The Thinner Winner Contest

Drive your revenue, boost your membership and help your community slim down with a weight loss contest. In just five easy steps, you can promote, run and celebrate a community-wide Thinner Winner contest. The details can be tweaked to fit your community.

How Does Thinner Winner Work?

Thinner Winner runs for 6 weeks and is open to the community. Pick a suitable price to charge and consider opening your facility to nonmembers.

Each team is composed of four to six people.

The contest is not a boot camp. It is for all fitness levels. People can participate in as many or as few of the elements as they choose. Only make the kickoff and the finale mandatory. This makes it easier to recruit people and preempt their excuses.

The two winning teams are the ones that average the greatest percentage drop in body weight and the highest number of inches lost. (One team can win in both categories.) Each victorious team receives a cash prize to split among its participants.

Ready? Get your contest roaring with these five steps.

Step #1: Set the Date

The first step is setting a date. Fall contests are great for when kids are back in school and life is not yet hectic with the holidays. You can also run a contest after the New Year rush and before spring break.

Step #2: Promote, Promote, Promote

Give your contest a theme and use it in your marketing. Only promote for about a month with heavy marketing. Include real people and real testimonials. You must show results and give hope.

Internal marketing. Promote as much as you can including attaching postcards to cardio equipment, featuring specialty banners on Facebook, promoting success stories in newsletters and around the club, sending out a short promotional video and any other great ideas you come up with. You can invite your employees to form a team as well.

External marketing. Go out into your community and promote. You can decorate gift bags with fliers and stuff them with fresh fruit, granola bars and applications. You should also wear branded gear when promoting.

Run a short radio ad that gives the vital information of who, what, when, where, why and how for a few days. Run a flier or ad in your local newspaper. Use social media by posting quotes, pictures, teasers, trivia and videos.

Step #3: Kick Off With a Bang

Start with a party. Offer team pictures, low-impact workouts, weigh-ins and motivational talks. It can also be fun to let teams pick their own names.

Step #4: Set the Bar High and Overdeliver

What should you include in your contest? Whatever makes your business amazing! Show off your best assets. Where do you want to increase revenue? Make sure you give teams a taste of these areas. You may want to offer:

• full access to your facility and group exercise classes
• a clean-eating food plan
• a journal for tracking daily food choices
• 10 (optional) Thinner Winner group workouts on a variety of days and at different times
• Luncheons with roundtable discussions, for an extra fee
• a coach for each team
• a small-group training session with their coach, for an extra fee

Step #5: Celebrate

Celebrate in a big way. Make the party memorable. First have a final weigh-in and measurement for all participants to identify the winning teams and then announce the winners. Give away small prizes to the top few teams and congratulate everyone.

Finish the program with a bang and send participants home talking for the year to come. Then use their stories to promote your business and shine a bright light on the people you’ve helped. Take a deep breath, give yourself a pat on the back and gear up for the next year.

To learn more about the Thinner Winner program, read the full article at: https://www.ideafit.com/fitness-library/thethinner-winner-contest