GIVE YOUR
FITNESS
BRAND A
LOW-COST
FACELIFT
Should you keep your company the way it is now and hope that it somehow becomes more successful,
or be proactive and refresh your brand so it’s positioned to be so?
WORDS: DEREK BARTON
o rebrand or not to rebrand? That
is the question. Great brands are
always evolving. They rebrand or
reinvent themselves in a bid to stay current
while making an emotional connection with
their customers. You must refresh your
brand and your company from time to time.
You don’t wear the same clothes decade
after decade, right? You change things up,
experimenting with different looks and styles
T
through the years, trying to stay current and remain relevant.
Great brands are incessantly perfecting their look, from their logo
to their products, ads, website, and interior and exterior of their brick
and mortar stores.
In my 30 plus years as a marketing professional, I have noticed
many businesses, particularly health clubs, whose walls are sterile
white – nothing beautiful, inspirational or classy on them. Yet, just
like the rest of us, gym owners decorate their homes with beautiful
and inspirational art, sculptures and plants. If ‘branding’ your home
is important to you, so too should be branding your business.
Ad dollars and brand dollars
If you have a health club or a personal training or group exercise
studio, you spend advertising dollars trying to inspire and motivate
people to come into your gym. You should also spend some brand
dollars to inspire and motivate people once they visit your gym. Done
well, your branding may even be the catalyst that turns them from
a visitor into a member. And once they become a member, your
club has the potential to become their home away from home, so it
had better look and feel as good to be there as it possibly can. If
you fail to create a welcoming and inspiring environment, you
reduce members’ desire to spend time with you. And when
that happens, the chances of them remaining a member with
you evaporate.
Scary but necessary
Some companies, especially fitness facilities, never
seem to evolve from the moment they first open their
doors. Change may be scary, but it’s necessary. I love
a company that is constantly on the cutting edge and
always finding better ways to inspire me. No matter
the gym, restaurant or hotel that I go to, the most
important thing for me is the experience. I want it to
be so memorable that I can’t wait to come back. I want
the kind of place where I don’t mind spending my time
NETWORK WINTER 2017 | 25