Don't Let Fear of Change Hold You Back: 5 New Trends in Marketing Fitness over 50
Oct 31, 2023Season 2Episode 9
Jay Croft
It's been five years since I got into the "fitness over 50" game -- and five years since I first met Dan Ritchie and the Functional Aging Institute.
So, when Dan asked me to speak last week at an FAI gathering in Nashville last week, my thoughts turned to "then" and "now." I spoke about 5 points of communications in the over-50 market that were true then -- and 5 that are new today.
Change is scary sometimes. But it comes whether we like it or not. So, I wanted to take this opportunity to remind gym & studio owners that they need to keep their eyes and minds open while evaluating what comes along, what happens, and what's worth their attention.
It's been five years since I got into the "fitness over 50" game -- and five years since I first met Dan Ritchie and the Functional Aging Institute.
So, when Dan asked me to speak last week at an FAI gathering in Nashville last week, my thoughts turned to "then" and "now." I spoke about 5 points of communications in the over-50 market that were true then -- and 5 that are new today.
Change is scary sometimes. But it comes whether we like it or not. So, I wanted to take this opportunity to remind gym & studio owners that they need to keep their eyes and minds open while evaluating what comes along, what happens, and what's worth their attention.
Hey everybody, what's new? No, really, what's new. That's the theme of what I wanna talk about today on this episode of the Optimal Aging podcast, the show for fitness professionals who are trying to grow their businesses with more people over 50. And increasingly now the show is also for members of the general public who are in that demographic, who want information and perspective and encouragement on living a healthier lifestyle. This presentation I'm about to give is something I provided recently at a meeting of the Functional Aging Institute in Nashville about what's new in the fitness over 50 content, marketing and communications world.
Speaker 1:
Since I first encountered the Functional Aging Institute five years ago In 2018, I met a lot of gym owners and studio owners across the country who became friends and initial customers of private content, and, I'm happy to say, most of them are still with me five years later, which is really a wonderful compliment. And I wanna talk about what's new right now, because it's so easy for us to focus on what we're doing day in and day out, year in, year out, that we can miss developments of things that we should be monitoring. Plus, you throw in some anxiety or fear around what's new or worse, it's bullying big brother known as fear and a lot of fitness business professionals look the other way. I don't wanna hear about that or try that or learn more about that. No, no, no right. I mean, we've all done it In some ways. It's only natural. Things are going well. We've got it figured out, don't distract me. I finally got it, but things change. Things always, always, always change, and that's really the only thing you can count on in life or in business.
Speaker 1:
You know, when the whole world changed so dramatically in early 2020, a lot of fitness business owners were unwilling or unable to change. Everyone in the world was struggling, but the gym owners who tried to find new ways to be of service, new ways to do business well, they were the ones who struggled, less than the ones who dug in their heels and said no, I don't wanna hear about this virtual training and Zoom, just let me open my gym or studio and go back to the way things were Now, as I said, I've been doing this for five years now. I started my business in 2018. It's called Prime Fit Content and it provides marketing materials to gyms and studios that want to grow their business with people who are 50 or over, because it's such a large, lucrative market and it's being underserved by the fitness industry. So anyone who wants to grow their business smartly in the next 10 or 20 or 30 years really should be focusing on the slightly older population. I came up with this idea after I met the Functional Aging Institute five years ago and they told me their struggles about trying to communicate with people over 50. If you want older people, the best way to get them is to be clear about your desire and your intention to help them, and that was why I created Prime Fit Content directly out of that interaction with gym and studio owners at the Functional Aging Institute. So the reasons for doing all of this have not changed.
Speaker 1:
Here are five things about this that were true then and are true now. Number one you really must communicate with your community, your prospects and your clients in a professional, systematized manner. That means your website, a new blog post each week, social media and email newsletter. No-transcript emails were then, and remain today, the most important tool you have to get your word out. Number three of all the social media channels, our market was primarily on Facebook and still is, not TikTok or all the other new things that pop up from time to time, and there have been a lot of them in the last five years. Number four content marketing is not advertising and it's not about you as a trainer or a gym owner. It's a long play model that casts the prospect and the member in the starring role of their own stories, with you as the helpful guide to their new, wonderful world of fitness. Content marketing is a great way to show who you are without talking about yourself, because you're sharing your values and action and you're connecting with people who are looking for you. Number five your messaging and images should be consistent and clear about who you serve. That means, for instance, that your website doesn't use stock images of shiny, slim 25-year-olds if you're trying to reach, say, people in their 60s Now. There are other things, of course, that remain today from them, but I'm sticking with five because it's been five years since I met the Functional Aging Institute. Now I'm going to present five things about fitness, over 50 communications that are new.
