the user experience. Emails help video gain exposure, and video improves click-through rates on your emails and increases audience engagement.
4 Advantages of Using Video in Email Marketing
As you market a product, you want to show the target audience the benefits of your products and services. Before you begin transforming your email marketing, you want to understand the benefits of incorporating video.
- Improved Click-Through Rate. Regardless of the email type--newsletter, follow-up with prospects, automated alert--an email that mentions a video gets 3-4 times more click-throughs than ones that don't.
- Increased engagement. Getting people to your site is nice. Getting them to stay and engage in your content is better. Those who click through to a video spend substantially more time on your site than regular web traffic.
- Finding the right message. Tracking which videos your audience watches and which part they watch will help you deliver better content. If for example, the data shows your target audience prefers how-to videos instead of videos showing the benefits of your products and services, you know what types of videos to do to increase engagement.
- Better insight. The more data you collect, the more effective marketer you will become. Video allows you to collect better data. For example, if the only information you receive is who clicks through, then everyone who clicks through is equal. If, however, the data you receive identifies who clicks through, who clicks through and watches a video, and who clicks through and watches a video multiple times, then you have insight into who in your audience should be given the most attention.
Building an Audience through Email and Video
Before beginning or altering any marketing campaign or method, it is important to have specific, measurable goals, so you know whether the campaign wins or loses. Regardless of specific goals, all marketing campaigns carry the mandate to grow and build engagement with the target audience.
Here are five simple steps using video and email that will grow your audience.
- Compose an email that includes an attractive link to a video on your website
- Send the email to your email subscriber list
- Your audience shares the video or forwards the email
- New viewers discover your engaging content
- Your audience grows
These steps are, of course, contingent on a couple of very important factors. The most important consists of creating engaging, valuable content. If the content is not relevant and engaging to your target audience, then it will not matter how many people you send it to. The second important factor consists of having at least a small engaged email list to send it to, a list that has been created by offering valuable, engaging content to your target audience.
Identifying the Goal of Your Email
What exactly are you trying to do with the email? The most common purpose is to get people to visit your site, consume content, and share content with their sphere of influencers.
If your goal is expanding your audience and encouraging conversions, certain email and video tactics work better than others.
- Tell recipients there's a video. You can mention the video in the email subject line, in the text of the email, or with a video thumbnail that includes a play button. The easier it is for the recipient to see there's a video, the more likely they will engage and click through.
- Choose an enticing thumbnail from the video to show in the email. Friendly faces entice clicks.
- Link the thumbnail to a page on your website. You should have a play button on your thumbnail. The play button will get viewers to click. Clicking on the thumbnail should not play the video. Instead, it should link to a page on your website that contains the video. Unlike a video playing within an email (which can encounter all sorts of technical issues), a video playing on a company website is surrounded by complementary elements that strengthen the company's brand.
- Keep the number of calls-to-action limited. You have a high-quality, engaging video. Your goal is to get people to click on it and watch. Stay focused.
HARNESS is a team of digital marketing innovators with a unique focus on inbound marketing combined with video marketing. Whether as a complement to your content marketing team or as your entire marketing department, HARNESS consistently generates leads and drives sales through engaging marketing content.
Video Marketing: Top Reasons Why It's Highly Effective
It is projected that global Internet traffic from videos will make up a whopping 80% of all Internet traffic by 2019. Additionally, 78% of people watch videos online every week while 55% do daily (Source: Hubspot). These numbers illustrate the growing trend of video marketing and the importance of leveraging video in your business strategy.
You see, if you do not currently have a video marketing strategy in motion for your website and social media, you are missing a grand opportunity to reach and engage with your audience. Videos are incredibly effective in capturing attention, maintaining engagement, building relationships and getting viewers to take action. These are key metrics to any effective digital marketing plan.
In fact, here are the top six reasons why video marketing is so effective and the significance of honing this strategy in your inbound marketing.
#1 Consumers Vote Video over Text
Did you know that four times as many consumers prefer to watch a video about a product versus reading about it? Videos allow prospects to see your product in action, getting a full grasp on how it works, the features and its benefits. They can digest the information easier and faster when it is demonstrated through video.
Your customers are better positioned to make an informed decision quickly by watching your video than reading a blog article or social media post. Therefore, give the people what they want by implementing more product, how-tos and demonstration videos in your content marketing strategy.
#2 Moves Viewers to Action Quickly!
