After you’ve spent a significant amount of time getting a good lead flow by marketing your gym. You may come across a new problem… getting those leads to respond. When using Facebook ads you have to understand the type of lead you’re getting and their mindset. It’s going to be very different from the mindset of a lead you get from a referral. This post is going to help you understand the difference and give you a few tactical ways you can connect with your leads.
Types of Leads
In my 10 years of experience as a gym owner and over $300,000 worth of experience in Facebook ads, I’ve found there are 3 tiers of leads:
- Low volume, high close (e.g. referrals)
- Medium volume, medium close (e.g. people who find your website on Google)
- High volume, low close (e.g. Facebook direct response leads)
On a weekly basis, I have strategy calls with business owners who have built a solid business through referrals. But they are ambitious and hungry for more leads and opportunity, so they ventured into Facebook marketing to accelerate their growth. Unfortunately, they went into Facebook ads with the expectation that they would close leads at nearly the same percentage, which is simply not the reality of the marketplace.
(From a supply/demand standpoint, if a high volume, high close lead source did exist, competition to acquire these leads would quickly drive the price up on them, until they were no longer high volume.)
One of the common phrases that I hear from business owners experiencing this is ‘My leads aren’t responding…’
Frustrated? 5 Things you can do to get Leads to Respond
- Adjust your expectations
With Facebook ads, 80% of your sales will come from about 20% of your leads. Assuming you follow-up consistently, typically, 10-15% will close initially and another 5-10% will close over time by making monthly offers to your email list. Going into the game knowing that hitting 1 out of 5 of your shots means you’re doing well! This will also help you budget accordingly and come up with your CPL (cost-per-lead) which one of Fitness Revolution’s coaches can help you with, in a strategy session. - Fix your mindset
It’s not the lead’s job to respond to you. It’s your job to provide them with enough value and social proof to compel them to respond. Stop asking yourself, “Why aren’t they responding?” and start asking yourself, “How do I provide them with more value and proof to make them feel like they need to talk to me?” (If you don’t have any social proof a great way to get some is by using this method.) Content is a great way to provide value and prove to the lead that you can actually help them. It doesn’t mean you need to send them every blog and video that you have during your follow-up process. But just having those assets easily accessible on your website is crucial. - Respond faster
A Harvard Business Review study found that you are 7x likelier to have a conversation with a web lead if you respond within 5 minutes than if you wait 1 hour and 60x likelier than if you wait 24 hours. Most web leads in fitness come before or after the working hours. The problem with that is this is when most fit pros are working in their gyms, so automation of your initial texts and emails is an effective way to decrease your response time. There are many ways you can do this. I would start by looking at automations you can build in your email software provider. A welcome sequence is a powerful way to give proof a value to your new lead and you can learn more about that here. - Be more persistent
Studies have found that 40% of responses come after the 5th contact, but most fit pros give up after the 1st or 2nd attempt. Oftentimes, these fit pros claim that they don’t want to annoy their lead, so here’s some creative texts to use… - Try these texts
Initial text
‘Hi [FIRSTNAME], it’s Coach [NAME] from [BUSINESS NAME]. Thanks for allowing us to contact you about the [PROGRAM NAME].
Here’s the link with all the details:
[INSERT SALES PAGE LINK]
After you check it out, if it’s not a good fit, just let me know. No hard feelings.
If you’re interested and have questions, just text me back and let me know some good times for a quick chat in the next couple days.’
*I like to send each line as a separate texts to make it more conversational and easily digestible.*
Why it works
- It reminds them that they gave you permission to contact them.
- It provides them with the link to the program. Texts have a 90%+ open rate vs. half that for even a great email.
- It gives them permission to say no, which gives them control of the process and positions you more as someone there to assist you vs. a salesperson.
Follow Up Text
Hey [FIRSTNAME], I know you’re super busy, but since you reached out for my help with your health & fitness, I’m not giving up on you!
If you’re not interested, no hard feelings, just let me know.
If you are interested, can we schedule a quick chat in the next couple days?
Why it works
- It acknowledges that they’re busy and reminds them that they gave you permission to contact them.
- It lets them know that you’re not going to give up.
- It gives them permission to say no, which gives them control of the process and positions you more as someone there to assist you vs. a salesperson.
(Here’s a complete gym lead follow-up system)
