Optimal Aging

How to Host a Fitness Event That Converts Over-50 Prospects

• Jay Croft

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Hosting a simple, purposeful event before the end of the year could be the key to attracting your next five best clients over 50. In this solo episode, Jay Croft shares a step-by-step strategy that any gym owner or fitness professional can implement—even during the busy holiday season.

You’ll learn:

  • Why older prospects prefer low-pressure, educational events over discounts or sales pitches
  • How to plan, promote, and host a small but mighty event
  • The best way to convert attendees into paying clients without being pushy
  • How to make the most of your event with content, follow-up, and partnerships

Jay also breaks down a simple five-step action plan to help you pick a date, choose a topic, and start generating new leads this week.

If you serve the 50+ market, this is your playbook for ending the year strong—and heading into 2026 with momentum.

📝 Episode Highlights

🎯 Why Host a Fitness Event Now?

  • The holidays create urgency and reflection for your over-50 audience.
  • Events offer trust-building opportunities that discounts can’t.

📆 Planning Your Event

  • Pick a topic with seasonal relevance and strong appeal (e.g., “Stay Strong Through the Holidays”)
  • Make it experiential: mix teaching, light participation, and Q&A
  • Collaborate with local health professionals to boost reach

📣 Promotion Tips

  • Treat it like a campaign: email, social posts, flyers, personal invites
  • Offer an exclusive, low-barrier next step (e.g., a “Holiday Tune-Up” package)

🛠️ Post-Event Follow-Up

  • Send personalized emails to attendees
  • Repurpose photos, video, and quotes into evergreen content
  • Build an event cadence (quarterly rhythm)

🎤 Host: Jay Croft
Jay is the founder of Prime Fit Content and host of The Optimal Aging Podcast. He helps fitness professionals grow their businesses by connecting with the over-50 market through powerful storytelling and authentic content.

🌐 Podcast Website: https://primefitcontent.com

📬 Contact Jay: jay@primefitcontent.com

📱 Follow on Instagram: @primefitcontent

🔗 LinkedIn: Jay Croft

👍 Rate the show on Apple Podcasts 
📥 Join the email list – https://primefitcontent.com

Loved this episode? Share it with a friend or tag us using #OptimalAgingPodcast.

SPEAKER_01:

