GIVE BACK | Marketing Campaign

This campaign is to give back to your community. In turn you may just get new leads in the door and honor your members as well. As the holidays fast approach, there’s a heightened spirit of gratitude and generosity. Why not embrace it?

Donation-based events are one of the strongest ways to build fellowship and loyalty for your fitness business while providing you with an opportunity to do good and strengthen bonds to your local community.

Graphics:

We've made it much easier for you to customize the marketing campaign graphics. Instead of providing jpgs that you can't revise, we've created our graphics in Canva so you can now replace photos, logos, and also the text.

We are now offering templates you can pull into your free version of Canva and customize. From there you can easily resize the graphics for whatever platform you want to share them on.

Give Back Canva Graphic Templates For You To Use:

Instagram Post #1 template >
Instagram Post #2 template >
Instagram Story #1 template >
Instagram Story #2 template >
Facebook/Web Banner #1 template >
Facebook/Web Banner #2 template >
We also included a set of Give Back icons you can use. Download the zipped file here.

See the example templates below from Canva that you can easily customize.

Steps to set-up:

Create your event for your Give Back campaign. We came up with possible event ideas below.
Use Canva to edit the pre-designed templates we created and add your event. Revise as needed.
Add Landing pages to the site. [(Here is a guide on how to set them up)]
Add the email template(s) we've written for you to the email service of your choice. Be sure to follow up with your leads until they say "no!"
Make sure you make it easy for people to sign up.
Tell everyone about it! Share the graphics on social media, email your mailing list, run a paid ad, and have your members refer others.

Possible Offers:

For this Give Back campaign, you don’t have to create an offer but more of a reason for someone to participate. Organize your campaign around an event and let people know clearly how their donation money will be dispersed.

We’ve provided some ideas below:

Volunteer for an Event or Organization. There are tons of fitness-related organizations that would love for you to donate your time and talents.
Donate Your Old Running Shoes. Depending on the organization you choose, your old shoes could go to kids in developing countries or be used to make track and playground surfaces
Sponsor Free Monthly Seminars. If you’re a gym owner, sponsor free monthly seminars for members and non-members alike. You can host monthly talks on topics ranging from nutrition to mindfulness that are open to the community. Everyone benefits from having healthy citizens, even if they aren’t your clients.
Create an Event. With social media and PayPal/Venmo, it is easy to raise money for a cause you believe in. Examples below:
Workout & Give Back - Members each bring a $20 donation that you give to a local charity.
Jump rope competition. This exercise fundraising idea could be a fun family event. For a registration fee, contestants can participate in competitions organized possibly by age or ability. Prizes can include swag, as well as free or discounted months.
Dollars for kettlebells. Ask instructors and clients to raise money for every pound they swing. You could ask neighborhood business partners to match pledges dollar for dollar.

Possible Charities: (If you need some recommendations)

Girls on the Run, an after-school program that teaches confidence and life skills through twice-weekly team building and running games
‍[Feeding America](https://www.feedingamerica.org/), a food bank that serves meals to those who lacking reliable access to nutrition.
St Jude’s Children’s Hospital: They’ve worked with runners, group fitness instructors, martial arts and yoga studios to co-create successful fitness donation-based classes and events.
‍[Back On My Feet](https://backonmyfeet.org/), an early morning running program for the homeless, created with the belief that the first step toward securing jobs, homes, and new opportunities is to restore confidence and self-esteem through fitness.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

While you can set up a free class and collect cash donations on the day of the event, it’s best not to pass-the-hat or set a bucket out. Set your class up for financial success by setting a ticket price, or strongly suggested donation, instead of just hoping for the best. A class with a mandatory donation is likely to raise four times the funds than a free, donation-based yoga class.
On the day of your class, have a representative from your chosen charity, and if possible, a beneficiary of that charity’s efforts, present at your event to tell a personal story of the impact the organization has had on them.
Put your money where your mouth is and drive larger gifts by issuing a donation challenge. Offer your community the opportunity to match your gift by the end of the event to double their giving!
Have a stack of receipts printed and ready for customers who give. This is a great reminder that their contributions are a tax write off.
Connect with local vendors to find out if they are willing to donate/provide essential items such as t-shirts, audio equipment, flyers, water, healthy snacks, etc., for free, or in exchange for being listed as a co-sponsor of the event.
Make it easy for clients and the public to register. In addition to a sign up at your front desk, create a registration page on your website and make it easy to find from your homepage. Make frequent social media posts with event updates and links to the online registration page.
Local media love positive stories. Contact your local newspaper, radio station and television news organization. Reach out to the media prior to the event to see if they’d be interested in covering the event.

Landing Pages:

The Landing Page is where people sign up for your offer. It has two jobs:
1. Excite people about your event:
List the details for the event and also highlight who the charity is for and where the money they will give will go. The clearer you can be the better.
2. Make it easy for people to sign up:
The offer form is placed at the top of the page so people can immediately see it when they land on the page. And the title and subtext explain exactly what a person should do on the page: Signup now.

