Three Marketing Lessons I Relearned at the Gym

My gym is having a special "Body Fat Challenge" promotion for June. Normally, it costs $250 for ten sessions to work with a personal trainer. For June, you can get four sessions for $99. A trainer will weigh you and take your measurements -- and tell you how much body fat you have (ugh!). Whoever loses the most body fat by the end of June wins. So I signed up, and in going through the process, (re)learned a few things about marketing: 1. Use the marketing tactics that work best for your business. To promote the challenge, the gym owners posted flyers all over the gym, in the locker rooms, etc -- in other words, where gym patrons would see them. I suppose they could have used direct mail, but I don't think it would have been as effective. I usually throw away DM from the gym. I pay attention to flyers stuck on locker room walls, though. I don't think a blog would have worked either. 2. Upsell people with products and services they want at a good price point. Based on anecdotal evidence, quite a few people want to work with a personal trainer, but the $250 price tag seems to be a deterrent. But almost everyone can pay $99 -- and a lot of people did. (I know because we all stand around in step class comparing notes on our progress.) 3. Have good sales people who can close the deal. I wasn't going to sign up for the challenge due to all the typical excuses. But my step instructor, Kim, who is also one of the personal trainers, encouraged me to do it. Once I bought the four sessions for $99, she said, "If you really want to make this work, you need to sign up with someone to help you with your diet." Basically, she upsold me for an additional four sessions at $99 for meal and nutrition planning. Instead of selling food plans, the gym is promoting this new gadget called the Body Bugg. You strap it to your arm and it keeps track of the calories you burn. It's pretty cool. I'm now telling everyone how much weight I've lost and how easy it's been -- further promoting the challenge, the training, and the Body Bugg. (I'm also getting my butt kicked in training -- I feel like I'm in army boot camp. I love it. I've already told Kim I'll be training with her for the remainder of summer.) There's a lot of talk about marketing these days. Interrupt marketing, traditional marketing, new rules of marketing, DM vs. blogs, yada, yada, yada. This is not say I don't see any value in blogs and podcasts. I do. But marketers shouldn't throw traditional marketing methods out the window -- especially if they work. The bottom line for any business is to determine which marketing tactics work best for you and your customers/prospects and -- to quote Bob Bly -- make the cash registers ring. If flyers on the locker room walls do it, then go for it. What do you think? Do you agree or disagree?