Marketing Personas: Why One Size Doesn't Fit All in the Leisure Industry

Are you sending the same marketing information to all your customers and hoping something hits the mark? This scattergun approach won’t do wonders for engagement or sales as you’ll be bombarding people with irrelevant information which they’ll ignore, or worse, get annoyed by. But how do you make your marketing efforts more targeted and deliver relevant information to the right people at the right time?

The recent ukactive Digital Futures report has recommended that a great first step for operators to gain consumer insights is to identify a set of customer personas. But what does that mean and how do you create a set of personas? Let’s get started.

What is a Marketing Persona?

Marketing personas, also known as buyer personas, customer personas, or in our industry's case, gym personas - are fictional profiles that represent different types of customers. Think about everyone who comes through your centre’s doors – can you roughly group them into broad categories based on their fitness goals and typical use of your facilities? You’re likely to have multiple gym personas, and each of these groups will be looking for different things from your centre.

Why is Persona Marketing Important in the Leisure Industry?

Communication isn’t a one size fits all approach - personas make your marketing efforts more effective for both customers and prospects by helping you meet their needs.

Using personas can:

• Strengthen relationships with customers which helps reduce attrition
• Ensure customers get the most out of your centre & facilities
• Help with content creation
• Increase sales by building rapport with prospects as well as increasing revenue via offers and deals to existing customers
• Help refine ad campaigns to make them more targeted
• And much more!

Examples of Gym Personas

Let’s take a look at two different personas you might find in your gym (we've just made these two up, you can name yours whatever you wish).

Muscle Martha

• Normally found near the squat racks – all about the gains
• Visits most mornings before work
• Hasn’t attended any classes or used the pool since joining
• Interested in Strength & Conditioning
• Regularly engages with your fitness content on Instagram

Sound familiar? Now that we’ve defined a persona, we need to think about what people who fall into this category want to be hearing about and which channels would be the most appropriate to reach them by. A good place to start is by putting yourself in their shoes and thinking about what information they might benefit from.

We can see that Martha isn’t too bothered about classes so don’t waste her or your time sending her the regular Pilates updates or new yoga timetables. But don’t exclude her completely! She might love to hear about that intense True Grit Circuits class you’re about to launch or the CrossFit Taster that you’re running next month. And the 30% off promotion on all protein powders and bars that starts next week? That’s got her name all over it. Why not promote this offer on your gym’s Instagram account as she’s likely to come across it when scrolling?

Next up we have:

Zumba Zoe

• Loves group exercise classes – regularly attends Zumba
• Normally visits the centre mid-morning, 2-3 times a week
• Doesn’t feel comfortable lifting weights – her fitness goals are primarily based around keeping fit
• Usually attends coffee mornings and other charity events when they’re on
• Doesn’t use Instagram but follows your page on Facebook

Zoe of course will love to hear about regular class updates as that’s her thing. But don’t just put her in one box either! She might also like to hear about your ‘Introduction to Strength Training’ course being held in a couple of weeks and your 20% off discount on all PT sessions for first-timers. And don’t forget to send her all the social event updates too, as she values the community feel of your centre. Don’t forget to post these offers and announcements on Facebook, as this is a channel which she engages with.

How to Create a Marketing Persona?

Qualitative Data

Let’s start with the information you’ve already got. You might already ask all your new members what their aspirations and fitness goals are when they join your centre, and if not, now is the time to start! You can also gather insights by simply chatting with your customers or asking them to fill out a quick survey.

Quantitative Data

You can then use a reporting tool like Gladstone Reports to dive a bit deeper into your data – how many times do they visit per month? How many classes on average do they attend a week? At what time of day do they tend to visit? 

From this information, you can start to group individuals together in rough groups. They don’t need to fit exactly in a persona, as long as they display some similar characteristics. Once you’ve defined your set of personas, it’s time to start sending out targeted communications and creating content relevant to each persona.

Once defined, you can extend these personas to your sales strategy to help you reach your target audience. After all, if you’ve defined the types of people who are currently members at your centre, this will help you know who and how to attract new joiners – and who would say no to increasing member numbers!

Gaining consumer insights is so important to keep your users engaged and active and defining your marketing personas is a fantastic place to start. The latest Digital Futures report by ukactive also details other recommendations for operators. Click below to have a read!