January Starts in October: Building Your New Year’s Campaign Now
Why studios that wait until December lose January
It’s December 20th. You just posted your “New Years, New You” promotion. Every other gym did too, and your ad gets lost in the 20 other ads that just went up, while ad costs are peaking.
If this sounds like you, you need to read this post. During this post, we will go through the 3 phases you need to make sure your New Year’s promotion actually works, and works well.
The first of which is the Build phase. You need to build your list to ensure you have a sea of prospects flooding your CRM. This is the foundation of the three phases.
The second is Nurture. You need to nurture these leads so they don’t lose interest in your program.
And the third and final is the Convert phase. Time to convert them into paying customers and make your campaign a winning one.
Why starting early works
Waiting to start is one of the worst decisions you can make when thinking about a campaign. If you start early, the attention is cheaper. Ad costs climb through Q4 and stay high until mid-late January. Leads collected in October cost less, and those people are already in your list when competition and motivation peaks.
Trust also takes time. Think about the first time you entered a gym. You were likely nervous, if not even scared. Having a longer time horizon to nurture your prospects gives them more trust in your solution providing results for them.
Finally, most prospects have their gym picked out before January first. You want to be the top of mind constantly so when they finally do pick their gym, you are their number one option.
The Three Phases
Phase 1: Build the list
For the first phase, you need to start with picking your offer now. Every piece of content, every ad, and every blog needs to point towards this offer. Options can include an intro month, a founding-rate membership (don’t overgive though), or one that has been proven to work really well; a 6-week challenge. Create a lead magnet that the resolution-makers actually want, and set up capture points everywhere to make sure no prospect gets lost.
LenzVU’s form builder, client tracker, and integrations make this process seamless. Building the forms tracks the leads, the automations automatically tag the prospects and assign them to an audience you can easily send email and sms campaigns to, and our integrations make importing your existing contacts easier than ever. Try it for free today.
Phase 2: Nurture without selling
The next phase is to nurture without selling the prospect. If you try to hard sell them right away, it’s like walking up to a cat and trying to pet it like a dog. It’s going to run away from you. The same is with this nurture sequence. You need to give them free value, so they stick around and you stay top of mind.
Setup a weekly email cadence with the Email Campaign Builder, and send out content to these prospects. Some content ideas are instructor intros, member transformation stories, and a “What to expect in your first class” email. Use the engagement as a signal, and with the LenzVU Email Builder, you can see who’s opening and clicking the emails. Move those prospects into a “warm” segment. Then, tease the offer in early-mid December.
Phase 3: Launch & Convert
This is where the whole thing comes together, and the make or break point of the whole plan.
Plan a launch-week sequence. Make the announcement, and send a sequence of emails to create trust and hype around the launch. Examples include but are not limited to; social proof email, an objection-handling email, or an FAQ. Then, create a waitlist 48 hours before the public launch to make it feel more exclusive, and send out a “spots filling up” reminder. Use the LenzVU tracker to prioritize the hottest leads, and the AI Receptionist to handle the calls so no inquiry goes unanswered.
The Bottom Line
Starting early obviously has benefits, and now having the 3 phase approach in front of you, you know exactly what to do to make your New Years resolution program the most efficient it has ever been. No campaign is purely luck, it’s a strategy that if followed properly, will create a money printing machine that puts in a dollar and gets a positive return out.
The best part is you don’t have to manage this by hand between your 6 a.m classes and closing the front desk. LenzVU’s automation templates, email campaign builder, and lead tracking handle the countdown for you, so every lead gets the right message at the right time while you focus on coaching.
January is 12 weeks away. Your campaign can start today.
