Archive for the ‘Direct Mail’ Category
The best way to sell Fitness Gift Cards for your Fitness Center and where to get Gift Cards for your gym
Monday, December 19th, 2011Handwritten business cards for your gym or fitness center business
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010Handwritten business cards for your gym, fitness center, or tanning salon that stand out from your competitors and make the receivers laugh, and hold on to them to show their friends
I like to be different, so instead of getting tattoos to stand out, i use things that will be memorable, and when it comes to business cards i want people to keep and share my cards with others
whats the best wat to do that, being funny
Being a part time comedian, I love making people laugh, so I decided to give prospects something that is out of the ordinary when it comes to business cards.
Here’s the card I made, its two sided, so they see the fat guy and his BEFORE picture, then the AFTER picture on the other side, but either way they read it they laugh
I wrote this out in about an hour and sent it to my printer and had 250 cards made
Every time I hand them out, I get a laugh and have many people come back to me and ask for more to give to their friends, which is the whole point anyway, isn’t it?
What can you come up with that will make a prospect want to keep your card and show it to others?
My wife tells me some of the fitness marketing copywriting ads I come up with may be offensive to someone, but it always the people that aren’t gonna use my gym anyway, so who cares.
One banner I put up said, “being dead 24 hours a day, or exercising 30 minutes a day, which fits your schedule better?”
Another banner I put up was, “Fat and Ugly? Just want to be ugly? Then visit www.templegym.tv for the fat loss, and the plastic surgeon for the other?
I had people sending me emails all the time and stopping me and telling me how much they loved the banners, and not one complaint.
Want me to write funny stuff for your ads or cards and even radio and tv commercials?
To learn how to open a 24 hour fitness center, build and start a gym from scratch, manage a gym, and fitness center marketing, check out my book at www.how2ownagym.com
Shannon cook- fitness, gym, and tanning salon marketing consultant
Shannon can be reached at fitnessmarketing@comcast.net
Mailing list how to’s for target marketing for a fitness center
Saturday, May 22nd, 2010When it comes to direct marketing, first you must decide who your customers are.
To do this ask yourself and/or your current members, if your an already established gym, ask these questions below, to get a picture of what type person you need to target for your marketing instead of just mailing to every address around and hope you get some response.
To learn every deatil of ”how to open a 24 hour gym from scratch”, click here www.how2ownagym.com
- where do they live, how far from your gym
- do they live in an apartment, condo, or house
- where do they work
- where do they shop
- what kind of vehicles do they drive
- how old are they
- ratio of male to female members
- what is there income
- married or single
The reason i have you ask these questions is because when you go to buy a mailing list to do your mailouts to for postcards,salesletters, ect…, you will be able to choose from all those topics above if you use the right list broker.
for instance, I use INFO USA to purchase from because they allow me to query my chosen area by basically drawing a circle around my place of business.
3 miles around my gym is the size of area i like because most research shows that of your members will be from up to this distance from your gym.
In that circle i start to select from, income, married and single, education, health, number of vehicles, ect…
Everytime i query something else in that circle, the number of households goes down from the total i started with, and finally at the end of my selections, it gives me a total of qualified prospects they have mailing addresses for.
You get to see on a map, like google earth, that you can get an accurate picture of where you are choosing from.
I then get a price from the list builder per address.
What I love about INFO USA is that they dont make you pay a per month subscription, although you can, or make you buy a multi use list, meaning you can only use the mailing list one time and if you want to mail multiple times to those addresses, you have to pay for each time you mail.
If you’re thinking you can buy the list for one use and just use it for multiples anyway, you cant.
The list brokers have what they call seed mailings in each batch they sell you, and the seed people know how many mailings their suppose to get.
If they get more mailings than you paid for, they tell the list broker and you get sued, and believe me, it does happen, the list broker will sue.
INFO USA is the best to buy from in my opinon and dealings.
