Creating a high-converting lead management process for your studio
While it’s not the easiest task, it will prove to be a crucial one for your studio: building an effective, high-conversion lead management process. In a sector as competitive as fitness and wellness, marketing campaigns are numerous and prospects are in high demand. Because of this, you need a clear lead management process that targets your audience in the right way and sets you apart from your competitors. In this article, we're going to explore the tools available to you and the best strategies to adopt.
The first step before creating your campaigns is to understand your sales funnel.
Understanding the sales funnel
The sales funnel represents the path your potential customers take, often visualised in the form of a funnel. At the beginning, at the top of the funnel, are all the potential customers. Then, at each stage of the buying journey, prospects move further down the funnel, meaning they are moving towards the purchase. The different stages of the funnel include awareness, where the prospect discovers your product or service, interest, and finally decision-making, where they end up buying.
For a fitness or yoga studio, your prospects will first discover your brand and your studio (awareness), then find out about your classes, your offers and your values (interest) and finally sign up for a trial class and buy a pass (decision).
To optimise your marketing campaigns as much as possible, let's explore the different tools you can use depending on your prospect's position in this funnel.
First step: Awareness
When the potential customer doesn't know you yet, they’re at the top of the funnel. There can be two types of prospects.
Firstly, people who are not at all aware of your business and who are not looking for a studio. They represent a major challenge in terms of targeting, because not only do you have to inform them about the advantages of your studio, but you also have to convince them of the value of your sector.
The second type of prospect is someone who is already familiar with your sector’s activities (yoga, spinning, boxing, etc.) and has already signed up with a studio. Here, the challenge is to help them understand why they should choose your studio rather than another.
In addition to these two types of profiles, there are a wide variety of profiles: classifying them will simplify your work later on. Here is a list of criteria you can take into account:
- Age
- Location
- Gender
- Socio-professional category
- Level (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
By refining these criteria, you can draw up typical prospect profiles detailing their personality and specific behaviours. By analysing these profiles, you can quickly identify those who are naturally more in tune with your offers, making it easier for them to engage with you. It's a good idea to concentrate your efforts on those market segments that are most receptive to your proposition.
Once you've qualified your leads, it will be easier for you to know the right place and the right time to communicate. Here are the methods you can use at this stage of the funnel to optimise conversion:
Referencing your website
Search engine optimisation (SEO) covers all the techniques used to improve the visibility of your site on search engines. It is divided into two categories: paid search and organic search. Paid search, also known as SEA, involves buying advertising space on search engines. It allows you to quickly gain visibility by displaying targeted ads to internet users. Organic search engine optimisation, or SEO, on the other hand, is based on technical and editorial optimisation of the site to improve its organic positioning in search results. Although SEO takes time and patience, it offers lasting visibility and qualified traffic, while SEA enables you to reach a targeted audience quickly and at a cost.
If, for example, you are a yoga studio based in the centre of Dublin, good SEO will enable you to appear in searches for keywords such as: yoga dublin / studio dublin.
Social networking campaigns
Thanks to the profiles you set up earlier, you'll be able to target and create the right content to reach your target and your objectives.
Here are our top tips on how to do this successfully:
- Attractive visuals: Use high-quality images and videos that attract attention and reflect positively on your brand. In the case of a promotional offer, it is strongly recommended that the offer is displayed very large on your visual.
- A/B testing: Carry out A/B tests on different elements of your campaign (title, visuals, call to action) to identify what works best and optimise performance.
- Clear Call-to-Action (CTA): Make your CTA clear, concise and encouraging. A good CTA motivates users to take action, whether to buy, register or find out more.
- Optimise for mobile: Make sure your ads are optimised for mobile devices.
- Use tracking pixels: Integrate social network tracking pixels into your website to track conversions and retarget visitors with specific ads.
Note that thanks to your bsport back-office, you can easily link your Google Tag Manager and Facebook Pixels accounts, so you can track your leads for better follow-up.
Finally, if your budget allows, you can also set up traditional advertising campaigns, take part in/organise events or create an influencer campaign.
Second step: Interest
Once your prospect has heard about your studio, you need to succeed in arousing their interest and nurturing it. This is the time to create more specific content and highlight your offers to create interest. In the case of a fitness or yoga studio, it's crucial to emphasise the community spirit and the desire to surpass oneself. This involves :
- A well-defined website: Don't hesitate to be very clear about the types of classes you offer, and to present your team, your history and your values.
- A retargeting strategy: When a prospect opens a shopping basket but doesn't confirm the purchase, you can send them a personalised message to encourage them to complete the process. At bsport and thanks to our automated marketing tool, Audience, you can run your campaigns effortlessly by pre-configuring communication campaigns. Your prospects will be identified as having started a shopping basket, for example, and will receive the appropriate notifications to encourage them to buy.
- Lead magnet: A lead magnet is a lead generation tool that you use to obtain your customers' contact details in exchange for a reward. Free resources that provide your prospects with information about your discipline and activity are a very good strategy to adopt. Why not create a Nutrition Guide, for example? If you're interested, you can find a host of examples by clicking here.
- Referral campaign: This level of the funnel is the perfect time to encourage word-of-mouth by inviting your members to become your ambassadors. Don't hesitate to use our referral feature, which allows you to create links in an ultra-customisable way and in just a few clicks.
At this step, it is very important to pay particular attention to the way in which you write your content. The vocabulary must be chosen with precision and relevance.
Third step: Decision-making
Thanks to the efforts made in the last two steps and tailor-made communications on a regular basis, your prospects have reached the final step, which is surely the most important. This is the moment when your prospect will turn into a customer and decide to meet you and join your community. To boost your conversion rate, you can use these methods:
- Trial offers: What could be better than a free trial course to give you a complete picture of the service you offer?
- Promotional offers: Following the trial course, a promotion on a class pass will enable you to easily convert your prospects into customers!
- Solid customer service: The atmosphere in your studio is a real marketing argument. Don't hesitate to guide your team on how they can best identify and support new customers and make them want to come back.
How can you calculate your performance for improvement?
The final step is analysis. By studying the conversion rate from one step to the next, you'll know which actions are effective and relevant and which need to be improved.
The math is simple: simply divide the population of the highest stage in your funnel by the population of the stage below. To find out how effective your actions are, just remember that the closer your result is to 1, the more effective your actions are!
So, by clearly mapping your prospects' journey through the sales funnel, you'll be able to understand their needs more easily and therefore activate the right actions to convert them. By providing the right information at the right time and creating the right buzz, you'll find it easier to convert your prospects and grow your customer base.
