Blog 36: Health Club Marketing and Conformity

According to Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org), conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms. Norms are implicit, unsaid rules shared by a group of individuals that guide their interactions with others and among society or social group. This tendency to conform occurs in small groups and/or society as a whole, and may result from subtle unconscious influences, or direct and overt social pressure. Conformity can occur in the presence of others or when an individual is alone.

People often conform from a desire for security within a group—typically a group of a similar age, culture, religion, or educational status. This is often referred to as groupthink: a pattern of thought characterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics, which ignores realistic appraisal of other courses of action. Unwillingness to conform carries the risk of social rejection.

When it comes to health club marketing, most people tend to conform to the norm. This approach can (and will) be deadly. Health clubs have to get away from what they have done for the past fifty (50) plus years and start re-thinking how they present their health club product to the market. Most health club marketers have no idea why they market their health clubs the way they do other than that was the way they were taught. If you asked twenty (20) want-to-be health club marketers why they market their health clubs the way they do, I bet five (5) of them couldn’t give you a logical reason other than something silly like “this is what has always worked”. Of course these challenged individuals are failing to realize the reason we are even talking is because “this” isn’t working.

People buy health club products and health club services for different reasons today than they did in the ’50s, 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, and even in the ’90s. Until you grasp onto this fact you are always going to be chasing your tail. You must be creative and think outside the box. If the new marketing plan doesn’t fit your business model, maybe it is time to rethink your business model. Maybe it is your business model that isn’t working and therefore hindering your marketing efforts.

Everything is advancing at lightning speed in today’s world, so don’t let your health club conform to unsaid rules from the 50s shared by a group of individuals who had absolutely no competition for market share. It’s time to start performing and quit conforming.

For more free tips on increasing your health club membership base through health club marketing, health club promotions, professional health club membership sales, and advancing your health and fitness career visit us today @ www.healthclubmarketingmmc.com or call 904-448-5727.