Are you confident you’re getting the best return on your paid ads?
What if I told you there are 3 ways which most gym owners can improve?
Let me tell you how I came upon these three upgrades via a heaping serving of humble pie…
You see, sometimes we all need outside eyes.
Even if you’re a relatively well-known gym owner consultant investor fitness business expert guy.
Because you can’t see the supplement facts on a protein bottle you’re inside of.
In other words, we ALL have blindspots when it comes to our business.
This past fall, Mark Fisher Fitness wasn’t getting the results we wanted. We were getting leads, but our throughput into memberships was crappy.
*Sad Trombone Sound*
I was banging my head against the wall with Emily, our Director of Possibilities.
We reviewed our follow-up.
It seemed good.
But I was feeling the heat and frustration of poor performance.
Was this a case of the “Cobbler’s kids not having good shoes?”
Happily, at this point in my career, I have a bunch of big gym biz brains I can turn to.
I Batphoned my pal GR Hoff from Gym Member Machine to weigh in.
Like the gracious southern gentleman he is,
He quickly turned around a bunch of videos auditing our whole set-up.
While there were no gaping holes,
Success in paid ad lead conversion is about the details.
And he found a bunch of small things we could tweak.
Here are three suggestions that have had a massive impact:
1) Double call. Or basically don’t bother.
In 2025, most cellphones won’t ring for unrecognized numbers.
Are you diligently calling your leads, yet no one ever picks up?
Try calling once, then calling right back after the first call. Now the phone will ring.
NOTE: Just because YOU don’t pick up the phone doesn’t mean no one else does. .
By the way, if you’re trying to do this all by emails and texts,
And never calling leads,
I promise you’re leaving money on the table.
2) Call three times per day for the first three days.
This represents the biggest change to my previous approach.
When someone is in their first 14-days post opting in, I call them a “Freshie.” I suggest at LEAST 15-20 touches across channels (texts, emails, and phone calls).
While this is still the right general idea, it’s no longer 2019. Or even 2022. In 2025, attention spans are shorter than ever. And we need to go big in the first 24-72 hours.
By all means, keep following up on days 4-14 before you put them in your long term nurture bucket.
Just know the first 24-72 hours of follow-up are crucial. Best to frontload your touches in this window.
As a bonus, if someone is NOT interested, they’ll tell you. And you won’t need to follow-up anymore.
And if they ARE interested? You’re way more likely to book them.
This means you actually save time with less follow-ups to unresponsive leads.
3) Speed to lead. But for REAL, though.
If you’ve never heard this term, here’s what it means:
Call the lead IMMEDIATELY upon opting in. Or at least within 5 minutes.
Or watch your contact rate plummet.
Simply put, people forget about your gym at a blazing speed. Particularly if they clicked on your Facebook or Instagram ad.
Not only that, but they’re often researching multiple gyms. So they often prioritize whoever gets back to them first.
The challenge, in the messy real world, is that the lion’s share of opt-ins happen:
- After 9pm at night
- On the weekends
- While you’re in a session
There’s no perfect solve for this. And of course it’s weird to call a client in the middle of the night. So we wouldn’t want to do this anyway.
Setting up automated emails and texts help. They make it easy for the prospect to take the next relevant step. So in 2025, automations like this are pretty much mandatory. But a realtime phone convo can be a difference maker.
Again, no gym can do this perfectly all the time. But whoever owns follow-up needs to prioritize immediately calling opt-ins whenever humanly possible.
It’s very easy for this to fall out of the priorities list. And if so, it will cost you.
NOTE: If you have anyone on your team helping, you MUST audit this. Even high performers will sometimes slip here.
******
Want this kind of insight?
GR and Gym Member Machine can help you too.
After hiring them for my franchise gym in NJ,
We tripled our throughput from paid leads to new memberships sold.
If you’re looking for a high integrity paid ad agency you can trust…
Who will not only get you targeted quality leads,
But advise on what’s working now to get those leads to actually show up and fall in love with your gym…
Book a chat below.
I’m usually terrified to refer vendors but this is how much I believe in them,
Mark
PS: Want to learn MOAR strategies and tactics to turn leads into clients?
Our upcoming Unicorn Society retreat in Toronto March 21st-22nd is all about Marketing & Sales.
(You’ll also get to see GR from Gym Member Machine in action, as he’ll be giving a talk.)
If you’re a gym owner looking for:
- A steadier flow of weekly leads
- More qualified prospects who value your services
- Increasing revenue month over month
… you’ll want to join us.
Remember, the price goes up after this Monday.
Claim your seat HERE.