After watching a video, 64% of users are more likely to buy a product online. When optimized for conversions, videos are incredibly compelling in moving viewers to follow directions and take action quickly. You can bolster your lead generation and sales tremendously by giving a clear call-to-action in your videos that direct your audience to the proper link.
#3 Increases Brand Awareness
Video marketing is also effective in creating more awareness about your brand. From telling your story, sharing customer testimonials, to answering common questions relevant to your industry, your video strategy is the ideal tactic to increasing exposure and expanding your reach online.
With YouTube being the second largest search engine, building your channel with valuable video content is huge towards growing your presence, boosting visibility and getting in front of your target audience.
#4 Live-Streaming Videos Generate Tons of Engagement
People are spending three times longer watching live video on social media versus those that have been prerecorded. Live-streaming apps like Facebook Live, Instagram Stories and Periscope are generating crazy engagement on social media and brands and are taking full advantage.
The beauty of live-streaming is that it allows your followers to join you in real-time. You will quickly build the know, like and trust factor with your audience with these “at the moment” experiences. Whether you are hosting a live Q&A session, taking your followers behind-the-scenes to an event, or reporting breaking news, live-streaming is an excellent way to keep your social audience in the know and connected to your brand.
#5 Highlights Your Brand’s Personality and Culture
Videos have an amazing way of drawing your audience into your brand’s culture, giving them a taste of your personality and passion for what you do. It further humanizes your brand, making you relatable and reachable. People are craving authenticity and transparency, and your video strategy allows you to do both which significantly builds trust with your viewers.
#6 Positions You as an Expert
At the heart of inbound marketing likes sharing valuable content that solves problems, educates and inspires your intended audience. As a result, you will bolster your thought-leadership and position your brand as an authority in your industry. Your video marketing strategy serves as the perfect platform for showcasing your expertise, giving solid advice and tips, and addressing common issues that concern your audience. It is the best way to building credibility fast in your niche.
Video marketing is highly effective in boosting brand awareness, generating leads, increasing sales and connecting with your audience. With more consumers leveraging video, it is crucial to begin implementing a video marketing strategy to get in front of your audience. Doing so will yield positive returns for your business.
Much success.
Ready to use video to drive sales? Reach out to us here and discover how we can help you create a solid plan that gets your videos in front of your audience.
4 Strong Ways to Boost Exposure for Your Software Business
We can all agree that the inbound marketing way is the strategy to promoting your Software business online. From social media to SEO, visuals, email, and PPC, these are the best channels to attracting qualified prospects and customers to your brand. However, with so many pieces to the digital marketing puzzle, trying to “do it all” can prove to be an overwhelming, daunting task. Especially as a startup or one that is rebranding with a new product, the challenge of knowing which techniques to focus on to create fast results can be frustrating.
We have compiled four simple, yet highly effective, inbound ways to generate more exposure to your software business
By focusing on these tactics, you will increase awareness, traffic to your website, leads, and better your thought-leadership.
#1 Bolster Your Blogging Strategy
Developing a well-thought-out blogging strategy not only positions you as an expert in your software niche, but it draws needed exposure to your brand. You see, 71% of business bloggers say their blog increased visibility in their industries. Also, companies who blog regularly have 434% more indexed pages than companies who do not (Source: Search Engine Land). They also generate more leads and sales.
Use your blog to educate your audience on the problems you solve as a SaaS business. Consider the common issues and questions your market has and address them via your blog. Additionally, publish blog content that highlights the features, benefits, and usability of your software.
The key to generating results from your blogging is consistency and ensuring that your topics resonate with your target audience. Use an editorial calendar tool to help you plan, organize, and schedule your content. The calendar will help you maintain a regular blogging cadence to boost brand awareness.
#2 Tell Your List
According to Forbes, email subscribers are three times more likely to share your content via social media than visitors from other sources. Your email list is your biggest fan, and they are waiting to hear from you to engage with your brand. Even if you have a small list or you are just starting out, keep your subscribers in the know when it comes to the development and promotion of your SaaS. Share your blog content and ask them to share it with their social networks.
One way to get your list involved is to extend a 2-week free trial offer of your software, so prospects get a real-life experience with your product. Send them a survey at the end of their trial to get feedback and reviews. This information can help you tweak and modify, so it aligns with your audience’s interest.
Also, continue to grow your list. Building your leads list is the safety boat of your business. With proper nurturing tactics, it is where the bulk of your sales will generate from. With 59% of B2B marketers saying that email is the most effective channel for generating revenue, it is important that you leverage assets like your landing pages, web forms, and blog posts to keep growing your sales funnel.