There are two landing pages with this campaign:

The Main Landing Page

And a Thank You Page that people will be directed to upon signup

Social Media

CAPTIONS

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” M. Gandhi [ Share event ]

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” W. Churchill [ Share event ]

The season of giving is here. Let’s make a difference. [ Share event ]

“We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.” Dr. Loretta Scott [ Share event ]

Paid Ads

Step 1: Facebook Ad

Facebook Ads allow you to target people who are interested in fitness training in your local area to drive them to your Event Page.
Below is a pre-built Facebook Ad and Target Audience that you can use for your ads.

If you haven’t really run Facebook ads before, we recommend just posting this ad to your Facebook gym page, then using the ad manager on your business page to run an ad on the post based on the audience below. If you’re familiar with the business manager on Facebook, you can use that to run your ad.
(Facebook tutorial to help).

1. Ad

Text
Start with a short, exciting sentence to pull people in. Then show a call-to-action to tell them whatever your offer is. Then show the aspects of the Give Back Campaign in a bullet list, with eye-catching emojis, so it’s easy for them to read. And finish by telling them that the offer ends soon to create a sense of urgency.

AD TEXT:
Double WIN! Workout and Give Back to your community.

👉 EVENT NAME GOES HERE 👈

Join us for this special event [your offer goes here again].


Image
Use an exciting, eye-catching image preferably of someone in your gym. If not, use one of the graphics we included.

Headline
Choose a headline that sounds appealing and wants someone to learn more.

SAMPLE HEADLINE:
🔥 It’s time to GIVE and also GET!🔥🔥🔥

Newsfeed Link Description
Provide a sentence or two with some extra details on your Give Back event.

SAMPLE TEXT: 👇 CLICK TO LEARN HOW TO GET INVOLVED 👇

Call-to-Action
This is the button people click on the Ad to be taken to your Event Page.

Facebook only gives you a few options for this. For campaigns like this, Sign Up performs best as it’s the text option that’s closest to the action people are taking.

Website URL:
[Copy/paste the landing page url you added to your website, similar to this: www.yoursite.com/give-back]

2. Target audience

Here’s the targeting we recommend:

Interests/Behaviour Targeting

Facebook’s Interest and Behavior targeting allows you to show your Ad to people who are interested in specific things and activities. Their system has become very sophisticated and is now able to target the right people incredibly accurately.

We recommend using Facebook’s Fitness Interests:
Physical exercise
Physical fitness
Weight Loss

Age, Gender, Language and Location Targeting
Age, Gender, Location and Language targeting should reflect who your most common members are. If you generally serve people in their 20’s and 30’s, then you should target people in that age group. If you’re unsure which Location to target, we recommend targeting people within a 30-minute drive of your own location: This is a close enough distance for most people to be content with driving to you.

Why are Facebook Ads effective for this Campaign?
The reason they’re effective is because they’re shown to people who are interested in fitness training in your area. Facebook is great at knowing people’s interests based on their behavior, which is what makes their Ad targeting so effective.

Google Adwords, on the other hand, don’t work well for limited-time offers. This is generally because people don’t search on Google for limited-time offers. And the ones who do search for giveaways are just people who are interested in getting something for cheap, and are not always the best customers as they are so price-sensitive.

Email Template

Post Date: When you launch campaign

EMAIL 1:

SUBJECT LINE: Won't You Come Join Us In Supporting [insert fundraiser here]?

We care about our community. When one of us hurts, we all feel it. We would love for you to join us in raising money for [cause here] on [Date] at [Time].

This fundraising event is open to anyone and everyone. You don’t need to be a member to attend, so be sure to invite your friends!

During this event you will complete a fun workout and then socialize with friends and make some new ones. Snacks will be provided and vendors present.

This is your chance to have some fun with your friends while introducing them to CrossFit.

This is a free event, but space is limited, so reserve your spot today!

Register here > [Link to Register]

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Please feel free to forward this invite to your friends.

[User Signature Block]

EMAIL 2:

SUBJECT LINE: [Name of Event] - 3 Days Left! Won't You Join Us?

If you haven’t already reserved your spot for our upcoming [Name of Fundraising Event], please do so today. Spots are filling fast.

You don’t want to miss out on this! All money raised will go to support [describe cause here]. We will have lots of [Food/Drinks/Etc.] and [Vendors/Samples/Etc.].

We are excited to announce that the following vendors will be set-up during the event:

[List of Vendors]

This is a great way to get a good workout in, meet new people, and support an awesome cause in the process! Don’t miss out. Register below to let us know you will be joining in on the fun.

Register here > [Link to Register]

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us.

[User Signature Block]

EMAIL 3:

SUBJECT LINE: Thanks for Joining our [Name of Event]!


We wanted to send you a quick thank you for joining us at our fundraiser for [who/what]. It was great to have you there. We hope you enjoyed yourself.

As an update, we raised [amount raise]. We were really excited to be able to join together as a community and contribute in this way.

We would love to have you join us for one of our regular classes. We are all about fostering a sense of community at our gym, and think you would fit in perfectly.

As a thank you for helping us raise money and awareness at [fundraiser], we’d like to offer you a free one-on-one personal training session. You can give us a call at [Phone Number] or use this link [Link to Register] to schedule a time that works best for you.

If you have any questions at all, please let us know.

Again, thank you for joining us the other day. We hope to see you again!

[User Signature Block]

Updated on: 05/06/2023