Speaker 1:
Before I do, I want to say I'm not urging you to drop everything and devote yourself to any of these five things. I'm just raising them as examples of the kinds of change that gym and studio owners are aware of now and are adapting to. We're not in COVID. You can tune me out and say, hey, that's not for me, because you're not about to go under right now. Staying open-minded to change, remaining committed to innovation Well, these are things that are as important to your business survival as they were three and a half years ago.
Speaker 1:
The first one is artificial intelligence. Don't be afraid of it. A lot of fitness professionals say I don't want to know that, that's too much for me. A lot of people in general, in all walks of life, are saying, oh, that's going to take all my jobs, it's going to replace this, it's going to take over that. It's science fiction. Come to life. I didn't really like it at first either, because I'm a writer and I don't need some machine to do my writing for me. No machine can write as well as I can write. All I'm asking is that you put aside the know-it-allness that we all are guilty of from time to time and play around with some of these AI tools. It'll demystify the concept for you, it'll make it less intimidating, less scary for you, and then you can probably find some ways that you can use artificial intelligence to save you time and money in operating your business, everything from supply chain and ordering, to hiring and best practices, even in marketing.
Speaker 1:
Number two our demographic is changing. When I started this those five years ago, people generally thought that we met by the older market, that we met baby boomers, and you know I didn't even like that at the time, but it's certainly no longer true. It's just not that simple. We're not really talking about baby boomers. Baby boomers is not a generic term for older people. It refers to the generation of people born from 1946 to 1964. So it doesn't account for people like my mother, who was 87 when she passed. It doesn't account for people in generation X, who are turning 50 every day and aging into this cohort too, with a different set of perspectives and on fitness and on communications than baby boomers and the generation before them, right?
Speaker 1:
So what I want you to do is think about who is your demographic, who is your avatar? Who are you trying to serve? There's not really a right or wrong answer. You can shape your business to serve whatever market you want to, but be aware that saying over 50 is not enough. In fact, more and more I'm hearing from a lot of gym and studio owners who want me to modify my content to apply it to people over 40. And I think I'm going to do that, not as a instead of people over 50, but in addition to it, our physical needs are different among generations. Knowledge of exercise and fitness and how it relates to health are different. Reading preferences, the way we receive information all of these things are different among these three generations now that are over 50. So just be aware of all of that.
Speaker 1:
Number three post pandemic trends are a couple that are still really relevant for us to keep in mind. That I think have changed the communications around fitness over 50. First is the virtual training, or zoom, or hybrid, however you want to put it. I want you to at least be open minded to the idea of considering that you might want to continue these as options, whether you're full blown online or some sort of hybrid, or just have that on hand ready to go in case the world goes upside down again. You've got that in place. Second, out of the pandemic, I think people wanted, and still want a more personal connection as part of a holistic wellness service. They might not be coming to you as just a place to sweat anymore. They might be more aware after the pandemic that fitness is tied to their health. So how can you make those connections for them and be more than just a place where they can come and sweat, but really a connection, a hub for resources and information and enthusiasm about healthier living? You know you might want to think about having a chiropractic practice in your gym or massage therapy, nutrition counseling any of these things that people are wanting more and more of.
Speaker 1:
Number four more than ever, email really is your number one priority for communications. You need an email list. Social media platforms come and go and you don't have to be on all of them all the time. In fact, I think it's a waste of time to try to be on all of them for most of you, most of our people over 50, are still on Facebook. More and more of them are also on Instagram because Generation X is coming up into our cohort. Here's the thing about those social media channels you don't own anything on them, including your contacts. We want that interaction on social media. We want people to like what we put up and interact with us, but we don't own our contacts on there.
Speaker 1:
And, as we saw with Twitter, you know a new owner can come in and make big changes. It's not a public utility. It's his thing. He can do whatever he wants. It's entirely possible that these things could go away someday or fall out of favor and evolve in ways that you don't want to be involved with anymore. So use these social media channels to build your audience, but drive them to your email list.
