As a gym owner, you know you should be crafting clever offers and writing compelling online ads that entice prospects to act. But that’s easier said than done. Enter LASSO: A lead and sales system optimization company that does the hard work for you.
Unlike other programs that hand you generic scripts and marketing systems to implement yourself, LASSO works one-on-one with each individual gym owner. Together, you come up with an offer that gets put into action via ads. The ultimate goal is bringing in high-paying members, increasing ARM (Average Revenue per Member) and overall revenue.
As the leads start coming in, they’re easily populated right into the PushPress Grow software and sent down the proper funnels. Ultimately, the whole system is aimed at turning the lead into a paying member of your gym.
ICYMI: Last January, PushPress teamed up with LASSO and launched our first-ever MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) challenge.
As a result, gym owner Ibrahim Funmilayo, had 36 new high paying clients. And those clients are paying $470 a month. Chicago gym owner Matt Holden also quickly picked up 44 new members.
After the challenge, it became pretty clear: PushPress + LASSO = Results.
Because inquiring gym owners wanted to know, we dug deeper into what really goes into crafting a great offer that works. We sat down with LASSO owners Blake Ruff and Sherman Merricks to find out about the process. Here’s what we found out about formulating winning offers that don’t just generate leads, but high-paying members too.
Three Steps To Crafting An Offer That Delivers:
1. Assess The Current Price Point.
First, Ruff and Merricks say it’s important to learn about a gym’s price point. They start with asking how much a gym is charging their members.
Why? Because their system simply won’t work for discount gyms.
“If a gym’s prices are too low then this won’t work for them, because then they’re going to be on this hamster wheel of, ‘Oh, we’re signing up a lot of people but we’re still not making any money,’” Merricks explained.
“We don’t really work with any gyms who do free trials or free weeks, because people looking for free aren’t going to go from free to $200 to $300 a month,” Ruff added.
With this in mind, sometimes the first step ends up being working with gyms to increase their price point. When this isn’t possible, LASSO has been known to turn down gyms as clients, simply because their offers aren’t going to help that particular gym.
As a rule of thumb, $200 per month tends to be the minimum Merricks and Ruff suggest gym owners advertise in an offer.
“I would much rather sign up three clients per month that all pay me $1,000 than nine people that pay me $133 per month,” Merricks explained. “But so many people always get caught up in, ‘How many members do you have?’ It doesn’t matter how many members you have if they all pay $95 a month.”
He added, “We’re not one of those plug-and-play marketing companies. Ours is going to be more personalized based on that gym, after we get to know them.”
And on the client end, the offers tend to be geared toward people looking for more “customized, personalized programs,” Merricks explained. The people who are willing to spend a little bit more money.
2. Consider The Unique Gym.
Once everyone agrees on a reasonable price point that helps all parties reach their goals, Merricks and Ruff consider other aspects of the gym. They start with the gym’s onboarding program: Are new members onboarded in a group or via one-on-one personal training?
Their goal is to understand the specific details of each gym they work with, as opposed to trying to change it into something it’s not.
“Because what we don’t want to do is come in and sort of flip their ship upside down,” Merricks explained.
Instead, they work with what the gym is currently doing. Then together, they craft an enticing offer that will capture the right members for that gym.
3. Make A Clear, Targeted Offer.
One of the biggest problems Ruff and Merricks see with small gym owners is that they don’t make offers at all in their ads. They simply bring prospects in to tour the gym, hoping the person will sign up at the end.
“No one wants to come in and look at a class for no reason, so if you don’t have an offer it will fall on deaf ears, because people are like, ‘OK, I have seen enough gyms,’” Merricks said.
“Folks need to know exactly what they’re coming in for,” he added.
A clear, targeted offer might advertise something like a 90-day program for the 40-plus crowd. It will target those looking to lose weight, gain strength and improve bone density.
“So when you write the copy, it’s geared toward that age group and demographic,” Ruff said.
Along the same lines, it’s especially important to know exactly who your offer is targeting. An example would be the new mom looking to get back into fitness. This is important because the ad then speaks to the person’s specific problem, Ruff said.
“Hey, we know what it’s like to have a baby and then feel self-conscious about getting back into fitness,” Ruff explained of what that possible copy could look like. The overarching point is to speak to real people with real problems, then to offer a solution.
“They have to read it and think, ‘They’re speaking to me,’” Ruff added.
People are visual, Ruff and Merricks explained, so the headline and image needs to speak directly to the problem and the solution.
“Those two things alone are probably the most important thing,” Ruff said.
Pro Tip: Book a demo today to find out how PushPress Grow can automate your lead follow-up!
Measuring Success: The LASSO Growth Scorecard
Once the ad is up and running, Merricks and Ruff don’t stop there. They continue to work with each gym owner to improve the offer and ads, if needed.
One effective tool they use for this is a growth scorecard. The scorecard tracks the number of leads generated, appointments (booked and showed), new clients, new monthly revenue and lost clients. This then allows them to dissect what’s working and what’s not.
“We look at the overall marketing cycle and system and can really diagnose, ‘Hey it’s nothing to do with the leads. You just can’t sell.’ The further down the chain, the easier the problem is,” Ruff said.
Again, the ultimate goal is to help the gym owner maximize what really matters: Not leads, but business revenue and profitability.
“We truly don’t care about the number of leads. We care about sign-ups,” Ruff said.
And it all starts with a well-crafted offer.
