Street fair promotional event
Every few weeks my small town has a summer open market- vendors offering wears, services and little things for family fun.
My gym recently got invited to do a small booth. Yet short of bringing in a squat rack and some barbells I’m kinda floundering as to what to bring. I want to offer strength training but that may be a liability without paper forms, and I’ve never expanded into yoga/zumba or other crowd friendly workouts.
Have you ever had small promotional events? What do you do?
And for those just coming across this question…
Make a plan and have it on file for just such opportunities. It helps to have a pop up canopy/shade tent for these events. They aren’t very expensive and I use them for a lot of other things. I don’t bring any heavy equipment unless there is a very good reason to do so (like a health fair that requests I do treadmill walk tests). I bring a lot of little things like a scale, a BIA, elastic tubing/bands, a few mats, fit ball, med balls, etc. I have a sheet of activities for all types of people and ages. And I will do some sort of give away drawing to get names, addresses, phone numbers and emails.
Along with that I offer to take some measurements for those interested. I have a spreadsheet that is on all of my laptops and tablets that I can put in a persons stats (weight, height, girths, skin folds, etc.) that I use at these types of events. I used to bring a printer and give them a hard copy of their stats. But now I get their email, phone, and address. Then I can use a number of different contact styles to try to get them to come in to the gym. I start with an invitation to come in and go over their numbers over the phone. If that doesn’t work I send them their stats via email and invite them to make an appointment if they would like to have the stats explained to them. The ones that didn’t bite on those two offers will get a mailer from me with a discount coupon for a service that I am promoting at the time. Everyone that gives me an address will get a thank you card for stopping by the expo/fair booth and another invite or promo offer. Occasionally I have emailed these folks again to invite them to another expo/fair coming up.
Little things add up over time and a lot of the effort gets rewarded indirectly as many times the people that I am contacting will tell others about my offers, etc.
Great question. Thanks for the great ideas LaRue.
Mac Dodds, M.A., CSCS
[email protected]
www.healthynation.biz
My Bootcamp participates in our Business Expo in town. We set up a table with our promotional materials on it, flyers, cards, basic information, we also have a raffle drawing that gives items away such as water bottles, T Shirts, etc.
La Rue’s ideas are great:
People LOVE give aways: see if somebody in town will donate a healthy food snack that you can give away: have your name/logo put on water bottles and hand them out.
Can you have sample classes? Or exercises going to music?
A push up contest?
Can you bring boxing gloves and do a mini circuit some how?
Take a good look around your gym and see what you can easily transport, tubing, jump ropes?
It will be fun!
Hi Bryant. I do a lot of promotional events (e.g. health fairs, clinics, presentations etc.). If I’m conducting an event similar to what you’re mentioning here, I find that organizing and playing some sort of fitness game with the participants and visitors to my booth/table works great! I may have a few fitness/health trivia questions for example and have each participant team-up with another or face-off with a friend to see who knows the answers – it usually evokes a lot of laughter and a lot of participation and interest. I may also have an Ask the Trainer questionnaire where I get the person to include their name, email address or phone number etc and allow them to write down whatever question(s) they may have. Again this is a great way to draw people in and to help in a creative way.
I hope that this helps.
LaRue, CSCS
www.lecfitness.com
[email protected]