Speaker 1:
And if you have trouble with building an email list, then let me hear from you. I have some thoughts on how we can help you grow your email list, and one of the most underused but best tactics is a lead magnet. So if you don't have a lead magnet, again, let me know. I'll give you some. Lead magnets are just free stuff that you give away in exchange for email addresses. It's the best way to grow your email list so that you can then start communicating with people and turn them on to what you're doing.
Speaker 1:
And finally, the fifth thing that's new-ish since the since I started this five years ago is an emphasis on this idea of network marketing. It's where you go out and you find businesses like yours in your community and you basically encourage them to do a cross promotion with you or to have a some sort of cross promotional relationship with you. Think about people in your demographic let's say over 50 money to spend on luxury items. Where are they going? They're going to hair salons, nail salons. They're going to car dealerships. They're in country clubs, they're taking tennis lessons. Maybe they're shopping at the expensive shoe store for runners. You need to go to those businesses and say, hey, let's do a cross promotion. I'll give your people something, whatever. You're comfortable with your low barrier offer a two week free trial of 50% of their first personal training, what have you? And then you put that offer into your new friend's email and it goes out to all of his and you do the same for that other business. You can also just make agreements to leave your cards on their reception desk. So if a new person's town comes into an expensive hair salon, for instance, and she's about to spend $200 on her hair, she might be saying, hey, I need to find a gym too. Do you know a good gym I could go to? That's for people like me. And then your business card is always handy and they're going to say, yeah, we partner with these people. They're great. So think about that kind of in real life networking that you can do with other businesses.
Speaker 1:
I know all this is hard and can feel like a fly buzzing around you when you just want to be left alone and do what you're doing. I know, because I struggle with all of this too and I'm not an expert on these topics that we've been talking about, like artificial intelligence and what have you. I do want to share some ways that I've been changing in the last five years so that I can improve and grow my business Things that have worked out and haven't. Here's something that hasn't worked out. I've tried video a little bit. I should try it more and I will at some point, but so far I just don't have the time or the energy to focus on it and I'd rather not do it than do it badly. So I've tried. It hasn't exactly worked out, and that's okay. We can do this. We can try things, find out that they're not right for us at the time and move on.
Speaker 1:
I launched this podcast. That's a lot of work, but I enjoy it and it's good for my business. Almost every week I get a comment or an email or a new customer directly because of this. I added custom content and consulting and auditing of content, so I don't just send you, I can also be involved in a more intimate way with your business. I've used Twitter. Some I get nothing from Twitter. I know some people do, I don't, and I'm okay with that. Finally, I created my first digital and it's my first product that I'm selling directly to consumers, and it is for men over 50 who want to start exercising and make healthier choices in life, but who feel stuck on the couch. They're discouraged, they're unhealthy, they're feeling hopeless, they're overwhelmed by all the misinformation that's out there.
Speaker 1:
I wrote this course. I'll put a link in the show notes and I'd love for you to check it out. The point is that I'm always trying to do new things, even when I'm afraid of them, even if I fail at them, even if they're not quite right for me right now. I hope there's some value in that for you. I just want to encourage you to keep your eyes open and your mind open to what's going on around you in the world, in your community, in your industry, in your location, even because everything is always changing and we need to balance how much attention we devote to new things and how much we stay committed to our own path. It's difficult, it's tricky, so I just thought I would weigh in with these thoughts to encourage you to think about it a little bit. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:
I hope you enjoyed the show and I hope you'll subscribe, tell a friend and write a review. All of that helps us grow our audience. I also hope you'll check out the powerful fitness business training and certifications offered by my friends at the Functional Aging Institute. Fai is the leading authority on how to build a business that's focused on helping people over 50 live their best lives through fitness. Their educational services, networking opportunities and coaching are invaluable and the pricing is unbeatable. Just use this special code so they know you're coming to them through me. You can find it on the show notes page and follow the link to learn more.
Speaker 1:
Also, fai president and co-founder, dan Richie, was our very first guest on Optimal Aging, so reach back to episode one for more about the Functional Aging Institute. I'm now thankful for FAI support as another affiliate sponsor of this show, so you'll be supporting me as well as yourself and this great organization. So thank you. You can learn more about me and my content business at primefitcontentcom. Send me an email at JJay at primefitcontentcom. I'm also on Facebook, linkedin, instagram and just about anywhere else, so check me out. Love to hear from you Again. Thanks for listening. Join us next time.