Drive your advertising dollar further
Rather than throwing money at the situation, you’re better off investing time in developing creative and varied ways to promote your CEC programs and events. Many providers and suppliers in the fitness industry operate under the false assumption that when promoting their courses or products, bigger and bolder is better. For Tarek Chouja, who is Co-Founder and Co-Director of The Australian Institute of Kettlebells (AIK) alongside Dan Henderson, what matters most is that your advertisements are genuine. One of the biggest mistakes providers can make, and one that Chouja admits to having made himself in the past, is that they talk only about themselves, using their advertisements to simply list the elements of their course. “You need to use your advertisements to communicate your values and explain the benefits participants will take from your course,” he says. This doesn’t mean labelling yourself as the best provider of x or y, it requires a more subtle approach. Chouja says you have to prove your worth and expertise and that comes from giving value in your marketing message. “Essentially you have to give to get back.”
A key lesson that AIK have learnt over the years is that you need to constantly experiment with the way you promote yourself. After trial and error, AIK have settled on a mix of paid and unpaid advertising. Even though time is money, the reason they don’t just produce simple branding advertisements is that ultimately, it won’t set them apart. What has garnered the most interest and traction for AIK have been their videos, which show snippets of their workshops and are posted on their website and Facebook page. Having a regular newsletter linked to their website is another way they communicate with past and potential participants in a way that isn’t heavily sales driven.
If you want to get value from your advertising dollar or value from your time, you need to know that the way you’re communicating is effective. This comes from having metrics in place to track whether your efforts are converting into sales.
There’s no point in investing time and money in promotions that will fall on deaf ears. Here are five tips for effective advertising.
- Be consistent with your marketing approach. You can change the way you communicate but not what you stand for.
- Don’t stick to one style of promotion; explore a wide variety of options.
- Flesh out your values and vision and make that prominent in your marketing.
- Be creative and don’t be afraid to approach your marketing differently to others in the industry.
- Constantly measure and test the effectiveness of your promotions.
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