#3 Facebook Retargeting
Follow your website visitors everywhere with retargeting. Also called remarketing, this paid strategy allows you to place a tracking code on your site which will set a tracking snippet (or cookie) on the browser of those who visit your site. This tactic will position your ad content to “follow” recent visitors everywhere they go online. Retargeting is extremely useful in keeping your software brand “top of mind” long after people leave your website.
The same concept applies to Facebook retargeting. You will create custom audiences and tailor marketing content unique to them for better engagement. It is highly cost-efficient for your brand and is one tactic that should constantly be running to maximize traffic to your site and produce fresh leads.
#4 Host Live Webinars
Webinars are solid platforms to share a wealth of knowledge in a presentation-style broadcast. You significantly improve your thought-leadership as you delve deeper into topics for more depth and understanding. In regards to marketing your product, webinars provide an opportunity to demonstrate, share the features and advantages, and allow participants to see your new software firsthand. Answer questions live to boost engagement and give the chance for viewers to purchase at the end with the benefits they will gain from acting now.
Finally, a webinar is a great method to growing your leads as each participant must register with the name and email info to join your broadcast. Simply promoting your upcoming webinar to your social channels and list can foster new leads every time.
Following the suggested inbound marketing tactics will increase brand awareness and exposure for your software business. Focus on getting good at implementing two of the tips, test your results, then ramp up from there. The key is to stay consistent in your efforts to measure what's working and resonating with your audience accurately.
Ready to leverage a professional team to help bolster your inbound marketing strategy for 2017? Use the form below to reach out to us. We are equipped to help you step up your marketing game!
Challenges and Opportunities Present in Software Business & SaaS Marketing
SaaS marketing is a much more challenging endeavor for a software business than for many other types of businesses for some reasons. First, and foremost, there is no tangible, physical product for a customer to look at, observe and 'test drive.' To get potential customers interested in a software product, a software business often has to give away a free trial of the product to reap potential future business through a process known as customer onboarding. Also, some other factors pose unique challenges to SaaS marketing for software businesses among them:
- Constantly changing software and product features
- Extremely short sales cycle (generally a year or less)
- Limited market for many types of software
- Concept of selling a service more than a product
SaaS Marketing and Customer Onboarding
For most businesses, giving away the full product, even for a limited duration, at no cost would be suicidal. However, for software businesses, giving away the product for free is one of the most widely used and accepted SaaS marketing strategies. There are many variations of these free product model strategies such as:
- Free 7-, 14-, 30-day trial periods
- Freemium model (money is charged for proprietary features, functionalities, and other goods.)
- Free Trial w/ a credit card
There are other strategies besides these three variations, but the one thing common to all of these strategies is the giving away a free software product version.
Once a potential customer has access to the product, the key role in SaaS marketing is to convert the customer using the product into a paying customer. On occasion, the conversion happens quickly if the customer sees real value in the product. However, many customers will delay making a decision until the end of the free trial period or just before the first charge on their attached credit card takes effect. Communication between the SaaS marketing personnel and the customer is critical during this time allowing the software business to determine what concern a customer has about the product, and what inducement could entice the customer to commit to purchasing it.
Extremely Short Sales Cycle
Whereas most businesses consider 12 to 24-month sales cycles to be typical or even accelerated, in the software business, many software products are obsolete even at the low-end of this range. SaaS marketing emphasizes rapid sales by finding customers who like the product and are willing to commit now. The fast, even transaction process of buying software is predicated on the inherent nature of the software industry. Software products evolve quickly over time, and it is not uncommon for six, eight or more versions of one software product to be released over the course of a year. A long and drawn-out sales process runs the risk of product obsolescence as demonstrated by the fact that the best, most efficient and comprehensive 2014 tax preparation software is useless in 2016. Therefore, SaaS marketing must focus on increased sales velocity to generate extra revenue and a larger customer base for a software business.
Limited Market for Certain Software Products
Smaller software businesses often focus on niche targets, either due to limited capital or to the nature of the software product itself. Marketing to this small market space allows a software business to specialize in one or two areas of expertise, recognize potential barriers to entry in this market and look for possible opportunities for future growth. SaaS marketing helps cultivate customer and business relationships allowing the software company to communicate with their clients and select a product roadmap that makes sense.