They want to know who you are. They want to get to know you and trust you before they buy, before they commit and hosting an event, something that's educational, social, and low pressure, where you're not pushing a sale on them all the time, gives them exactly the opportunity that they're looking for. People in this demographic love supporting events with a purpose. So when that purpose is bigger than them, but it also combines with how they can improve their own health and vitality, then you're meeting them right where they want to be. People are less likely to get excited to come listen to you talk for an hour. They want to experience something. You don't need 100 people. You're not basing the future of your business on this one evening. You know, if you get 10 qualified people to show up, that's a big win, especially if just a couple of them sign up. That kind of personal touch is what converts curiosity into commitment. Look, here we are at the end of October already. We're gonna be racing into the holiday season before we know it, which is a great time for sales, or it can be, particularly in fitness, because everyone's gonna be talking about what New Year's resolutions, right? So it's time to start thinking about this if you haven't already. And I have an idea for how you can end the year strong, and that's by hosting an event to attract qualified fitness prospects who were over 15. Now, I'm not much of a party planner, but I recently had a party for my book launch when I published my book selling longevity, and I learned some lessons there that are relevant for here. So I'm going to share some of those along with some other things since it's not exactly apples to apples. My point is that if I can do it, you can do it. So I'm Jay Croft, I'm your host. Welcome to the Optimal Aging Podcast, the show for fitness and wellness professionals who want to grow their businesses with more people over 50. By hosting just one simple event or launching a campaign before the end of this year, something that helps you attract qualified over 50 prospects, the kind of people who actually show up and stick around and tell their friends about you, you can head into 2026 on a high note. If your gym has been wavering a little bit in the fall, this is a great time for you to charge it up a little bit. And yes, content will play a part because you're going to need content for some of this. So if it looks like everyone else is just coasting into the holidays, let's get you connecting with a whole new group of people who are ready to get stronger and healthier starting even before the new year. So, first a few reasons on why I think this is a really good thing to do with our market of people over 50. As you know, this age group doesn't really respond well to quick discounts and you know, free week offers and 20% off here and that kind of thing. They want to know who you are. They want to get to know you and trust you before they buy, before they commit. And hosting an event, something that's educational, social, and low pressure, where you're not pushing a sale on them all the time, gives them exactly the opportunity that they're looking for. It's a chance for them to learn something useful. It's a chance for them to meet real people and check out your studio or gym. And it's a chance to get a feel for your culture and your expertise. They can come in and take a look around or get to know you without fear of being sold to. And you can showcase what makes your business special. Now, here's another little benefit regarding content. You get a lot of great content out of these events. You can post about them on social media and in your newsletters, and uh even promote them on your websites before the event, and then you get tons of video and photos afterwards to share for days and weeks later. You can even use some of the material to try to get some media coverage from uh newspapers, TV stations, websites, that kind of thing. And a great way to do this is to involve a local charity or a nonprofit or some sort of bigger event. And of course, there's a lot coming up in your community with the holidays coming up, a lot of opportunities to do that. People in this demographic love supporting events with a purpose. So when that purpose is bigger than them, but it also combines with how they can improve their own health and vitality, then you're meeting them right where they want to be. Okay, so how do I actually put all this together? Well, there's a pretty simple formula, and I want to tell you the basics. You can uh adapt it for your brand and your space, of course, like I did when um I launched my book, Selling Longevity. Step one, pick a focused topic. Don't just say I'm having an open house. Give it a title that speaks directly to a goal or a challenge that your target audience cares about. Here's some ideas that might be good in the coming weeks. Stay strong through the holidays. Brain and Body Fitness after 50. New Year, New Mobility Three Keys to Pain-free movement. Keep your title specific and positive and relevant to the season. The best titles promise a solution or spark curiosity. You don't have to worry about being too cute. Be clear. Step two, make it educational and experiential. People are less likely to get excited to come listen to you talk for an hour. They want to experience something. So consider this structure. Maybe you teach for 20 minutes or so. It's something practical that they can apply right away in their lives. It's not the history of kinesiology. Then maybe you give a demonstration or offer some sort of easy participation for 20 minutes. And then you have 10 minutes or so for QA and conversation. That all adds up to about an hour pretty easily. Feels manageable. It's respectful of people's time. It's not asking too much. So you could talk about why strength training prevents falls. You could show a few safe moves. Then you could let uh people who show up try one or two easy exercises with your coaches guiding them, right? Okay, step three in this process find a partner. You don't have to do this all by yourself. In fact, it can be really smart to bring in, say, a local physical therapist, massage therapist, or nutrition coach, someone like that. Partnerships expand your reach, split the workload, and increase your credibility. For example, your event could be strong bones, strong body, and you could co-host with a local physical therapist or chiropractor. They promote it to their list, you promote it to yours. Now you're both meeting new potential clients who already value health and prevention. Step four, promote this like a real campaign. Don't just throw one post on Instagram and say you're done. Treat it like a launch, a mini-launch of an event with a simple landing page or RSVP form. You know, if you do the uh online invitations, evites, they'll often have RSVPs there for you that can keep track of who's coming. Send two or three emails to your list. Post on social media several times, including one that's a short video invitation. You can even go out to some local coffee shops and houses of worship and community centers and other places where your people gather and put up flyers. And if you have the time, call or personally invite a few current clients to come and to bring a friend. You know, the current customers you have are your best PR tool. So get them involved, have them bring someone who they think would enjoy the gym. And then uh step five in this formula is use this event as a conversion tool. So at the end of the event, you offer a low barrier way for attendees to take the next step. Something that feels like a continuation, but not a sales pitch, right? So you could offer like a strong start package, maybe three sessions for a fixed price or a holiday tune-up trial membership that runs through December. Make it clear that this offer is for attendees only and that they have to claim it within a few days. Um, which is pretty easy to do around the holidays because we all have so many dates coming up. You can say you have to do this by New Year's Eve or you have to do this by whatever. Um, the reason you want to do that is it gives a little bit of exclusivity, and that helps people make a commitment to it.

SPEAKER_00:

Hey, are you a fitness professional trying to grow your business with people over 50? If you are, then you need to know how to communicate with them, how to market to them, and how to get them to trust you with their fitness, well-being, and money. We're talking about millions of people who are a little older than the typical market that the fitness industry usually pursues. They have more money, more time, and better motivation to make the best long-term fitness consumers you'll find anywhere. If you're not focusing on them, you should be. Prime Fit Content is the only content marketing company designed specifically to help you engage people in this group and to help you distinguish yourself from competitors in your community. It's effective, affordable, and super easy to use. Check it out at PrimefitContent.com. That's Prime, like Prime of Your LifefitContent.com.

