Smart marketing can transform a struggling gym into a thriving fitness destination—without requiring a massive budget. From optimizing your website to leveraging digital tools, the right tactics help you attract new members and keep them coming back.
One powerful strategy is building a custom app for your gym to streamline bookings, promotions, and member communication. Adalo is a no-code app builder for database-driven web apps and native iOS and Android apps—one version across all three platforms, published to the Apple App Store and Google Play. This means you can quickly launch an MVP, reach the widest possible audience through the app stores, and engage members with push notifications for class reminders and special offers.
Here are proven marketing tactics to boost your gym's profits and grow your membership base.

Beef Up Your Gym’s Website
Ensuring your website provides a friendly user experience is important for getting more clients. Your gym’s website represents your brand and professional abilities. If you have a polished website, you’ll be more likely to get more visitors to your site.
Follow these pointers to give your website a tune-up:
- It should be super easy for website visitors to find your brick-and-mortar building. Ensure your gym’s physical address is easy to find on all site pages. When website visitors can easily find your gym, they’ll be more likely to drop in for a consultation.
- Not connected to Google Business? Drop everything and get this done now! Navigate to Google Business and fill out all the required information - this should take just a few minutes.
After Google sends you a confirmation email, your gym will literally be on Google Maps. This will make it easy for people to find your gym on the Google Maps app.
- At least once a month, write about topics related to physical fitness. You can write about nutrition, muscle gains, and more. The idea is to share your expertise and give more people a reason to visit your site.
When they learn about your opinions on certain topics, they’ll think of you as an expert and be more likely to recruit your services.
- Only use the most eye-catching, high-quality pictures of your gym on your website. The pictures you use will reflect your gym’s professionalism, and if you use unattractive pictures, they will reflect poorly on your gym.
Polishing your gym’s website will take some time, and you’ll also have to work on it every day. But just like following a CrossFit routine, you’ll start to see gains - in the form of more people being interested in your gym and more consultations.

Build an App for Your Gym
Save time on bookings, promotional periods, and client relationship management (CRM) when you build your gym's very own app that looks, feels, and works to your liking using the app builder Adalo. Adalo is a no-code app builder for database-driven web apps and native iOS and Android apps—one version across all three platforms, published to the Apple App Store and Google Play.
Wait - don’t you need a computer science degree and tons of programming experience to build your very own app? Not with Adalo. Adalo uses an intuitive, drag-and-drop interface that you’ll be able to learn in seconds.
Creating an app with Adalo is a piece of cake. Choose a template from Adalo’s template library, mix and match the color scheme, insert your own photos, and start building.
When you build with Adalo, you’ll be able to include a heavyweight number of features. Here are just some of the things tools that you can put in your app:
- Create a booking system for personal training sessions, courts, or other fitness room reservations. Your clients will love the simplicity of booking a class or pickleball court with a press and a swipe.
- Create a CRM system to serve your clients better. You can enter their fitness data, goals, and other information. Doing this can help your clients reach their fitness goals, which will make them more likely to stay loyal to your gym.
- Simplify taking client payments with Adalo’s integrations to popular payment platforms like Stripe, Square, and PayPal. When you integrate payments into your own app, you won’t have to worry about taking cash or swiping cards.
- With Adalo, you can create your very own messaging system that works within your app. Your clients will love the simplicity of communicating with you and your team, as they won’t need to fiddle around with text messaging, SMS, or WhatsApp to find their conversations with you.
- Do you have cool merch and want to reach a bigger audience? Create your own online store with Adalo’s Shopify integration. You’ll be able to sell those awesome trucker hats to people all over the country.
Adalo comes packed with over 5,500 integrations. You’ll be able to implement almost all the features, to your exact taste, that most other gym or personal fitness apps have.
When your app is ready to go, allow your clients to download it for free on the Apple App Store, the Google Play Store, or your website. Everyone will love how convenient it is to get your app.
Run Ads For Your Gym on Social Media
Running ads on social media like Instagram and Facebook can get your gym in front of a larger audience, grow your following, and get new clients into your gym. Social media ads are also budget-friendly - you can run an effective ad campaign for under $500.
Just follow these steps to launch your ad campaign:
- Set the location of the people you want to reach. Ideally, these people should be at a distance that’s an ideal commute to your gym.
- Enter your target audience's hobbies, careers, ages, and demographics. Try to attract people who enjoy outdoor pursuits like hiking. Many active people would love to get into a gym to train for that 20-mile hike they’ve got planned next month.
- Pay your social media company the amount of money you have budgeted and launch your campaign. An ad for your gym will appear on the feeds of thousands of people within your selected area and demographic.
Whenever a person takes the time to look at your ad, the social media company will deduct a little money from your payment. Your money will run out after enough people do this, and your campaign will end.
- You’ll receive a notification that will give you a statistical report of your ad campaign. This report will illustrate how many people visited your social media feed. Review this report carefully, and use the findings to improve your next campaign.
Rejig each campaign by featuring different photos or videos of your gym. When you do this, you’ll show a different angle of your gym to your target audience, and you might get more interest in your gym.
Be sure to run social media ad campaigns at least once every two months. If you have a bottomless budget, you can consistently run ad campaigns. Doing this should help spread the word about your gym all over socials.
Run Promotional Periods
Implement a “friends for free” program at your gym, where members can bring in friends for a limited time and use your gym’s facilities for free. If the visitor decides to join during the promotional period, give both them and the referring member a solid discount.
Use your Adalo-made app to launch your promotional period. With Adalo, you can send push notifications, which will get the word about your promotional period quickly.
You won’t need to worry about hanging promotional banners in your gym and hoping everyone sees them. Just send out a push notification, and everyone should get the memo.