Concept of Selling a Service vs. a Product
The most critical concept to remember in a software business is that the vast majority of the business' revenue comes from its existing customer base. Under the tried-and-true 80%-20% rule, 80% of a business' future revenue will come from only 20% of its customer base. SaaS marketing plays a critical role in customer retention by emphasizing the concept as selling a service as well as a product. When creating a SaaS marketing plan, a software business should focus on the establishment of a fully integrated architecture combining a high-quality software product, with excellent service and savvy consumer marketing. When SaaS products of similar quality and price exist in a marketplace, promoting excellent customer service with even a personal touch or two helps a software business and its associated products stand out in a crowd. The primary goal is to a business is to have its SaaS speak for itself.
These methods will help software companies start or improve their marketing efforts to generate leads and build their branding. To gain further knowledge and expertise, contact us using the form below, and let us help you create a strong online presence.
Gym Marketing & Customer Retention: Keeping Members to Build Your Business
Gyms work to retain members, and fighting the "member churn" of people who come in and move out after a few weeks or months is a constant struggle. You work hard to develop a positive gym community and retain your members, but how do you grow your membership, and create a place where members are eager to evangelize on your behalf, to share that perfect spot to work out with their friends, co-workers, and family members? Is your gym membership retention where you want it?
Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Peter Bregman recounts a bad experience that he had with a gym membership from an expensive gym facility. He had a critical insight about his experience, and his gym treated him that applies to nearly any gym:
"My gym made a critical mistake — it treated me poorly. After that incident, my feelings about the gym changed dramatically." In a luxury business, it does not take much to make someone resent the fees he pays. Moreover, once that happens, the business dies.
It seems clear from Bregman that keeping a customer means building a positive relationship with him or her. While he does not name names in this article, you can bet that he told his friends and family about the outrageous way he felt that his gym treated him, thus poisoning any chance this gym had with attracting these people as new customers.
This is the essence of two suggestions given by Athletics Business in a recent article on gym membership retention. The key to retention is in two areas: 1. Being proactive in reaching out to members, and 2. Creating fun and focused spaces for social interaction.
Retaining Members Means: Reaching out to Members!
Keeping a gym member is easier than finding a new one. To make sure that you keep those members that you have, you must also ensure that you remain in contact with them. Be willing to reach out to members who have gone recently inactive. If you have not seen a member within 21 days, consider contacting them to find out what's been going on in their lives that kept them from working out recently. Knowing that an individual member matters on a personal level can help retain that customer.
Beyond this, be sure that you and your staff are always prepared to deal with problems customers have, and that you make yourselves available to your members. Particularly important in smaller gyms, showing that the owner and the staff use know the facilities and clearly care about their customers goes a long way to making gym members feel connected and relevant to the gym community.
For many people, a gym is a social meeting space, where friendships and relationships outside of work or family take place. Owners and gym employees should engage with whatever community they serve to encourage these social bonds. The simple action of front desk staff greeting members and, whenever possible, knowing them by name, can go a long way to making new members feel welcome, and to help integrate them into your gym's fitness society. Sharing pictures and videos of member's exercise successes -- a photo of that successfully completed early morning spin class, a video of that weightlifter setting a new PR, that picture of the Tuesday afternoon swim aerobics class members smiling and chatting with each other -- on an official Facebook page or Instagram allows your members to share their positive gym experiences with friends and family, and helps your community to grow outside the physical walls of your business.
Creating Active Social Communities Inside the Gym Matters!
Larger gyms may have dozens of themed classes that meet in a week, smaller gyms may have a few personal trainers that work with small groups, but whatever the setting and whatever the size, your gym can benefit from fun, interesting exercise groups for members to join. Not only will your members be building muscle, but they will also be building interpersonal relationships with other members and with the staff member in charge of the group. When exercise becomes a physically challenging social activity, it becomes natural for your customers to want to include their other friends in their early morning spin class or evening boot camp.
Even helping to organize informal groups not run by a personal trainer or other staff can help to foster this sense of community. People in a new gym in a new town will often be looking for a workout partner, someone they can meet with regularly to get encouragement and inspiration from, as well as someone to vent their workday frustrations to. Facilitating a workout partner search for new members, or going the extra step to introduce new members to other members with similar exercise interests can plug newcomers into your existing gym social structure, making them more likely to stay in the long run.
Successful gym marketing starts with establishing positive relationships with your members. The more they want to go to your gym, the more others will want to go with them. Let Harness help you create a supportive, reaffirming gym culture. Contact us today to find out more.
