“Facebook ads is dead!”
…or at the very least has become much harder to use.
Thousands of clubs rely on paid social media to reach the members in their area and Facebook and Instagram are at the core of that plan.
Since Facebook stopped tracking Apple users (a lot of them use Facebook), it has made it extremely difficult for businesses with smaller advertising budgets to track which of their ads are actually working. Simply too many sales and potential customers aren’t being tracked, so many gyms have no idea where their money is going.
But hopefully, this is the shake up that is needed for your business to not rely on a single platform to gain your members.
It’s never been more important to diversify how you secure new members, because as we’ve seen, if your preferred platform changes how they do things…then it can shake your business to the core.
And with that, let’s look at some alternatives to Facebook ads that can help you discover an entirely new audience, using all the same resources you have right now!
CLICK ANY OF THESE TO SKIP AHEAD…
TikTok / TikTok Ads
TikTok has quickly developed from something that “just the kids” are using, to one of the most popular social medias in use right now.
If you were under any impression that TikTok is nothing compared to Facebook, then I have news for you.
In 2021, these were the user numbers globally for TikTok and Facebook:
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TikTok: 700 Million
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Facebook: 2.9 Billion
Tik Tok has already amassed a quarter of Facebook’s numbers and it continues to grow, while Facebook is reporting losses for the first time in its history.
While TikTok’s age demographic is much younger than Facebook, it still has a proportional size of users who are entirely old enough to sell your gym too.
In 2020, a full TikTok user review in the UK revealed that:
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24% of TikTok users were aged between 15 and 25 years old
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9% of TikTok users were aged between 36 and 45 years old
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6% of TikTok users were aged between 46 to 55 years old
TikTok’s younger audience makes it the perfect platform to gain access to an entire age group which left Facebook a long time ago (or were born too late to even sign up to it – just to make you feel old).
And couple that with an ads platform which offers accurate targeting and allows you to actually crack your purchases across all devices – it’s the perfect next home if you want to expand your social media offering.
Linkedin Advertising
Linkedin has a reputation as a solely business social media. But it’s a ripe environment for you to start selling to new customers on a social media platform where the competition for health clubs is really low.
We’ve already put in a lot of research with our very own Linkedin Ads, so you can get a campaign that’s ready to go by clicking here.
But in short, Linkedin is Facebook, but 10 years ago.
More active users, with cheaper ad costs and a larger reach to an audience who are working and have money to spend.
It’s a dream come true for anyone looking for a Facebook alternative that targets a working age audience who are eager to purchase in your area.
Google Ads
Google Ads differs from other social media ads because it works completely on search terms and not just on targeting your interests.
So if someone is searching for something on Google, all a Google ad allows you to do is simply appear at the very top of the first search.
This is a great hack if you want to quickly shoot up for Google searches for gyms in your area, as the searches for local gyms are usually very simple in our experience.
Just a few examples include:
“Gym in x”
“Best gym in x”
“Cheapest gym in x”
So hop on Google Ads and set a small budget to start hacking your way to the top of Google searches for your area. You’d be surprised how few businesses use this as technique.
Google My Business
Is your gym listed on Google Business?
Then you’re missing out on an instant SEO boost to get you to the top of Google search results.
Whenever you Google a business you’ve likely seen the listing at the right of the page, giving you directions and quick ways to get in touch with them.
Google My Business allows you to enter this information directly into Google, which is great for 2 reasons:
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It helps you show up on Google maps and more Google searches.
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It instantly tells Google what your business is, so they can deliver you straight to the top of searches.
So take out the chance of Google’s robots trying to decipher what your gym is by your website alone, by directly inputting your business straight into their search engine.
Local Area Reddits
Message boards are a great way to get in touch with your local community, and especially if you live in a larger town or city, then you’ll easily find communities on sites like Reddit very easily.
For anyone who has never used Reddit, it’s the largest website in the world and is made up of small communities known as subreddits. Everything from “fishing” to “cute pictures of owls” has its own community, which you can join and post in.
It’s clear to anyone that having access to a large range of people who have formed a community in your local areas is great for your business, but even better, Reddit also has a very user friendly ad platform which allows you to target specific subreddits, which you can use to advertise to people in your area with their own local club.
It’s a technique that barely any local businesses are making use of and is the perfect way to get your gym in front of a huge range of demographics who all live locally for a very cost effective advertising cost.
…and why haven’t we mentioned Instagram Ads?
Instagram is owned by Facebook and uses exactly the same algorithms and tech that Facebook ads use.
If you’ve never used Instagram before, then it can certainly be a great avenue to explore, but all of the problems with Facebook’s advertising system will be present over on Instagram.
There’s never been a better time to free yourself from a platform prison…
It can be extremely easy to become comfortable using a single social media to run your entire gym from, but as we’ve seen, if anything changes then it can cause havoc with reaching your future members.
Facebook ads is a cautionary tale of how quickly a seemingly secure service that you’ve used for years and grown to rely on, can suddenly become unusable.
This is the perfect time to shake out of the comfort zone and start experimenting with new ways to find your members. Experiment with new social medias and diversify your techniques to reach as many people as humanly possible from your local area, to spread the good word about your gym or health club.
And we can help…
As you can see, we really get stuck into every aspect of helping gyms and clubs succeed. Our success is directly tied to the success of our partnered clubs, so we are always ensuring that we’re at the cutting edge when it comes to helping all of our gyms grow and market themselves effectively.
If you’d like to get in touch about how we can help your club succeed, then you can always book a demo with our sales director, Grant Harrison, who would love to show you how our full club management package can help you improve and grow every aspect of your business.