Fitness Marketing – Creating Your Fitness Industry USP – Unique Selling Proposition
One of the most important questions you can ask yourself as a fitness business owner or professional is: Why should someone use my services or my fitness center, instead of any other fitness service or business? Another way to ask this question is: Why should someone do business with me instead of other businesses and options I may have? The answer to these questions is your USP or Unique Selling Proposition. Business owners use this term to describe to potential customers what makes their business unique and why a prospect should use their services.
Ask yourself this question: when Ballys Total Fitness and Golds Gym offer their members small monthly fees, say $19.95 to $35.00 per month, why should someone pay my hourly rate of $65.00 to $100.00? You better have a great answer to that question, and you should radiate that answer in your confidence about your service. Having a USP breaks the hesitation in your prospect’s mind to go somewhere else and pay less, instead of coming to you and paying more. When they have a reason why you are special and unique, they will pay more for your training and services.
An example of a USP is in the pizza industry. Years ago, a certain pizza maker came up with a unique selling proposition. His promise to his customers was that they would receive their pizza in 30 minutes or less. The USP was, Hot, fresh Pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less, or your money back. This was the USP of Dominos Pizza. Now they didn’t even say it was a good pizza, just that it would be fresh, hot, and at your door in 30 minutes. At the time of creating this USP, pizza deliveries took 45-60 minutes, so this USP stuck in people’s minds when they were buying pizza. As a result of this one sentence, this USP, allowed Dominos to become the pizza giant it is today.
An example of a USP in the fitness industry, especially for personal trainers and instructors, is Personal Attention. The answer to why they pay their fees that are clearly higher than other gyms is their personal attention to your health goals. You are 100% focused on their needs, their wants and desires, and you are 100% committed to them to achieve their goals no matter what. If you convey this USP to your clients, then in their mind they will have an answer as to why they pay more for your services than anywhere else.
Your business is no different than Dominos. You should always ask yourself the questions: What makes my business unique? Why should someone do business with me? The answers to these questions should be in all of your marketing, promotional, and personalized communication pieces with your fitness clients.