Boot Camp Marketing Expert Sam Bakhtiar
Boot camps are the latest rage among exercise enthusiasts and boot camp marketingstrategies are the way to get them into a session with a proven effective boot camp trainer. Clients will flock to the boot camp if the right strategies are used and more will join once these clients are their results. Names are important. Remembering the names of your clients will help them feel like they are important to the work out and its process. Repeating the name three times right in a row as you push them in their work out will help the name stick in the mind of the trainer. A rhyme can also be associated with the client to help further solidify the name mentally. Clients will remember this and tell their friends. Word of mouth is the most effective form of boot camp marketing.
To get clients to refer their friends, a sound marketing strategy would be to run the boot camp in a professional manner. This means if people are paying for the service the service should be provided on time. Showing up late tells the clients that a boot camp trainer is unreliable and could possibly not be worth the money. Never show up late. In this same vein, it isn’t a good idea to dress as if you were in the military, unless that is the theme of the boot camp. People are trying to lose weight and get themselves fit, they aren’t training to become part of the French Foreign Legion.
Referrals are another great boot camp marketing strategy. Clients can bring in their friends with a half off discount for a month of boot camp. This will make the boot camp more beneficial for the trainer and the clients. In another respect, testimonials can make for an inspiring video for any visitors to the previously mentioned simple and inexpensive website. A frame of reference, a video may require as much as 60 minutes of footage to put together a five minute video. A survey can also be put together for clients to record their reactions to the boot camp training as well as their own suggestions for the boot camp. In class testimonials can also be effective when you have clients who have been doing the boot camp longer telling those who have just started the results they have been receiving from the work outs.
Keep in mind however, the clients should never be allowed to correct the boot camp trainer. If that was the case, it would cease to be a boot camp and be classed as a summer camp. The clients are there to be pushed to their limits and if they don’t like something they should be ushered through it anyway. Clients will contribute to the boot camp marketing by saying the trainer is a tough instructor and one to listen to in the future especially when they are training for a specific amount of time per exercise instead of a specific amount of repetitions. This also prevents clients from being done before others and leaving them doing nothing and losing their momentum. It also encourages people to come to watch before they start the program.
Workouts should be planned ahead of time. There should never be a time when people are waiting for the trainer to tell them the next exercise. The trainer should be prepared at least two exercises in advance. This also lends itself to a trainer not trying to force the group into doing an exercise that simply isn’t practical. Having a theme for the workouts helps keep the routine going and works almost as a mnemonic device for the trainer to remember what exercises are next. Having a theme like “endurance” can keep the trainer in the mindset of endurance exercises and keep them moving towards endurance exercises.
When it comes to money, keep things simple. Using an auto payment system where payments are automatically drawn without worrying about clients being late in payment. This also means keeping a website simple. It is counter intuitive to spend thousands of dollars on a website when a boot camp training session might only draw in as much as the site. If the clients are only raking in enough money to cover the costs of the site, the site costs too much. Everyone should have a website, but there are many inexpensive website creations services that will suit the needs of a marketing site.
Setting goals is a great marketing strategy. Clients are there to cut weight and boot camp trainers are there to help them. Setting a goal for the short term and the long term can help keep the motivation up. If a client can meet their short term goals, then they are more likely to keep going on to meet their longer term goals. Taking before photos when a client starts gives them a starting point. Taking photos every month of the client can give them a frame of reference when it comes to progression. This is also useful when people are entering the boot camp at different times. Also avoid having a beginning and end date for the boot camp. This stops potential new joiners from not quitting before they start.
Free marketing sites exist that can reach millions of customers. Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist and LinkedIn are three popular sites to advertise a boot camp program on. These sites allow for almost limitless potential when it comes to the conveyance of information. Having regular updates on these sites also improves the visibility of the boot camp. Asking clients to connect to the boot camp marketing pages will increase the visibility of the page. Putting this site on a card or brochure to pass around at public events is also helpful. A gift card can also be helpful as a discount card. This makes the entire experience of client referrals more fun. The best part of boot camp marketing is to simply make it fun for those who are potential customers.