Plastic Magic

Here is a hot fitness marketing item that many of the big shots in the fitness industry use, the plastic gift card.

As you know a few years ago now reloadable gift cards became a popular commodity. These cards are as good as real money at the issuing businesses. Many fitness professionals have begun to realize the value of having their own plastic gift cards for fitness marketing campaigns.

You may be thinking you need to have some fancy gadgetry to make these cards work. Truth is they are as simple as placing your order. You don’t need to be able to swipe them, reload them or honour them incrementally. Essentially all you are doing is creating a plastic gift certificate which becomes a major fitness marketing tool. Because of the retail industry we’ve been conditioned to keep these plastic cards far longer than their paper alternatives, simply because typically they have real cash value.

Here’s a number of ways you can use your plastic gift cards to grow your business:

1)      Give them out in any social opportunity you get. The more cards you have in circulation the more likely people will begin to redeem them.

2)      Give them to clients as referral generators. Tell them if they give it to a friend who redeems it in the next 30 days you will give them both the value of the card in credits toward their programs. (Hot tip: Some fitness professionals are even selling additional cards at reduced values to really generate really committed super referral generators.)

3)      Donate them like crazy to silent auctions and community functions.

4)      Use them as relationship builders and revenue generators for other businesses. Give other businesses the cards to give to their clients as appreciation rewards. (Wouldn’t you find it flattering if your hairdresser gave you a $100 gift card after your $35 haircut?) Even let them sell the cards for whatever denomination they want. (Would you buy a $100 gift card for $10 if you were interested in the product or service?) This is a way to filter and qualify leads before they ever come to you, someone who pays even $10 for your gift card will far more likely to come to you ready to buy than someone who was even given the same card for free. In this process you are also developing a paid marketing team that is happy to work for you with no out of pocket expense.

5)      A variation to this is contact local youth sports teams; have them sell the cards in the community for their next fundraiser. As a solo personal trainer do you think it would bode well for you to have a little league team running around the community praising you that you donated $10,000 in gift cards for them to have a successful season? This goodwill will cost you little and come back to you hugely.

There are five ways you can out-market and out-perform your competitors with a little low cost plastic magic. The secret to the cards is giving them enough value and the right look to ensure people hang on to them. I would suggest you don’t make the value less than $100. You can order them at a number of places online; previously we have ordered ours from www.4colorprint.com