Optimal Aging

Fitness as a Gift: Holiday Promotions to Attract New Clients

• Jay Croft

Share episode

In this episode of The Optimal Aging Podcast, host Jay Croft shares simple yet powerful holiday marketing ideas for gym owners and fitness professionals who serve clients over 50.

From creative gift cards to recovery kits, Jay outlines 10 fitness-themed gift ideas that are easy to launch and designed to grow your business during the holiday season. You’ll also hear how cross-promotion with local businesses can amplify your reach, and how to connect with GLP-1 users who’ve lost weight but aren’t yet exercising.

Whether you're looking for quick wins or long-term client growth, this episode is full of practical strategies to make fitness a meaningful gift this season — not just a transaction.

🎁 Episode Topics

Holiday Fitness Gift Ideas

  • Jay’s top 10 gift ideas like “Give One Get One,” partner sessions, starter packs, and more.
  • Tips for creating low-barrier entry points for newcomers.

Cross-Promote with Local Businesses

  • How to collaborate with salons, cafes, bookstores, and wellness providers.
  • Turn single visits into community-building events.

Reaching GLP-1 Users

  • Understand the needs of clients on weight loss meds.
  • How to position your services as the “next step” in their health journey.

🕒 Timestamps

00:00 – Intro: Fitness as a holiday gift
 01:00 – Why shared experiences are powerful gifts
 02:00 – Jay's 10 fitness gift ideas
 06:30 – Partnering with local businesses
 08:50 – Reaching GLP-1 users with inclusive messaging
 11:50 – Turning guests into long-term clients
 13:00 – Jay’s book + how to connect

🎤 Host: Jay Croft
Jay helps gyms grow with targeted marketing through Prime Fit Content. He’s also the author of Selling Longevity, available on Amazon or his website.

🌐 Podcast Website: https://primefitcontent.com

📬 Email: jay@primefitcontent.com

📱 Instagram: @primefitcontent
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/croftjay

👍 Rate the show on Apple Podcasts
 📥 Join our newsletter: https://primefitcontent.com

📘 Buy the book Selling Longevity on Amazon or at https://primefitcontent.com

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

SPEAKER_00:

