How to Increase Credibility and Brand Recognition Through Fitness Studio Partnership Marketing
Partnership marketing is well utilized in this industry because fitness, health, and wellness house lots and lots of different business types. The overall industry is a powerhouse for revenue, and societally, we continue to lay more focus on the importance of health and wellness. Moreover, health initiatives are widely popular. They draw in heaps of revenue for any businesses involved because wellness is important!
In return, we see positive influences on the health of communities large and small. Fitness studios have a wide array of options when it comes to ways in which they can partner and connect with other businesses and their audiences. So why don’t we break down partnership marketing as a whole and then list some ideas for partnerships that would supplement studios well?
How to Pitch a Partnership Offer
Pitching a partnership offer requires a well-thought-out plan and a proposition for a mutually beneficial relationship. Weighing the values of different services offered can be difficult if there is no direct pipeline in revenue streams. However, you can measure the value of the return on your investment in terms of many different KPIs that affect your revenue.
An example of a direct revenue stream is one where a product from a partner company is sold at a studio location. The studio takes a portion of that sale and thus money is made directly at the point of sale. However, other partnership opportunities like sponsorships raise awareness for studios. An example of this would be your fitness studio purchasing a sponsorship package for your local Special Olympics. Your business donates money to a worthy cause in the health and wellness industry, and in turn, your business receives a great deal of recognition.
Nonetheless, pitches for partnerships must outline every detail of the partnership like the length of time, the budget, the benefits for both parties, and how to employ the campaign.
Read Forming Effective Local Business Partnerships With your Fitness Business for more details on pitching your partnership proposal.
What are the benefits for both parties?
As mentioned before there are multiple different outcomes for partnership marketing ventures.
- Opportunity for more revenue streams
- Raise brand awareness
- Boost brand recognition
- Increase credibility for all parties involved
With those possibilities at large, you will need to figure out what kind of partnership will open the doors. The kind of partnership will determine the products sold and how they’re sold or the exchange of services. In the example of a sponsorship, money is donated to an organization and in return, your logo will have its place on marketing materials. In addition, depending on the event, your business might receive speaking opportunities or other engagement in the event. The more engagement from your business’s end, the more opportunity for engagement from the consumer’s end.
How can partnerships grow your fitness business through those benfits?
In most aspects of life, we find that people and things are more powerful in numbers. This holds true for business partnerships. Through partnerships, studios can broaden their audience and generate revenue through other segments of the fitness market using the partnership as a proxy.
Overall, most partnerships have a direct effect on raising brand awareness. Brand awareness and brand recognition play key roles in the way that people regard your fitness studio.
Celebrities would not be as successful without their recognition and fame. A movie has more potential to generate higher revenue if they have just one A-lister as opposed to movies without any recognizable actors. This works because of the credibility that A-list actors have when it comes to their performance and the roles they take on. They are well known for being good at what they do and for choosing good roles.
This same concept applies when it comes to the brand recognition of a fitness studio. A person can associate the brand with a positive experience that they had with an ad, a partnership marketing venture, or a friend who took a class there. In return, that means they will have good things to share about the studio in a conversation about fitness and even sign up themselves.
A person is more likely to go with a business that has more recognition and credibility than any other fitness studio in town. Thus, the power of partnerships persists.
Credibility and Awareness Through Studio Partnership Marketing
How is it that partnership marketing raises credibility and awareness?
In the first place, the business your studio partners with trusted it enough to set forth on a business venture. Partnerships require an ample amount of trust from all parties involved to hold up their end of the deals.
This lays a foundation of trust for the partner’s loyal audience to know that they would be in good hands with the other business at large. Moreover, think of it as trusting a friend’s recommendation for a coffee shop they frequent.
Aside from that, the brand of the studio will now be placed in the forefront of the minds of the other business’s audience. With that said, they do not have to convert into paying customers right off the bat, but now the option is known. This is where exclusive incentives can play a huge role in conversions from the audiences of the studio’s business partner.
What entities would make for good partnerships for fitness businesses?
The doors are wide open with partnership options for studio gyms! Within the fitness industry, there is a wide variety of avenues that owners and managers can take with other businesses. Between local partnerships and partnerships beyond regional bounds, fitness studios can choose how they would like to grow their business and to what audience they would like to grow with.
Local Partnerships
Often, local partnerships are the easiest and the most common because the proximity makes for an easier connection between audiences. Even better, proximity makes for ease of communication and planning for how the partnership will ensure. In the community where your fitness studio resides, you will find that you want and sometimes need to form effective local business partnerships.
Charities are great for partnerships because giving back feels as good as it looks for your fitness studio. The best charity relationships to form would be with ones that pertain to the audience your studio attracts.
Other local organizations and groups make for great pairings with fitness studios because these groups often niche in their audiences. This way, studios can pick out what organization or group might have the right audience they need to market to and in return offer exclusive deals to those involved. From there word-of-mouth kicks the opportunities into high gear with members of the organizations sharing their experiences with the studio.
Other studios – Combining forces by offering discounts for attendees of both studios and exclusive offers. This reduces the risk of competition between studios and increases the traffic for both. People can become bored of their regular fitness routine, so this way they can shake up their workouts. This tactic will also help to increase brand loyalty if employed correctly and fairly between the two studios.
Local sports teams offer you an attentive, conversational audience. Firstly, you’re contributing to the fitness and wellness of the youth and adult teams you support. This can occur through donations or through specialized fitness classes offered to the athletes. Secondly, you can also acquire clients from the parents and friends of those team members.
Partnerships Outside of Local Communities and Online
Supplement Brands make for the typical avenue of fitness and wellness partnerships, but they are typical for a reason. Studio-goers benefit form the nutritional side of wellness provided by the supplements sold in the studio. The supplement brand raises more awareness and increases sales through the studio and others.
Athletic wear brands make for popular partnerships. As health and fitness become increasingly trendier, so does athletic wear. Athletic wear is a multi-purpose and valuable commodity for any fitness business for three reasons. People love to be stylish. People love to have comfortable clothing to exercise in. Finally, you can slap some of your studio’s branding on athletic wear and call that an extension of the marketing efforts.
Partnerships for fitness studio equipment make for a stylish studio. Partnering with a fitness equipment distributor allows the whole studio to be outfitted at a discounted price and to have a unified, polished look to the studio. This increases credibility tremendously!
Software Partnerships allow for your studio to become stocked with software that helps your business run more efficiently. This software can range from client relationship management software, personal trainer software, overall gym management software, and more. In return
Certification Partnerships for educating staff build the value of becoming an employee at a fitness studio. Popular studios actually partner with certification programs to offer specialized classes and/or discounted certification courses for new employees. In return, this builds more value for people who potentially want to become instructors. Additionally, partnership marketing with certification programs ensures that your instructors receive a thorough education to prepare them for the job.
For the certifying body, they put more students through their program and generate more revenue and awareness.
Overall
Take advantage of what other businesses have to offer for your fitness studio. Working together in the fitness industry can expand the reach and the positive effects of wellness. Even forming realtionships with companies and organizations outside of the real of fitness can prove worthwhile.
Ideally, other companies and organizations will share the same goals and understand the need for happier and healthier communities. From a business standpoint, happier and healthier communities are better consumers overall!
