Digital trends with referrals to improve conversion
A fast growing trend within the international fitness industry is the move towards using more digital tools. This is a natural progression with technological enhancements and while we remain a “belly to belly” industry, we would be foolish not to move with the times.
These digital tools can certainly enhance efficiency, however the most powerful use of them is to increase touch points with our members and potential members, by increasing connections and conversations. This is a powerful point as it is too easy to fall into the trap of using digital tools and automation to simply “tick a box”; doing so means you may have made contact but you have not made a personalised connection, or started a flowing dialogue, which is still an extremely powerful element of any sales process.
To make this digital age work with referrals, as soon as you get a referral’s name and contact number, send this person an SMS/text/video letting them know to expect your call. Then, instead of offering the 7-Day Trial from a decade ago, give them the gift, which consists of a specific program for a week, and make sure it has a dollar value attached to it.
You should have five programs to offer referrals, and they will ideally be programs that address common goals, such as: weight loss, sports conditioning, strength, flexibility, running fitness, muscle growth, nutrition, etc.
Therefore, instead of the referral being in your club with the mindset as a trial guest, and fumbling around your club having a poor experience even though your club has fantastic facilities and staff, they will feel part of your club, because you have focused on their longer term goals, and have begun the process of achieving them. Doing this will create a stronger association for them, between your club or studio and the achievement of that goal.
This process will increase your conversions from referrals, and reduce the wasted time in follow-up, especially considering it is getting harder and harder to contact people over the phone.
For more information about how to use digital tools and automation to increase your success, call me on 0434 546 725 or email [email protected]
