7 Tips To Use Facebook Groups To Convert Fitness Leads into Members

Suppose you are a gym owner with a vision to inspire clients to start their fitness journey. To fulfill the dream, you made an investment in the market for an ROI in your gym. You post ads on Television, in newspapers, and on radio. You also email newsletters to members who have subscribed to your newsletter services. However, you also spend a handsome amount on placing your gym hoarding in a prominent place to make it visible to your potential clients. But, still, you find it quite difficult to attract potential clients to your gym. 

During this struggling phase, you might think about whether you are using the wrong paths or the clients’ lack of interest in joining your gym. As per Nimble App Genie’s research, around 184.59 million people globally were expected to take up gym membership in September 2022. Moreover, this research also indicates that around 100 million people join gyms each year. Thus, these statistics rectify your thought that clients lack interest in joining gyms. It’s confirmed that you are using the wrong approach to attract members to your gym. Now, you have to find the right marketing approach to implement to keep up with the marketing trends of the fitness industry. 

This is an era in which social media has taken a prominent place in everyone’s life. Whenever you see, you will find people sticking to social platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, etc. So, if you want to grow your gym finances, you have to ensure you include social media platforms in your marketing strategy. However, the most important social media platform you can use is Facebook.  As per The Social Shepherd’s research, Facebook alone has 3.065 billion monthly active users. This means that using Facebook to promote your gym can help you to attract new clients. 

Now, you might have a question about how you can use Facebook to convert fitness leads into members. The best way to attract clients is by using Facebook groups. Here are the 7 tips that enable you to use Facebook groups to convert leads into members. 

Benefits of using Facebook groups

Before creating or using Facebook groups for your gym promotion, you have to understand the benefits. These groups enable you to create a dedicated space to start your close-knit community. You can attract millions of people who have similar interests related to fitness. As per Ad targeting’s research, around 16 million people on Facebook are interested in exercise equipment. Men make up around 58% of the total target audience, while women account for 42%, with the age group lying between 25 and 34. So, you can use Facebook to create a community that has the same motive as you. Here are the benefits that you can get by using Facebook groups. 

Client’s trust

Joining a Facebook fitness group or creating a new one enables you to gain the trust of your potential leads. You can use these groups to interact with your members and give them the answers to their queries. These queries provide expert advice and guide clients towards achieving their fitness goals. You can also post clips of your gym events on Facebook groups. These clips enable your members to connect, and they start to build trust in your gym. This not only enables you to foster a strong community that has trust in your piece of advice but also enables you to convert fitness leads into members. 

For example, You are a gym owner with a vision to inspire clients with your expertise. You start your Facebook group with the name Fitness Freaks, in which you post videos about new workouts, the latest market trends, suggest your client’s diet plans, etc.  All these posts enable you to attract new members to your group and get expert advice. This group not only enables you to enlighten your members with expert advice but also helps you to attract members to your gym. Members that have trust in your gym and pieces of advice. 

Creativity for better performance 

Creating or joining Facebook groups enables you to showcase your gym expertise by posting clips. You can post regular videos with engaging visuals in these groups where your gym personal trainers can showcase different workouts. These videos not only enable you to attract new clients but also enable you to establish your gym as a brand. Moreover, these engaging visuals help your potential leads connect with your gym and encourage them to become members. 

For example, You have created a Facebook group, Fitness Freak, where you post daily updates about your gym, event seminars, or new workout. Whenever you post a video or pictures of the event, you give a more engaging visual that not only retains the potential leads at your video but also motivates them to participate in your gym. Thus, it enables you to showcase your gym performance with creativity and enable your gym to stabilize financially. 

Community building 

These Facebook groups not only enable your gym to attract potential leads but also enable your gym to foster a sense of belonging among your members. This sense of belonging helps you to build a community that has the same vision and passion for achieving fitness goals. A community that is loyal to your gym and connects with your gym’s success stories and events. Thus, it enables you to get a loyal community you can fully trust. 

For example, you have created a Facebook group named Fitness Freak, where you post videos and pictures of your gym. You also share your thoughts about the fitness industry and give your members answers to their fitness-related issues. Answering these questions and sharing your enlightened thoughts enable you to gain your members’ trust, which helps you build a community. A community that is dedicated to fitness will also help you attract potential leads. These members regularly share your content on Facebook, which helps you convert these new fitness leads into potential clients. 

Types of Facebook groups 

If you want to brand your gym by using Facebook groups, you have to ensure that you know the types of groups and their influence in attracting potential leads. Whenever you create your own Facebook group or enroll in someone else’s fitness group, Facebook offers you two options: whether to join or create a public group or a private one. Public and private groups both have their individual impact on your target audience. 

Public groups

Public groups allow any fitness enthusiast with a vision to achieve fitness goals to enroll without admin approval. Group names, members and posts of these groups can be seen by anyone from anywhere. Moreover, these groups appear in news feeds and searches. So, if you want your gym to get more members in the meantime, you have to ensure that you have created or joined a public fitness group. As these groups quickly appear on searches, it enables you to grow your gym quickly. 

