In January of 2019 I was asked to create a digital marketing strategy for a CrossFit gym in Boise.
Over the next few months I increased their Instagram following by 9000 followers, I sent 5000+ qualified website visitors to their landing page, doubled their search impressions from an SEO strategy and increased their ranking for their Google My Business (Google maps ranking).
CrossFit marketing is easy since a passionate, dedicated and identifiable community already exists. The core challenge is differentiating a gym, not getting in front of the right people.
The combination of the above CrossFit digital marketing strategies can have a HUGE impact on a CrossFit gyms memberships and brand perception in the community.
This post documents the strategy I developed for the client and is a tutorial for others to imitate. Below are four CrossFit marketing strategies to help improve your membership growth. These CrossFit marketing ideas should work for any gym, of any size.
…
I’m creating an online course that will teach you digital marketing for CrossFit gyms. Use the form below to get notified when it becomes available.
…
CrossFit Facebook Ads: How to Target People Who Have an Interst in CrossFit On Facebook
Subscribe to my YouTube channel – https://www.youtube.com/user/CodeOffplanet/?sub_confirmation=1
There are two ways to do paid advertising on Facebook, boosted posts and targeted ads through ad manager.
For my client we only used targeted ads because they were looking for leads and this tactic would have the greatest impact in relation to their goal. Our CrossFit marketing plan focused around using Facebook display ads and Google My Business to drive membership growth.
I’d like to note now that advertising on Instagram in ran through the backend of Facebook. For simplicity purposes, the process of advertising on either platform is almost entirely the same for CrossFit advertising.
The main thing we need to do to have success with CrossFit facebook ads is to target an audience that is interested in CrossFit.
Below is a screenshot of these CrossFit target audience settings on Facebook ads manager.
The settings above mean that we are only going to market to people who have a CrossFit interest who live in Boise.
The audience size is 75K. That means there are 75K people who have an interest in CrossFit in the Boise area.
For the ads we sent them to the landing page and set up goal tracking on the landing page through their Google Analytics so we could record how successful these ads were for the client.
We refreshed these ads monthly to keep the content fresh and put an ad budget of $750 a month.
Our average CPC was about $0.34.
For the ads we talked about location, the culture of the gym and the accomplishments of the coaches at the gym.
…
Get a FREE digital marketing action plan for your CrossFit gym with the form below.
Instagram Marketing for CrossFit
To have success on Instagram as a CrossFit gym requires consistency and engaging with the community. CrossFit gym marketing is most effective when you make digital properties that make people feel like they are apart of something bigger than they are alone. CrossFit social media marketing is a great way to accomplish this community building.
For our client we created a content library, content schedule and engagement strategy.
For all posts we had a call to action to visit the link in bio so that we would drive users to the website. I also inclined the client to post as much as possible on Instagram stories because they create the most media impressions.
As for the content that works best, video take the crown. For your Instagram posts use videos in a square format showing individuals doing cool parts of your workout or heavy lifts.
These have been the most successful for us when marketing for CrossFit.
We then set up an auto posting software called Planoly that would allow my client to sit down for an hour once a month and schedule all posts for the month.
Once I had automated the posting and had the client on a defined schedule I then set up an engagement software for them that would engage with people in their geography that have an interested in fitness. **Quick note – Engagement softwares no longer work as of June 3 2019. We have to do this manually now.**
Through the combination of posting on a schedule and engaging regularly we grew their Instagram by 9K followers in just four months. Below is their follower growth graph.
These were not fake accounts, these are real people who live in the Boise area and who have since signed up at the gym.
Website SEO for CrossFit
The world over complicates SEO, especially CrossFit SEO.
SEO is putting the right keywords on the page, telling Google what is on the page, and getting links back to that page.
If someone is trying to sell you differently, they are snake oil salesmen. With that said, SEO is just one small component of marketing a CrossFit gym. Combining SEO and Facebook ads will be the most effective way to grow your business.
To put the right keywords on our clients site we looked up all the keywords related to “boise” and “crossfit”.
We did this using a paid tool called Semrush. Here is a screenshot of a cross section of keywords.
We aggregated the right keywords and then put them strategically on the site.
Most crossfit keywords are related to geograpy.
Below is an example of boise related CrossFit keywords:
crossfit boise
crossfit in boise
crossfit gyms in boise
crossfit gyms boise id
To tell Google what is on the page we used Yoast premium to change the meta description.
We then used Google Search Console to index to site – this is like telling Google to look at what we’ve done.
We then built links to the clients website using business directory websites.
Google My Business (Google Maps SEO) for CrossFit
People are starting to use Google Maps more and more as a way to find local businesses.
To get a listing on Google Maps you have to use Google My Business.
Winning on Google My Business is very similar to SEO – you need to have the right keywords in the description of your business, have a complete profile and get reviews.
Reviews are critical. Do not pay for reviews. Ask your current clients or people you trust IN YOUR AREA to review your business.
Reviews from outside your area will be flagged by Google as spam and will hurt your rankings.
These changes increased their map views dramatically.
Conclusion
Digital marketing is not a magic bullet. To make digital marketing work for your CrossFit gym you need to be dedicated to the process. To learn more about the process head over to my agency’s website Schneider Media.
My agency Schneider Media continues to have this client on a retainer where we manage the client’s paid ads, content development and growth.
…