Gym Marketing: 8 Fun & Engaging Campaigns To Implement
In this gym marketing guide, you will learn about 8 fun and engaging gym marketing ideas to implement in your marketing strategy. From video marketing to tips on calls-to-action, we have tips on how to attract and retain new members.
Gym Marketing: How do you Attract New Members While Maintaining Current Members Engaged?
This is the number one challenge of any business. What is the secret to attracting prospective customers? The good news is that getting in front of your ideal customer has never been easier. However, you first need to determine which type of content your customers may be seeking and how they are searching for that content. In order to accomplish that, you start with a goal.
Just like when you are working out, you always need a goal. Are you looking to increase gym members? Develop a brand awareness? Or engage and retain your current customer? Setting goals for your campaign will help you define the scope of the campaign and the target audience.
With that understanding, check out these tips below and think about how they will help you to work toward your marketing goals. Need some ideas for goals? Some of the goals that we typically define with our gym clients include attracting new members, differentiating the gym from competitors (think about what makes your gym culture different), and current member retention.
Here are 8 marketing tips, including video marketing ideas, to help you get started:
1. Video: Workout of The Week
It is the perfect way to engage those customers who are looking for fun workouts. Start this campaign at the beginning of the year, when fitness resolutions are at their highest. Then give your audience a timeline and goals with each video to motivate them to keep watching. If this campaign is set up to attract new members to your gym, then the videos in this series should be hosted by one of your instructors in order to establish his or her credibility with the audience. By interacting with these videos, future customers get a preview of the level of competence of the coaching staff as well as the overall cultural tone of the gym.
2. Tips To Improve Fitness
We all had to start somewhere. One of the secrets to retaining members is focusing on education. Share the secret sauce. You gain nothing by keeping your vast fitness knowledge to yourself. The most valuable application of that knowledge is to freely share it with your members in order to ensure they get the most out of each visit.
For instance, create videos that demonstrate proper form for each exercise. Get new members jump started by offering tips and workout programs to keep them motivated. This campaign will aim to improve your check-ins, and grow your memberships.
3. Membership Sale and Specials
Run a promotion for the first 25 people that visit the gym that day. The promotion depends on your monthly membership cost and the special you decide to run. For example, you can run 40% off memberships for the first month, or a particular dollar discount on a membership, classes, or gear (if you sell gear in a house). Evaluate your membership cost and provide a unique offer that will get people in the door. While we understand that cutting into your already tight margins is a difficult decision, the goal of this is to create new members. Once you have them in your system, you can focus on retaining them at full price.
4. Free Technique Workshop Once a Month
Use your website to create a landing page where non-members can sign in with their email to gain access to a free video with one of your instructors teaching a particular exercise. While you at first at seems you are giving away free instruction, you have the visitors' contact information (especially email) to continue to nurture the relationship over time. It will provide you with a nice segmented list of customers who are interested in learning more.
These customers have entered the buyer's journey within your sales funnel. They are in the "Awareness Stage." You need to provide them with the answers to the questions that first brought them to your site. From there, you provide content that moves the buyer through each of the stages to the "Decision Stage" where they become a customer.
First, they have to feel like they fit in to your community. Second, they need to understand the type of workouts your members perform. Finally, they need to know what makes your gym different. This effort might seem like a lot of work for the gym, but it makes the difference between customers that are generally interested in fitness and wanting to sign up on the spot (by continuing these efforts you create advocates that send endless referrals your way). If they do not sign up right away, do not worry. You simply need to continue nurturing the relationship and stay consistent (without harassing or being annoying).
5. Offer a free class for new check-ins via Yelp or Facebook
According to Time.com, Americans check their mobile phones around 46 times per day, so why not take advantage of that and provide a free pass to new check-ins on Facebook and Yelp. Promoting this offer on Facebook via an ad that targets mobile users will work to drive them down the sales funnel, ideally converting to become a member. Most people feel motivated and excited to workout at the end of a fitness class, and will be ready to take action right then. Moreover, you are able to get all of the referral traffic from that user's network as her check-in will show to all of her friends and family.
6. Free guest passes for a Google or Yelp Review
Google reviews look good when people are searching for a gym, and they also help your business rank higher in local SEO! Even further, it influences the customer's decision to join. If you are short on Google or Yelp reviews, encourage your members to leave you reviews by providing them with a free 5-day guest pass for a friend. This campaign will attract new business to your gym by giving new customers a taste of the culture and expertise of your staff.
