A Branding Guide To Kick-Start Your Fitness Business

Running a wellness business can be a very profitable venture, since offering a space where individuals can get fit is perhaps one of the best things you can do for your local community. After all, a healthy body leads to a healthy mind, and vice versa. Nevertheless, running a profitable gymnasium or fitness brand can be somewhat difficult - especially when it comes to separating yourself from other competitors in this cut-throat industry and ensuring that you can obtain recurring customers who will keep renewing their memberships or will continue buying your products.

The laws of branding are simple- These should reflect the ideals and ethos of your fitness venture while allowing your potential clients to know the strong emphasis that you place on ensuring the best results for your clients via good gym equipment, educated gym trainers, and workouts that are proven to provide results. In an industry, as saturated as the fitness industry, it is imperative to ensure that your brand is perceived as unique and isn’t lumped together with the hundreds of different fitness brands that plague the market.

Determine Your Potential Clients
Decide On A Brand Voice And A Brand Tone
Choose A Name And A Logo
Get Online
Fitness 360- An Example of Fitness Branding in the UAE

Determine Your Potential Clients

Before you start your business, you need to know what kind of a consumer you’re aiming to please. In today’s fitness world, there are a plethora of ways to stay fit. You might be trying to cater to a strongman, who picks up and puts down 100s of kilograms while grunting louder than a jet taking off. Or you might be looking to cater to a nimble ballerina, ensuring that her movement, flexibility, and precision are in perfect condition. You need to ensure that you’re well aware of the sort of customers that you’re reaching out to, and then you will go about making a plan to approach your potential clients, using images and jargon that will help you establish a connection with your niche.

Decide On A Brand Voice And A Brand Tone

Once you’re aware of whom your brand will be addressing, you can make a more concentrated effort by sorting out its voice — and adhering to that voice. A brand’s voice consists of the language utilized in its branding design, marketing, and advertising matter - incorporating taglines, phrases, jingles, adages, etc. You’ll need a different voice to attract different sorts of consumers. For example- you cannot use the same voice to attract a teenager in his prime who wants to lift weights, versus an older gentleman who is recovering from an injury and wants to ease back into his fitness routine. It is of utmost importance that you keep your brand language consistent across all the mediums of contact and promotion since it’s the best method to convey your brand’s objectives, mission, and identity. Ensuring that your voice is always consistent while dealing with your niche will help your brand become appreciable over time, as more and more people from your niche start discovering and accepting it.

Choose A Name And A Logo

The first thing that a potential client will notice about your brand is the name! Therefore, it’s imperative to spend a ton of time brainstorming your business’ name — since it can make or break a potential client’s interest in looking at your offerings. A brand name should communicate to its consumer what the brand is essentially all about. From the name itself, to the way that it’s pronounced or stylized can all have a huge impact on how it’s perceived by the consumers.

For example, let’s assume that your fitness brand is called BULLDOG, stylized by writing the name in all uppercase. If anyone were to be walking down a road and see a gym called BULLDOG, they would inherently assume that this gym is meant for extremely serious fitness enthusiasts who are looking to lift big amounts of weight, after chugging down their protein shakes, of course. Therefore, while this name may attract strongmen and bodybuilders, it will scare away people who are just looking to get into fitness or perhaps only do light stretching and cardio. Also, it’s safe to assume that a lot of women would be put off by their own perceived notion of what the gym would be like, meatheads clanking down heavy weights and causing an extreme ruckus- all of this based on just the name and the way it’s written in all uppercase.

Along with your name, you’d want a logo to be associated with the brand. This logo will be present on a host of promotional materials and thus needs to be easily identifiable. Again, the colour and the design of your logo must communicate to the potential clients what your business is all about, and what principles and philosophies your brand embodies.

Get Online

Aside from promoting your fitness brand offline, via posters, flyers, etc., that one can set up at points of interest of your niche groups, such as supplement shops and athletic or sporting stores, you must also ensure that your brand has a heavy online presence, as this is where the majority of the people would come in contact with the brand. The first action should be to set up a website, which is in line with the ideals and the philosophy of the brand. The website must house the perfect content which will help turn a visitor into a paying customer. Everything on the website, from the colour and the layout of the web pages, to the copy, must always be in line with the brand image and the brand voice.

