Thursday, July 30, 2009

Casey Conrad's Visit to Galaxy Fitness

Long time club owner/operator, Denny Doyle, from Greensburg, PA opened a new club about 15 minutes from his first one, Westmorland Athletic Club. WAC is a full service club where his new one, Galaxy Fitness, is a low price model. Interesting, as he is not the first club operator who is opening a low cost box to diversify and/or to beat a potential competitor to the market place. Difference is that his model is more of a hybrid with the low cost for fitness only and then an add-on for group x. This is becoming a common approach. Also, he has a Parisi Speed School in the facility. This is a very interesting angle to reach kids and even the family market. The club conversion from a cinema is cool.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Casey visits Precision Fitness

The first club I visited was Precision Fitness in PA. Smaller town, probably 10,000 square feet, owned by a chiropractor and the GM is an Exercise Physiologist. The layout of the club is interesting, as you'll see, and their facility is amazingly clean--actually looks brand new after 4 years.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Caseys VisitOurClub.com discovery adventure begins!

As many of you know, I have planned a near cross country trip to visit health clubs to discover what they are doing that gives them a competitive advantage. My goal is to blog the cool and unique things I see along the way. I started my journey today and this video gives you a quick introduction to me and my travel companion. :)

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Casey Conrad talks health club eMarketing at FitLife Convention

This past weekend I was at the FitLife Convention in Bend, OR. Health clubs from OR, WA, WY, MT and ID were there. I gave a seminar on eMarketing emphasizing that clubs need to incorporate capture mechanisms into every marketing effort made. Whether someone finds you through the Internet or they get to your website through a more traditional medium your primary goal is to engage them and find ways to capture their contact information. This allows you to turn them from a visitor into a prospect.

If you want to see the free replay of a webinar I recently gave on eMarketing go to:

http://www.smartclubmarketing.com/web-leads-into-sales/

Find more ways to leverage the Internet and your marketing will become more effective and less costly!

Monday, July 13, 2009

Casey Conrad: How to make club marketing cool!

I recently bought a pair of really cool shoes called Five Fingers. You wouldn't believe the response I've gotten to these. Watch this video and ask yourself what would happen if you could create raving fans like this.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Casey Conrad; The "halo effect" in health club marketing

I listened to a speaker this week talking about human behavior and the "halo effect." Listen to how this concept applies to marketing.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Casey Conrad discusses how club operators should "always being marketing"

I was on a conference call with a colleague today. He's not in the club business but is in the "health and fitness" sector. He told me that last week he was flying home from giving a seminar (that hadn't been as profitable as he hoped)and he began casually conversing with a guy next to him. By the end of the flight he had sold the guy on an extremely profitable training program. Morale of the story is that in business you should always "be on," always "be marketing" because you never know when an opportunity will present itself.

When speaking at local seminars and conventions I often discuss being a "brand champion," and remark at how few of the attendees wear a company shirt to such events. The response (excuse) I usually get is "I'm not working today and am sick of wearing the club shirt."

My reply to that is lost opportunity because, as this story shows, you NEVER know when you are going to meet someone, somewhere that will lead to future business.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Casey Conrad tells "the word on the street" for club marketing

With the new eMarketing products that Smart Club Marketing is providing health clubs I have been speaking with quite a few club operators from around the US in the past couple of months. Two days ago I was on the line with a multi-club operator and his statement has still been stuck in my head because it's not the first time I've heard it recently: "I simply have stopped most traditional marketing efforts because they weren't giving me any results. Instead, I have our sales teams focus largely on guerrilla marketing while my efforts are on automating the eLeads from our website that are increasing in numbers."

Some club operators are still spending money on mediums that aren't giving an ROI but are doing so only becuase they feel they don't know what else to do and "I've got to do something; at least I know I'm out there." I say that is denial in the worst sense of the word!

The way people are buying has changed and therefore the way we market must change with the times.

If a medium isn't at least paying for itself STOP it. Try something new but don't throw good money after bad mediums just to do "something."

Start using more Internet mediums; opt-in's, auto responders, blogging, social networking, local SEO (search engine optimization), etc.

Casey Conrad

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Casey Conrad shows a health club feature that can be used in marketing and sales

A couple of weeks ago I was at a friend's club in NY and saw first hand how their Cardio Cinema provides a unique marketing and selling advantage. The Cardio Cinema is a completely dark room that plays actual movies. This allows members to dis-associate from the fact they are exercising. Imagine using the flip video (like I'm using) to show people how cool it can be to exercise while watching a movie. Check the short clip out. And, even if you don't have a cinema take the concept and apply it to what your club can do to help people make exercising more fun. Do that and you'll sell more memberships!