Hey, if you are looking for a way to bring in some fast cash here at the end of the year, this episode is for you. Easy peasy holiday promotions to get new folks in the door. Welcome to Optimal Aging, the show about promoting fitness after 50. I'm your host, Jay Croft of Prime Fit Content, which is my business that helps gyms grow with targeted marketing. Every year in December, I publish a list of the top 10 fitness-related gift ideas for people in midlife or older. It's always fun for me to put it together. I find new items and I can include some perennials. And I always end the list by stressing that the best gifts are shared experiences, time spent together that encourages healthy habits. So this week I want to take that a step further. I want to offer an expanded view of experiences as gifts that your members can buy from you and give people in their lives. But I also want to encourage you to think about your services as gifts, as powerful tools to bring new people into your orbit, expose them to your business and spread some good cheer all at the same time. These ideas today will help you get new people in the door and deepen your ties with current members. They'll also let people express how much they care about their loved ones by encouraging them to improve their strength, mobility, longevity, and confidence with gifts that say, I care about your health and well-being today and in the future. That's a good gift. It's going to go straight to the heart. First, I want to walk you through 10 fitness gift ideas that you could offer this holiday season. Then we'll talk about how cross-promoting them with local business partners can transform these ideas into ways to spread your word even more to greater numbers of people. And finally, I want to consider how you can connect with GLP1 users who are losing weight on the drugs but are still avoiding exercise for whatever reason. Okay, part one, 10 holiday fitness gift ideas that you can do right now at your gym. Let's call this first idea give one, get one. You can promote to your members that they can buy a session or an intro offer for someone else, and they'll get a session free for themselves as well. Maybe it's a training session or a special class. So this way everybody gets a built-in accountability partner. Two intergenerational training packages. Adult children can bring their parents, or grandparents can bring the grandkids. It's a shared semi-private session with a trainer. Strength, mobility, connection, emotional value built right in. Number three, you create a longevity starter pack. Three to four sessions that are focused on balance, mobility, posture, the basics that a lot of older people might not be able to articulate or might not even know that they need. It's a gentle, safe, low intimidation way to get them in the door. Number four, offer partner training gift cards. You know, two or more people can train together at a special holiday rate. Spouses or friends or siblings, whatever. It's great for people who are nervous to come into a new gym by themselves, as a lot of people in our age group are. Number five, balance and fall prevention tune-up. You offer a couple of sessions working on stability and gait and functional movement. This is a really valuable approach for adult children to give to their aging parents. Number six, something like Gentle January or a no fear program. It's light, it's welcoming. You do it in the times of day when it's uh not crowded and not intimidating for newcomers, gives them a safe entry point for gyms that they might thinking they might be thinking are are going to be chaotic and loud and crowded. Number seven, come up with a recovery box, recovery gift box. You can combine mobility or stretching sessions with some tools that they can take home, like resistance bands, foam rollers. And um, this introduces the idea of recovery as being a part of fitness. So you're not just telling them all the time that they need to be lifting weights and running, right? Gives you another element, another way in. Number eight, offer a mini course on teach me to lift, something like that. Four sessions that teach the foundational movements. This is great for anybody who wants to build up some confidence and some knowledge about the basics of strength training. Number nine, come up with something like a better at-home strength kit. You know, you could throw in a coaching session, a custom um at-home strength program for them, and some simple gear, again, like resistance bands or a kettlebell, something like that. Might give them a taste of exercise and movement and how it makes them feel better. And they might want to come in and do more with you in your gym. Finally, number 10, can you come up with some kind of walking and strength accountability bundle? A lot of older people really like to walk. They think that's the key to being fit. So build on that with you know, a pedometer and an app and some coaching sessions and some check-ins. Um, if you can just get them moving first with the things that they already like or or feel comfortable with, then you can get them into your gym later. Okay, part two. I want to talk about cross-promoting with local businesses. The idea here is that you use the ties that you've developed in your community with cross-promotions that will get folks into your gym and also into your neighboring businesses, like car dealerships or hair salons, or um health food stores, or athletic shoe stores. Find a local partner for any of these ideas or come up with a similar idea and watch the magic that comes when you combine fitness with anything from theater to shopping or a specific sport. Anything that people in your demographic are already spending money on. For instance, you could offer a workout and a healthy meal or a workout and a coffee with a local bistro or cafe or smoothie bar. You know, your you your member brings in his favorite aunt for a workout, and then they go to uh have lunch or a smoothie somewhere together. Everybody likes to eat, it's a social thing, it's not intimidating, and and the family gets to spend time together. You could do something similar with salons and massage studios or a wellness spa. Connect with these folks if you haven't already, and find a way that you can cross-promote your business with theirs in their email newsletters, on their social media accounts, etc. If you don't know these people yet, get to know them. They're your neighbors. They're a great source of potential customers. 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.content.com. That's Prime, like Prime of Your LifefitContent.com. Back to the show. Others include uh sneaker stores, um, you know, the a museum or a theater or a concert venue. Think about that. Hey, let's go work out together, and then we're gonna go see the new show at the theater. That's a special thing that you can do with an older family member that's gonna lower the intimidation factor and make it an exciting event for them. So think about that. Also, health food stores, nutritionists, wellness providers, these kinds of businesses can bring in the kind of people who are gonna be open-minded to your messaging, right? Um, I like the idea of doing something with a bookstore. If there is a bookstore in your neighborhood, you know, there are there aren't as many as there used to be, but maybe there's a reading uh that they're doing with an author that you could promote with their businesses that need uh all the support they can get, might be a good venue for you. The third arena I want to talk about is people who are on GLP1 medications. Um, a lot of them are finding success in that they're losing the weight, but they're not yet taking that next step to get active, to practice strength training. Maybe they don't know that they need to be uh ensuring that they're getting enough protein while they're on these medications. So, can you come up with something that's gonna help your members and your prospects and your community connect with you around these medications? Can you come up with a mini course on um, you know, how to stay strong as you change with these medications rather than fix your weight or you know lose all that weight, keep it positive and find a way in these other ideas that we've been discussing, these other promotions, that you can do it. You know, that the um at-home kits, for instance, that goes really nicely with outreach to GLP ones. And if you're working with nutritionists and other um wellness providers and healthcare providers in your neighborhood, you're gonna have an audience built in for this because these drugs are really powerful and they're really popular. And yet it's kind of frustrating, isn't it, when we see people who take them and then lose a great deal of weight, but then don't get stronger and don't improve their bone density and don't improve their balance and all these things that we know are so important. So find a way to make the connections there so that those folks know that you're there for them and that they need you. And now that they've lost the weight, they have one less reason to stay home and avoid coming into a gym. Okay. So if you're a gym owner or a coach, let's get back to thinking about fitness as a gift instead of a transaction. And if you pair your gift with cafe partners and theater outings and spa days, it's not exciting. If you reach out to people on GLP1s with support rather than criticism, then you're making fitness a meaningful invitation and a really powerful gift this season for people in your community. Also, of course, for your business. If you give them this initial positive experience, they're going to be more likely to come back. And so, out of any of these ideas, be sure to get their contact information and get to know people a little bit. Find out what their goals are, what they're afraid of regarding help and fitness. And maybe you're the right business for them. Maybe you're not. Maybe you can help them find an activity that they'll like at another business. Doesn't really matter. Be of service, provide information, provide support, then stay in touch with them and follow up. Don't just drop them after they come in the one time. All right, listen, that's it for this week's episode of Optimal Aging. Let me know what you think. Subscribe to the podcast, leave a review. Get on my email list by sending me an email at J A Y at PrimefitContent.com. And don't forget to buy my book, Selling Longevity, on Amazon.com or on my website, primefitcontent.com. If you're a gym owner, please let's talk about how I can help you reach more people with better content. Okay, join me next week for more on how we can help more people over 50 live healthier lives.

Head Shot

Jay Croft

Host