The brief

Over the last decade, BMF has grown largely through word of mouth. Members love it, and tell people about it. Not only because instructor led group training is proven to be a highly effective way of getting fit, but also because it’s  fun and every session is different. Working with our digital team, BMF wanted to organise and expand their social media presence to help engage members and encourage new people to try a class.

The strategy

Critical to success in this word of mouth acquisition is the way in which the individual advocating BMF can allay the concerns of the prospective member. This is important because people are often concerned that BMF is going to be physically challenging. They are also emotionally concerned about joining an established group, and slightly wary of the instructors, who they fear might be intimidating.

In word of mouth recruitment, your members give their friends the necessary reassurance. But what if this personal endorsement is not present? Overcoming nervousness about joining something new is critical in acquiring members. For BMF, this is where social media is becoming a hugely important acquisition (and retention) channel.

Big fan

BMF now have an official page with over 6000 fans, and a fan page for every single one of their local parks. At all times, the content strategy has been to both demonstrate to potential members the fun, friendly and sociable nature of BMF, and to draw together ‘central’ and ‘local’ aspects of the BMF brand so that members feel a part of a large community. Local park pages ‘belong’ to the local Park Manager. This enables them to stay in touch, involve and inform members about what is happening locally. Rather than attempt to get members to visit the official website, BMF is therefore able to stay in touch and build a personal relationship with their members on a digital platform where the member feels comfortable and which they use on a day to day basis.

Like this

In terms of new member acquisition, the fact that fan pages get internal promotion on Facebook is very important to BMF. Facebook Page updates show up on BMF fans' page feed, and page additions appear on all fans' live feeds. So awareness of BMF spreads beyond members if a friend visits their page, or if a member interacts with a BMF post.

Visitors to the BMF pages can see that the brand is approachable and interactive. If a member asks a question or makes a comment – BMF respond. If a non-member asks a question then more often than not a member will answer before BMF can. As these questions are generally similar to those put by friends to members – “I’m scared it will be too hard” for example – social media can be seen to be acting as a media where digital ‘virtual friends’ can help to reassure and encourage  potential members.