SPEAKER_01:

Back to the show. Okay. So back to uh how to plan this event. You want to keep it simple and repeatable. And this is especially relevant given because you might be thinking this all sounds great, but man, it's the holidays coming up. I don't have time to plan a big event right now. That's okay. Because this doesn't have to be big, it's not the only event you're ever going to do. You don't need 100 people. You're not basing the future of your business on this one evening. You know, if you get 10 qualified people to show up, that's a big win. Especially if just a couple of them sign up. So keep it simple, personable, repeatable. Think about doing this every quarter, right? So this is the one in the winter, what you can do, one in the spring, one in the fall, etc. Just change the topic each time, and you've got a rhythm of community engagement built right into your business plan. If you can tie one of those to an actual newsworthy event, you're more likely to get actual press coverage. Um, also at the event, be sure to get contact information, grow that email list, have a sign-in sheet, or use a QR code that sends people to get a digital form where they can enter their email address in exchange for some asset. And then after the event, you want to follow up with a personal note, not some generic drip campaign, but a quick, friendly email that says, Hi, Bob, thanks for coming. I hope you enjoyed learning about strength training after 50. I'd love to show you more ways to build balance and mobility. Can we set up a time to chat? That kind of personal touch is what converts curiosity into commitment. You can also repurpose the event. Post a short highlight video on social media, write a blog post summarizing key takeaways or frequently asked questions. Use quotes from attendees in your next newsletter. Each event can become a small library of local content that continues to build your brand authority over time. So, giving you a lot to think about here in a short time, but seriously, I did this with the help of uh one of my local clients, a physical therapist who has a great space and a friend of ours, a mutual friend of ours, who uh from my journalism past. And we all threw a great event for my book launch that helped the physical therapy office and helped the book and was just a really lovely evening. So let's break it down into some simple action steps that you can take just in the next week. Okay, pick a date. Number one, pick a date and topic. Choose something within the next 30 days. Now, yeah, we've got Thanksgiving coming up within the next 30 days. That's okay. You know, I'm gonna even give you the grace. I'm gonna say pick something within the next 60 days because we do have the holidays. Pick a date, find a partner, that's the second step. Find a health professional, a business, even a success story who can co-host or speak. Number three, create one simple invitation email and one social post. Number four, send them out and post them at least three times next week. Number five, set a goal. Let's say five new qualified conversations before December 31st. That's it. Five steps. Don't overthink it. You'll be amazed at how quickly momentum builds when you take focused action. You know, that old story about the old joke about how to eat an elephant, right? Well, one bite at a time. So just think about one thing to do at a time. I've you given you five. Very simple. So here's the truth. You know, most gyms slow down this time of year. And I get it. It's the holidays we're busy, people don't want to do this, they don't want to do that. But uh, people out there who want your services don't stop caring about their health. In fact, they're thinking about it more at this time of year than probably any other. You know, they're they're at their spending time with families, they're eating too much, maybe, they're drinking too much, maybe, they're thinking everything's gonna change with when the calendar rolls over. So by hosting one event, you're giving them a way to find you before that mania associated with the new year. And you know that you can't rely on that January resolution traffic. You got to create your own momentum starting now. So if you need help with ideas or newsletter content or plug-and-plate campaigns to customize for your own gym, let me know. Check out primefitcontent.com. Got you covered with plenty of stories and templates and marketing tools that speak directly to this 50 plus market. Now, I want to thank you for listening to Optimal Aging, and I want you to email me and let me know what you think of this, what your plan is for the coming weeks. I'll try to hold you gently accountable, and I'm gonna ask you to do the same thing for me. I don't think I'm gonna plan another in-person event because most of my prospects are not here in Atlanta where I live. Most of them, they're they're all over the place. The book launch was a unique uh event for me, but I am going to plan something I can do virtually to raise interest in my business for my prospects. And I'm gonna do this by the end of the year, and I'm gonna try to have five conversations with qualified candidates. How does that sound? Sounds pretty good to me. Will you help me do that? Let's do it. Let's hold each other accountable heading into the end of the year so that we can start 2026 with the bang. Feeling good, feeling strong. Now, next week I'll be back with a new episode with a special guest. Kind of want to tell you all about it, but I'm also a little bit afraid to. I don't want to get ahead of my skis, as they say, but it should be a lot of fun. So join me next week for that episode.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for listening to the Optimal Aging Podcast. I'm your host, Jay Croft of Prime Fit Content. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you'll subscribe, review, and tell a friend. All of that helps me grow my audience. I hope you'll share any comments you have with me, including suggestions about people I should interview and topics I should cover. You can learn more about my newsletter and content business at primefitcontent.com and write me at JJ Y at primefitcontent.com and among other social channels. Again, thanks for listening. Join me next time.

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Jay Croft

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