Conclusion
Each day, work on these tactics so you can aim for maximum benefits. Write a few paragraphs in your current month’s article, make sure your site looks good, and ensure your app is running smoothly. Be sure to make slight changes to every ad campaign. Just like in the gym, consistent effort will eventually reap results!
FAQ
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Can I easily build a booking and CRM system for my gym without coding? | Yes, with Adalo's No Code App Builder, you can easily build a complete booking and CRM system for your gym. Using the intuitive drag-and-drop interface, you can create appointment scheduling for personal training sessions, court reservations, and fitness classes, while also managing client data, fitness goals, and member information all in one custom app. |
| Why choose Adalo over other App Builder solutions? | Adalo is a no-code app builder for database-driven web apps and native iOS and Android apps—one version across all three platforms, published to the Apple App Store and Google Play. This means you can build once and deploy everywhere, saving significant time and resources. Publishing to app stores is key to marketing and distribution, which is often the hardest part of launching a new app or business—Adalo handles this complexity for you, giving you a major advantage over competitors still struggling with technical barriers. |
| What's the fastest way to build and publish a gym app to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store? | Adalo is the fastest way to build and publish a gym app to the Apple App Store and Google Play. With No Code App Builder's drag-and-drop interface and AI-assisted building, you can go from idea to published app in days rather than months. Adalo handles the complex App Store submission process, so you can focus on your app's features and user experience instead of wrestling with certificates, provisioning profiles, and store guidelines. |
| What payment integrations does Adalo support for gym membership apps? | Adalo integrates with popular payment platforms including Stripe, Square, and PayPal. These integrations allow you to seamlessly process membership fees, personal training payments, and merchandise sales directly within your gym app, eliminating the need to handle cash or manually swipe cards. |
| Can I send promotional notifications to my gym members through an Adalo app? | Yes, Adalo supports push notifications that allow you to instantly communicate promotional periods, special offers, and announcements to all your members. This is far more effective than hanging promotional banners and hoping members notice them—push notifications ensure your message reaches everyone quickly. |
| How many integrations does Adalo offer for building a comprehensive gym app? | Adalo comes packed with over 5,500 integrations, allowing you to implement virtually all the features found in professional gym and fitness apps. From e-commerce through Shopify to messaging systems and payment processing, you can customize your app to match your exact business needs. |
| Do I need programming experience to build a gym app with Adalo? | No programming experience is required. Adalo uses an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that you can learn in seconds. You can start by choosing from Adalo's template library, customize the color scheme, add your own photos, and begin building your gym app immediately without writing any code. |