For example, you created a group on Facebook and made it public. As your group is public, anyone can see and get access to your group’s posts. Your members or a random person scrolling can share your content on Facebook, which enables you to attract clients and also engage in conversations with your gym. 

Public groups examples

 Here are examples of public fitness groups with high engagement rates. 

1. London gym mates: The London gym mates is an example of a public group that allows the members to join the group freely without any admin approval. This Facebook group have around 5.6k members that can share and interact with the admin on daily bases. 
2. Health and fitness group: The health and fitness group is another example of a public group that has around 33k members. Members can get impactful thoughts on health and fitness and post around 10+ new posts each day. 
3. Gym workout fitness: This group has around 314k members that can post around 10+ posts each day. These posts enable the clients to be updated on fitness trends. 

Private groups 

These groups are slightly more exclusive than the public groups. Whenever a fitness freak searches on facebook and reaches a private group, that person can only view the group name, description and member list. If that person wants to get access to the group’s content, he has to get approval from the group admin. These groups get more attention from potential members as the communication that happens in the group stays with the group, which makes the people more curious about the content of the group. 

For example, For your Facebook group, you want to maintain the uniqueness of your content while ensuring the safety of conversation among your clients. You have to ensure that you have joined or created a private group. This group enables you to draw the attention of new clients toward your page and enhance the member’s engagement rates. 

Private group examples

Here are examples of private groups with higher engagement rates. 

1. Fitness motivation: This is an example of a private group in which members can share their fitness journey and get advice to stay motivated. This group have around 184k members. 
2. Fitness support group: This group has around 21k members who get advice from experts about their fitness journey. Moreover, members can also share their fitness stories to inspire others to start. 

7 tips for using Facebook groups for conversion

After creating or joining a group, whether it be a public group or private one, you have to ensure that you have taken the steps that enable you to buy the business to your gym. So, you can enhance your gym’s financial stability and boost its sales. Here are the 7 tips that you can use in your Facebook group to improve the conversion of fitness leads into members.

Recognize and reward active members

If you want to enhance the members’ engagement and ensure your vision reaches the target audience, you have to make sure that you give incentives to the active members. These incentives can vary depending on the type of group you are operating. If you are running a public group, you can incentivize the members who refer new leads to your gym. Similarly, if you are running a private group, you can give incentives to the members who raise questions and actively participate in the group. 

Giveaways are another option to give rewards to active members. You can organize a giveaway contest with specific criteria for your members. If someone fulfills all the parameters, you can post that contestant’s details in the group and give him some reward. This reward system enables you to enhance the number of active members, which can help you bring business to your gym and boost your gym finances. 

For example, You have started a Facebook community where you post videos about your gym offerings and success stories of the clients working out. You have around 15K members in that community, out of which around 500 members regularly interact with you and share your content. If you want to enhance the number of active members, you need to give incentives to the active members. You can give them either a one-month free membership to your gym or a free merchandise giveaway. These incentives not only enable you to enhance the number of active members but also motivate them to help you attract potential leads. 

Leverage the power of storytelling 

To enhance user engagement in your gym Facebook group, you have to understand the power of storytelling. As per Leapmesh’s research, effective storytelling increases the change of conversion rate by up to 30%. Moreover, 15% of the clients immediately purchase the goods or services if they love the brand story. This means if you want to enhance your member’s engagement and improve conversion rates, you have to ensure that you leverage the power of storytelling. You can post videos of a member’s story who starts from scratch and achieves a body. These videos draw the attention of Facebook members who have the same story. 

Moreover, you can also ask your community members to share their stories so that more people can relate to their stories and get interested in joining your gym. For example, In your Facebook group, you share a video about a member who started a journey with your gym around 6 months back and shared their struggle to achieve their fitness goals. You can share clips of the members during different workouts and also share your advice to that client in his struggling phase. 

These clips and your piece of advice enable the larger community to connect with your gym and the struggle story of your client. By using the tactics of storytelling, you not only enhance your community’s trust but also enable you to attract potential leads to your gym. 

Post photo quotes 

While running a private or a public group, as an admin, you want to ensure that all your members feel motivated in the way of their pilgrimage. So. to enhance your member’s engagement and boost their morale, you have to post photos with quotes regarding fitness. In this way, you not only provide motivation to your members but also open a channel for communication. Your members can share these quotes and leave comments under the photo. You can react to their comments, which develops a sense of belonging among your clients and helps you to gain your client’s trust. 

For example, in your fitness community, you share three posts daily featuring an image of a fitness freak performing high-intensity workouts with some highly motivated words. These words enable you to enhance the morale level of your members and also enable them to leave comments under the post. You can simply interact with your members through these comments and enhance their engagement rates. 