The next thing to do is to list your business on Google! This step is crucial as most people who want to find out more about your brand would search for it on Google, instead of directly typing in the webpage. A Google search of your brand must reveal your website as the top result, as well as some extra information such as the working hours of your brand, contact information, and, most importantly, your location via Google Maps.

The final step in our online presence would be to set up social media accounts on things like Facebook, and Instagram. This provides an easy way for your potential customers to reach out to you and have their queries answered in a very easy manner. Not only that, but it also acts as a medium for you to showcase and promote your brand. Did your fitness brand come up with a new product or a new fitness class? Post about it on social media! Did your brand sponsor the local athletics meetup? Post about it to social media! Social media is hands down the single best place to use imagery to evoke an emotional response and create rapport with your future clients.

Fitness 360- An Example of Fitness Branding in the UAE

To hit home the points that have been mentioned in the blog, let’s take a closer look at a particular fitness brand that’s taking over the UAE by storm. Fitness 360 is a fitness brand that specializes in- you guessed it, all-around fitness! The name helps the consumers know what the brand is all about; not just exercise, but wellness in all aspects. As the name suggests, the brand specializes in all things fitness related- from lifting weights to organizing Zumba, Pilates, and even boxing classes. It even has a Ladies Only Club, that offers wide varieties of amenities and services to women exclusively, so that they always feel safe and prioritized, further increasing their goodwill in the brand.

The brand has a ‘360’ approach to fitness, which means that once you sign up and become a paying customer, the brand takes care of all your fitness needs. Not only does it tell you what workouts you need to undertake, but also tells you what foods to consume to meet your personal fitness goals. Whether a client wants to lose fat, or gain muscle, the brand provides you with a tailor-made plan to help achieve your goals. A healthy body is nothing without a healthy mind, and their approach to all-around, or ‘360’ wellness keeps this in mind, allowing you to destress by undertaking a meditation class as well.

The clean Fitness 360 logo is easily recognizable and conveys the brand’s ideals of simplicity and perfection. Operating in 6 unique locations in 3 different cities within the UAE, and catering to thousands of clients, the brand’s distinguishable and easily recognizable logo further develops on their ‘360’ approach by providing any potential clients valuable insight into the brand.

Fitness 360 further doubles down on its promise of holistic wellness by even offering fitness equipment and attire on its website. This is an extremely shrewd way in which the brand employs its website to further deliver the ‘360’ experience that it promises. Perhaps you’re away from home on a work trip or a vacation? Fret not, as Fitness 360 has got this covered as well! Alongside selling merchandise and equipment on its website, it also sells individual training programs which clients can purchase to workout at home, or while traveling. Again, we see just how important it is for a successful brand to go online!

The extremely clean aesthetic of their website can also be found in the way the brand has set up its gyms. This continuity of brand voice is not only impressive, but is vital in ensuring that their clients are constantly reminded of how much the brand wants them to succeed. It’s obvious how much the brand cares about the well-being of its clients, and goes all out to ensure that they are always in an environment that helps them in achieving their goals.

The brand not only provides everything you need to succeed, but provides them to everyone, highlighting how aware the brand is of its target audience! This helps their brand image as it helps them in being perceived as a brand that cares about the well-being of everyone, and doesn’t shun any particular fitness niche or community. Is there a better way to be liked by the community that you serve than to be an all-inclusive brand helping people from all walks of life achieve their goals? Probably not!

When it comes to branding, Fitness 360 seems to check all the boxes, and it shows in how well the brand is performing and the rapid pace with which it is growing. The brand also presents the perfect case study as to why good branding can be extremely effective when it comes to gaining the trust of your potential clients and ensuring that they keep coming back with minimal turnover. If you have been planning to launch a new fitness brand or rebrand an existing one, now is the time to get started! Whether it is a logo redesign, a website redesign, or a complete brand makeover, it’s time you get in touch with professional branding companies like Vowels to make your vision come true. We specialize in brand consultancy, strategy, brand guidelines, CI manual, brand presentation, and corporate branding. Schedule a call with us today!