Using Facebook Retargeting Ads to Grow Your Gym or Studio Membership
As a business owner you work hard to get prospects to come to your gym or studio’s website and turn them from prospects into members. As with most purchases, it takes eight to 12 touches to turn a gym or studio prospect into a member. But in general, many visitors to a website come once and never come again. This is where Facebook retargeting ads might be the best use of your gym’s or studio’s marketing dollars.
What are Retargeting Ads?
Retargeting ads are ads that enable you to reconnect with users who have already interacted with your brand in some way (on or off Facebook) and didn’t become members. These prospects may have filled out a contact form, followed or interacted with your Facebook page, downloaded information, or interacted with your Facebook page or website in some other way.
Retargeting Ad Strategies – Create Convincing Facebook Targeting Ads
Retargeting ads connect you to prospects who have already showed interest and enable you to create custom audiences based on consumer profiles, which can result in higher conversion rates and lower cost-per-click-averages than other ads.
With 1.62 billion people on Facebook daily, there is a very high likelihood that your prospects are going to see your gym’s Facebook retargeting ads. And the truth is that Facebook retargeting ads work. And work well.
Retargeting ads only work if you use the right messaging for your audience. Here are 3 things to keep in mind when creating Facebook retargeting ads for your gym or studio.
- Remind them why they came in the first place
If you’ve seen the Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore Rom-Com “50 First Dates,” you’ll understand that most of your prospects have the memory of Lucy Whitmore —they need to be reminded about you all the time.
They may have come to your gym or studio’s website last week after thinking about the chocolate cake they scarfed down after dinner. By this week, not only have they forgotten the cake, they probably have forgotten which health club they went to after their Google search for “best gym near me.”
This is a great job for retargeting. You can set up retargeting ads that remind the people who did visit your landing page for weight loss classes but failed to claim the offer of a free pass that is on the page, so they come back to you and engage. You have seen these countless times when immediately after searching for running shoes, your Facebook page has ads for Brooks, New Balance, Zappos.com, or whatever page you may have stopped at.
Remember, they may have some recollection of visiting your club’s website, so you don’t need to beat them over the head. Just an image and perhaps a line of “Are you still looking for the best weight loss program in town?”
This way, you have triggered their memory and, hopefully, had them claim that free pass or contact you for more information.
- Make it urgent
The best thing about retargeting ads is that they know who you are and what you do—they have been to your website at least one time.
However, what your retargeting ad can do is create a sense of urgency. When they came to your site previously, they were just browsing. But if your retargeting ad creates a sense of urgency in its call-to-action (CTA) such as, “Be one of the next 10 to join now and get your first month free,” you have created an actionable item with a do it now or lose it impetus.
- Show them something else
Sure, that person may have come to your website to see about your weight loss program. However, they didn’t join then, so maybe they need something else and just don’t know it.
Perhaps have your retargeting ad show them your personal training, spinning, or yoga programs. That might hit something that the initial search missed, and you just might get a new gym or studio member out of it.
Retargeting is a mix of art and science. It can take some trial and error to get it right, but in the end, it can provide a great return on your marketing dollars.