Post polls, surveys, and quizzes 

If you want to enhance your member’s engagement while spreading awareness about fitness among them, the best way is to conduct polls, surveys, and quizzes. You can conduct quizzes about fitness among your members to get insights about the level of understanding they have related to the fitness industry. Moreover, you can also conduct polls and surveys related to different fitness topics and make sure that everyone takes part in the surveys. Based on these surveys and polls, you can organize various events or showcase your gym members’ workouts. In this way, you interact directly with your clients, which increases the chances of fitness leads conversion into members. 

For example, In your gym, you want to organize an event related to HIIT training, and in order to get an audience review, you simply post a poll in your community. In this audience poll, you ask your members how many members want to have HIIT training in the gym. You get different poll results showcasing the community members’ interest in the training. Moreover, you can also conduct a quiz related to HIIT to understand whether your members have any knowledge about the HIIT training. In this way, you get feedback from your audience about the training. Moreover, these quizzes and polls also enable you to foster a sense of belonging among your clients and help you out in attracting new clients. 

Ask different questions 

Another way to grab the attention of your community members and convert fitness leads into valuable gym members is to raise questions. These questions not only help you to provide valuable knowledge to your clients but also enable you to start a conversation rolling. You can post different sorts of questions with your clients and get a better understanding of their fitness perspective. Moreover, You can use these questions as a call to action that enables members to jump quickly into the conversation and share their thoughts. You can ask your clients different types of questions, such as:

Closed-questions

You can ask your clients questions, to which they can respond with a straight “yes” or “no.” These questions are pretty straightforward and quick to answer.  

For example, you can simply raise a question in the group like “ Do you like the HIIT training workout?” your clients can simply respond with “yes” or “no”. These questions also help you to extract valuable data from the group. 

Open-ended questions 

These questions are not as straightforward as closed questions, but they enable the members to share their thoughts freely on a specific topic. Also, these questions allow you to gather more valuable insights from your members as they need to be more specific about the subject. 

For example, in your gym, you want to start a new workout program, for which you want valuable insights from your clients on whether they are going to like it or not. To get more exact information about your client preferences, you can simply raise a question in the group: What do you like about that workout program? Your clients can share their thoughts on this, which will help you gather more exact information about it. 

Debate-based questions

You can also ask your clients questions that are debatable. Such questions help you to get the insight of your members and give you a better understanding of what your audience thinks of a specific topic. These types of questions encourage more innovative ideas. 

For example, For your gym, you are going to organize an event in which you are going to invite several guest speakers who can speak on Yoga, HIIT, etc. But you are still confused as to whom you want to ask. You raised the question in the Facebook group: To whom do you want to see as a guest speaker on HIIT? Members of your community simply give their thoughts about different speakers and raise a debate among themselves. Thus, you can use this information to finalize the guest speaker. 

All these questions enable you to develop a sense of belonging among clients. You ask their suggestions via questions before implementing a decision, which allows you to gain your clients’ trust and helps you convert fitness leads into members. 

Share Edu-tainment posts

To grab your client’s attention and increase the chance of conversion, you have to follow the edutainment approach. It is not essential to share 3 or more posts a day to improve the engagement of your clients. But, the thing that enables you to grab the attention of your clients is storytelling combined with entertainment. You can share information about a fitness workout or a diet plan by including captivating visuals of that workout or diet plan. As per research, the best-suited content that grabs the attention of the client while scrolling is the combination of education and entertainment. 

Moreover, this study also reveals that the ideal frequency of sharing posts on Facebook should be 1-2 posts per day. This means you have to post only 1-2 posts per day that compel the best content for your members. For example, you share content in the group about HIIT training and how it becomes helpful to achieve the desired fitness. You have two ways to showcase that content, whether you can simply post that and make it dry or add more captivating pictures about HIIT along with the content. The second option enables you to gain your client’s attention as well as act as a CTA that increases the chance of lead conversion. 

Maintain a regular posting schedule

If you want to succeed on social media by keeping your members posted about the content, you have to maintain a posting schedule. This means that you have to post your content frequently in the group by staying active. Frequent posting in the group enables you to keep your members informed about your new product, services, sales, and events that you are going to organize. Moreover, regular posting on Facebook helps you to maintain your audience graph. If you fail to post daily in your group, you can quickly lose your audience. 

For example, You started a Facebook group in which you post content about your gym. Soon after beginning that group, you see an increase in the members who have the same passion as you. But, after some time, you became irregular on Facebook and started posting updates about your content twice a week. Then, you will see a drop in the number of audiences that actively participate in the group, and your members will start to quit. Thus, it is essential for you to maintain consistency at Facebook, which enables you to increase the chances of lead conversion. 

Final takeaway 

To enhance your gym’s sales and give it an online presence, it is essential for you to join or create a Facebook group. This group not only enables you to share your content but also helps you convert potential members into clients. If you want to increase the chances of lead conversion, 7 tips will help you draw the attention of your clients. All these tips will enhance your content-sharing strategy on Facebook and ensure your consistency on the social platform.