You can find them at www.infousa.com
To learn every deatil of ”how to open a 24 hour gym from scratch”, click here www.how2ownagym.com
Claude Hopkins who lived in the late 1800′s to mid 1900′s, was the worlds greatest copywriter, who wrote two books, which i have available in audio book on CD,on how to market, write copy, and test any product or service. the books are called “My Life in Advertising” and “Scientific Advertising”.
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
How I took my Gym from 60 members to over 300 in less than 60 days , when the previous 4 years I never sighen up more that 10 people a year. All from learning from this one man about Copywriting, and it works for any type business. The Man was Claude Hopkins. a early 1900′s ad writer whom I think invented copywriting and especially teh first ever books on the subject, the first is a how to book, and the other is a autobiography of his life in advertising. the first book is fairly eaisly found on audio, but i was luckly enough to find the ohter book on audio and you cant hardly find it even in paperback, much less the audiobook. I have both avaliable on CD.
Learn How to market and write ads from the First and Greatest copywriters of the 20th century in two books he wrote for the companies he worked for to teach how to market, to the marketing departments of those companies because he was drawing in 20 times more business than all his co-workers combined.
Claude Hopkins, , was the world’s greatest copywriter, he turned every company he worked for around, such as Slitz Beer Company, who was in last place among big beer companies back then, after he did the marketing that he teaches in these books, the Slitz Beer Company was number 1 within 6 months of starting his advertising ads. He wrote two books, which I have available in audio book on CD’s, on how to market, write sales copy, and test any product or service. The books are called “My Life in Advertising” and “Scientific Advertising”.
Claude C. Hopkins (1866-1932) He worked for companies like Bissell Carpet Sweeper Company, Swift & Company, Dr. Shoop’s patent medicine company, and Slitz Beer Company At the age of 41, he was hired by Albert Lasker, owner of Lord & Thomas advertising in 1907 at a salary of $185,000 a year Hopkins insisted copywriters researched their client products and produce reason-why copy. He believed that a good product was often its own best salesperson and as such he was a great believer in sampling
In 1900 he once wrote ads for an electric car company (yes they had electric cars then, in fact there were more electric cars made then, then there were gasoline because electricity was figured out in motors before gas was.) that brought in so many orders that they started making too many cars too quickly and the craftsmanship got shotty and put them out of business.
He only wrote 2 books and I have both on Audio CD, I have not found the Audio book “My life in advertising” anywhere else on CD, You can get it in book form other places though.
These rare books on audio are the reason I learned copywriting for my gym business. If you have any desire to learn copywriting whatsoever and take your company to the top of your category, you must get these audio books.
Scientific Advertising was published in 1923
My Life in Advertising was published in 1917
My Story: when I opened my gym in November 3, 2003 I acquired 80 members, by the end of four years I was down to 60 members, so I learned marketing from the greatest copywriter I could find. His name was Claude Hopkins. I read his books and I listen to his books and I studied all of his ads that he had written.
In February of 2008 I use the knowledge I gained from these two audio books and a PDF copy of the ads I have to write my own press releases and radio ads, and within one month I had doubled my membership, and within three months I had tripled my membership.
Anyone who owns their own business needs to oversee their marketing, by this I mean it’s okay to have someone write your materials, but you as the business owner know your business better than anyone, that’s why I say you need to oversee the marketing of your own business.
These books will teach you everything from writing ads, to testing ads, and how to get in the mind of your customer or prospect.
What you get:
• “my life in advertising” audio book CD
• “scientific advertising” audio book CD
• PDF files on a CD of Claude Hopkins ads that he wrote.
Cost: You get all this mailed directly to you for the cost of $47 shipping included in the continental 48 states
How you order:
• Pay by Pay Pal (email me fitnessmarketing@comcast.net and I’ll send you the email address to send the money to for a safe transaction)
• Pay by Mail: send check or money order to
Shannon Cook
7701 stormy lane
Northport, AL 35473
• Pay By Credit Card over the phone: email me at fitnessmarketing@comcast.net with the title “Pay for Claude Hopkins over phone” and I’ll send you the phone# to call to do so.
To learn how to open a 24 hour fitness center, build and start a gym from scratch, manage a gym, and fitness center marketing, check out my book at www.how2ownagym.com
