8 Holiday Marketing Ideas for Your Gym

‘Tis the season for holiday marketing! When the fall and winter holidays arrive, make sure your gym is top of mind for all things festive. With Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Christmas (and more!) arriving soon, it’s time to think about your holiday marketing strategy!

From gift-giving to events, we’re here to help make sure your gym takes holiday marketing to a whole new level. Here’s a list of some of the ways your gym can celebrate the holidays with high attendance:

1. Offer Holiday Deals

The holidays are a great time to think about the gift-givers in the crowd! Offering a discount will get people thinking about your gym as the perfect gift. Could you offer a limited time only holiday membership price? Or bring a friend promo throughout the season? Do you sell gift cards that you can promote?

As an aside, a discount could also entice those people who are off work enjoying a little free time to come in and check out your gym. Along with gift-giving, you might consider a group personal training discount throughout the holidays. This will give people with time off during the day a chance to try out what you do best.

Holiday marketing tip? Be sure to use fun slogans and holiday lingo to really get into the spirit. Something like ‘give the gift of the gym this season’ will communicate your meaning clearly and get you in the holiday marketing mood.

2. Participate in Black Friday

Black Friday is a holiday created around the idea of discounts, sales and promotions—so get in on the fun! The holiday falls on November 29th this year, so be ready to tackle it with a day full day of promotions and offers.

Black Friday is unique in that it was built around getting people excited about starting their Christmas shopping! Be creative and try something new here. How about offering a deal where a $100 gift certificate purchase actually gets you $120 in value? Or an offer where a one-year membership allows fourteen months of access? More for less is a great holiday marketing strategy!

Maybe you want to come up with a holiday marketing promo dedicated specifically to this holiday. Because it’s one day only, you could try having a deal-an-hour sale! This works exactly how it sounds: schedule different promotions for each hour of the day you’re open to help create a sense of urgency and excitement. This can be a fun and unique way to get your clients in the mood to shop!

Because Black Friday is one-of-a-kind, there are no holiday marketing rules to follow. Put on your thinking cap here for an original way to take your holiday marketing up a notch!

3. Target Corporate Clients

The holidays are a great time of year to incorporate the corporate market into your marketing plan. At this time of year, companies often recognize employee loyalty, host corporate events, and plan team-building experiences to keep their staff motivated.

How can you target the corporate market with your holiday marketing? By putting together a team-building experience or corporate event that you could pitch to local businesses. How about a group fitness class to help combat work frustration? Or a company yoga session to get de-stressed?

The corporate world knows that getting a team together to experience something outside work is a great way to promote health and wellness, not to mention boost company morale! Position it as a unique and fun way to bond with staff while encouraging a healthy lifestyle.

Know a company hosting a holiday party? Offer up some free merch as prizes! You could donate some water bottles, hoodies, gym bags or even a membership as a grand prize. This is the type of holiday marketing that may not bring you instant revenue, but it will get your name out there by exposing you to a whole new community.

4. Support a Charitable Cause

The holiday season is a time when many people up their charity donation game! From monetary donations to a vast array of endeavors, this is a time of year when you can effectively incorporate a charitable cause into your marketing plan.

Is there a charity you’re passionate about? Do you already support a great cause? Consider hosting a charity event around helping others to get your community involved and your name out there!

Is there a charity in your neighborhood that helps out the homeless? Consider hosting a coat drive where people can drop off unwanted outerwear to your gym for donation. Or, you could ask your members and your community to contribute to a food drive. You could even offer a prize to the largest donation in weight for extra incentive!

There are many different ways to incorporate a great cause into your holiday marketing, so pick the one that works for you.

Helping others make people feel good—and getting in on your charity work will have others feeling good about you and your business.

Holiday marketing tip: reach possible donors and volunteers by incorporating automated marketing into your strategy. WellnessLiving’s all-in-one gym management software lets you reach your members via email or SMS, making it easy to get the word out there!

5. Give the Gift of Education

Offering your clients something that will help them get healthy (for free) is also an important part of growing your community and could be a great addition to your holiday marketing strategy.

You don’t have to get fancy here, it can be as easy as posting a blog on a holiday-related topic. Or how about a piece covering fitness tips to stay on track during the season? Or top gifts for the gym-goer in your life? Or even gratitude strategies to give thanks?

Free advice, information and industry insight is what encourages people to follow your accounts and check in to see what else you have to offer.

It’s a part of your holiday marketing that doesn’t sell anything directly, but can grow your brand awareness and your community—translating to the inevitable increase of people through your doors.

6. Go with a Themed Promo

The holidays really let you have fun with a broad range of themed promos. You could host unique, themed classes like: a turkey trot running clinic for Thanksgiving, a dress-up spin class for Halloween, a Zumba class with Christmas music—you get the idea! Get into the spirit by turning a regular class into holiday-themed fun!

Need another idea? Consider a holiday bet challenge. This one could be great for the New Year! Here’s how it works: you challenge your clients to set a goal, give them a set timeline, have everyone pay an entry fee and decide on the winning criteria. (Each entrant “bets” they can achieve their goal to win the competition.) Based on your pre-determined criteria, the one closest to achieving their goal wins half the entry money as the prize.

This type of promotion can really generate a lot of buzz around your studio! You could even approach a local newspaper or radio station to try and gain extra attention for your promotion. Have fun with this one—it’s a great way to make the most of your holiday marketing.

7. Host Holiday Events

The holiday season inspires people to get together and reconnect, and your holiday marketing should embrace that!

You might consider hosting a client appreciation event to show your members how much their support means to you. Why not host an afternoon with refreshments where you just mingle and enjoy each other’s company?

Embrace the holiday spirit of giving and receiving to really engage with your clients, show that you appreciate their support and distinguish yourself from your competition.

Holiday marketing tip: not all marketing means that you need to try and sell something in that moment. Sometimes marketing is about developing relationships and showing your clients that you recognize their loyalty.

The best part of this strategy? By not trying too hard to sell, sometimes that’s the way you sell the most!

8. Sell Merchandise

For gift-giving, cooler temps, or just because: the holiday season is the perfect time of year to push your merchandise sales.

Can you create a dedicated holiday line? Think slogans like ‘Merry Liftmas’ or ‘Feast Mode,’ to really get festive!) Short on inspiration? No problem, sites like Pinterest are full of ideas so have fun with one!

Holiday marketing tip: Make your slogans funny and appropriate, always including your logo somewhere visible. Why is this important? Well, when people see and love your merch, you want them to know where they can get it!

Having people walk around with cleverly-themed logo’d merchandise will serve as free advertising, while building your brand and making people smile. Isn’t that what the holiday season is all about?

Ready to Get Your Holiday Marketing Started?

The holidays are just around the corner, so now’s the time to start brainstorming and planning your holiday marketing approach. You don’t have celebrate every single holiday, so choose the holidays that resonates the most to you and your community, and let the fun begin!

Ready to approach holiday marketing for your gym like a pro? Launch promos, attract corporate clients, and get in on the fun, all with a killer holiday marketing plan. And with a little help from WellnessLiving’s all-in-one management software, you can automate your marketing to make it a breeze! Why not give yourself the gift of a user-friendly, all-in-one business management software that won’t break the bank this season? Book your free, no-commitment demo with WellnessLiving today!