7. Feature a Gym member
Featuring a member who works hard to reach their goals will inspire the rest of your members to maintain their efforts and work toward their goals. A monthly or weekly member feature will serve as a motivation to keep guests checking into the gym. This campaign can also be featured on the website, and all social media profiles. Members will be encouraged, and happy to be part of a community that motivates them to do better.
Gym marketing strategies are not only about attracting new members but retaining current members as well. Customer retention is less expensive than acquiring new members, and more profitable over time.
8. FAQ and Unique Content Via Live Video Or Blog Post
Answer frequently asked questions on your website or through live streaming on your social media channels. Not only will these posts help with current members by reinforcing your expertise and educational culture, but it will also create a resource for your members to turn to for information. You can also create short videos answering these questions and post them on channels like Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram. This is especially ideal for gyms that have a lot of technical workouts and machines where precise movements are essential to complete the workout.
FAQs are not the only questions to answer. You can also do research on keywords and most searched questions online, and answer them via a blog posts and video to attract more traffic to your website. Members and non-members will have a resource of information that will help them take full advantage of the gym. This type of content also helps your website to rank for more keywords. Providing consistent, valuable content that is SEO-optimized will get more people to your site and in your doors.
Bonus Tips For Gym Marketing
- Do not forget to include a call-to-action at the end of these videos and blog posts to capture information and use it to build an email list. This email list can be used to send valuable content via email and transform non-members to members.
- An important to remember not try to sell, rather provide value, in order to help your audience reach their goals. This approach will set you apart from your competition who do nothing but promote.
Climbing Gym Marketing: Improving Your Inbound Marketing
One of the biggest problems in climbing gym marketing is that their social media efforts do not bring them the results they expect. They take beautiful, interesting pictures for Instagram and Pinterest, but don't get traffic to the gym. This does not mean that the pictures are bad, it just means you need to make minor tweaks to your posts. Here is how:
Write Good Descriptions
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but no one will find your picture without a description. If you are using social media solely for climbing gym marketing, your post needs to be keyword rich, but engaging. Don't just post a bunch of hashtags or keyword phrases, either. Write an interesting comment and include a strong call to action with every post.
Reply to Comments
It's not what you say, but how you say it. Once people find your pictures and comment on them, you need to take a moment to convince them to take the next step. This should be done naturally and uniquely. For example, don't write "Thanks for the like, visit us in person to see more." Instead, try something more personal, "Tammy, I'm glad you like the technique we are using. If you contact us, we can show you how to do it at the gym."
Include Links
Not everyone will want to pick up a phone to contact you. If you have a website, take advantage of it. Include a link to every picture. This will allow people to easily gather more information about you as a climbing gym, making them more prone to buy.
While taking one-of-a-kind photos or videos for social media is a great first step, it takes an effort to make the perfect inbound marketing campaign. To learn more techniques that can help your climbing gym grow, contact us today.
Facebook Offers Ad Changes
Facebook recently revamped its “Offers’ program, now allowing retailers to offer coupons for discounts that are redeemable in-store or online for e-commerce platforms such as Shopify. Originally launched in 2012, Offers hasn’t had the success that Facebook originally intended. That is especially true when compared to its mobile ad platform that accounts for 84% of the organization’s revenue.
So what Do Facebook Offers Ad Changes Mean To Marketers?
Well, everyone obviously loves to find a bargain, and as advertisers do more to stand out they use discounts and promotions to attract new customers. Further, the end-user wants to be able to easily redeem these offers anywhere, and this new addition to the Offers program makes that easier for them to do so.
As mentioned above, there are two types of offers (in-store and online), which can be shared in two ways: either promoted with an ad or organically with a post on the retailer’s Facebook page. Ads will appear in the Facebook feed by making use of the social networks targeting tools pushing the offer to those most likely to purchase.
Do the new Offers additions work?
While we need more data to determine the true viability of these ads, preliminary information points toward success. Testing the revamped ads, online retailer Maurices saw a 31% increase in return on advertising spend. By promoting a $15 discount, the retailer was able to capture a wider audience and turn those users into customers.
Facebook is also offering a new, dedicated offers tab that allows users to view current and past offers in a single location on the business page. Users can also access all of the offers that they have claimed by viewing their bookmarked offers. Additionally, Facebook will serve helpful notifications regarding offers that have been claimed but not yet redeemed by the user in order to push them further toward making the purchase.
In the future, Facebook will allow discrete codes for different users or groups so that a business can segment its followers. For instance, if a certain group is more likely to purchase high ticket items then the retailer would interact with them different regarding offers. The new Offers are currently available.
Check it out and let us know what you think!