Making the most of Let’s Dance with Change4life

Following the success of moreactive4life in July and August 2009 the Department of Health has sought the support of the FIA and its members to deliver the next high profile element of the change4life campaign, Let’s Dance with Change4life.

The Let’s Dance campaign gives clubs the opportunity to run an open weekend that is backed by national advertising, complimenting the current trend of dance programmes across various television channels. It also provides a route to market to those who may have stereo typical views of health clubs and gyms.

So how, at a local level, can you ensure you have maximised this opportunity?

Here are a few ideas:
o Begin you’re marketing for the open weekend 4 weeks in advance and increase as the event gets nearer.
o Place posters around your facility – in the reception, changing facilities, Lounge / Café area.
o Combine an offer such as ‘Bring a friend’, ‘Takes two to Tango’ etc
o Advertise whilst people are on hold on the club phone and answer machine.
o Place logos and details onto website homepage with a ‘coming soon’ notice.
o Contact local partners and corporate accounts to promote to employees through desk drops / site visit / intranet.
o Get all staff to wear moreactive4life t-shirts one week prior to open weekend to create awareness.
o Staff in moreactive4life t-shirts can leaflet drop and make a general outreach in shopping / town centres, outside schools, train and bus stations.
o External advertising in local newspapers – local club running national campaign.
o Mail / call previous prospects and personally invite them down to the weekend.
o Mail / call ex-members and personally invite them down to the weekend.
o Decide on ‘special’ membership offers that will be available only on the weekend for people to join including:
- No joining fee
- First month free
- Free personal training session
- Joining pack – t-shirt, sweat towel, water bottle
o Place referral boxes throughout your club 3 weeks prior to the open weekend, offering incentive for members to leave names and numbers such as:
- Free personal training session if they join
- Referral t-shirt, sweat towel, water bottle.

These are just a few ideas to ensure Let’s Dance is another successful campaign for the fitness industry. This will then demonstrate to the Department of Health the value we hold to them in being a delivery partner.

I look forward to hearing other ways in which clubs and centres are marketing the campaign locally.

Richard Blackmore
Sales Membership Director at Fitness Industry Association

Fitness Industry Association

FIA delivering more campaigns

So SIBEC Europe is over for another year and this was the third and busiest I have attended since I began working with the FIA.

Having attended over 20 meetings and made many more contacts it has been incredibly productive to inform both FIA members and those that are not (yet!) of the great work being carried out by the FIA from protecting the industry to delivering more campaigns so we can increase the industries penetration rate.
So what are the next steps?

Well over 500 FIA members are taking part in the Department of Health’s ‘Know Your Limits’ campaign which begins nationally on Monday 16th November. The campaign highlights and educates the general public on the number of units that they consume daily, weekly and how this affects their health. FIA members who have signed up to the campaign have received free collateral packs with information leaflets to use in the clubs and centres as well as t-shirts for staff to wear and educational information they can learn from to deliver to their members.

This to me is a fantastic example of how clubs / centres utilise their membership with the FIA to deliver a Department of Health campaign that works as a retention tool to help add diversity to members programmes and the information they receive. It targets lifestyle changes and position the clubs and centres at the hub of community wellness programmes.

Year 2 of MoreActive4life is also in place to begin January 1st 2010 with the creation of the More Active Health kits from Mend.


The More Active Health kits are a 64 page programme offering 3 exercise and 7 nutritional activities over 6 weeks the general public can engage in their everyday lifestyle. Whether it’s drinking 8 glasses of water or completing 30 minutes of exercise daily the programme is delivered in a way which recognises and promotes behavioural changes.

The More Active Health Kit includes wristbands (I haven’t taken mine off for two weeks and is a great reminder of what I should be doing), key rings, 64 page diary and physical activity wheel. For more information contact Alex Smith.

Delivered over a 6 week period clubs and centres can use the programme to attract new or re-awaken existing members through the change4life branding which research has now shown to have a 90% recall rate.

Richard Blackmore
Sales & Membership Director
Fitness Industry Association

Leisure Industry Week Announcements

LIW looms like the Kilimanjaro peak on my horizon. To all my fellow exhibitors, I hope you have a great LIW – may all your enquiries be great leads. To all visitors, I hope you have a great time and, having spoken to quite a few exhibitors, I know you will walk away with at least three good ideas. This year’s LIW is a big one for us for three major reasons:



1. We will announce the results of the 2009 MoreActive4Life campaign
2. We will unveil our new CMO
3. We will launch the next generation of MoreActive4Life: a proposition developed with the obesity specialists MEND, which will give every FIA member an exciting new consumer proposition and a new tactic to leverage the Change4Life connection.


John Searle, our new CMO, must be unique in our industry having an illustrious medical career behind him, a Level 3 qualification and he was a former arthritis sufferer who cured himself through exercise (and a few drugs). John is critical in the FIA’s/ industry’s medical community ‘engagement plan’. If we can overcome their lack of knowledge of the benefits of “exercise medicine” and perhaps even whatever prejudices they have, then we really will have a 360 Degree solution to the nation’s public health time bomb – a solution comprising the DH, the FIA, programme developers (such as MEND), FIA members and ‘referers’ ie the healthcare community. That would be brilliant for consumers and very lucrative for FIA members (if we get it right).

I am now off, in a packed car, to head up the M40 with mission critical collateral in my keep. God help me if I break, lose, misplace or damage anything..... I will have to suffer the wrath of Hayley, our Events manager .......... for three full days! Day and evening!!


David Stalker, FIA Chief Operating Officer

How is the FIA assisting its members?

So this is my first entry into the world of blogging and it offers me the fantastic opportunity to open a two way conversation with FIA members.

Over the coming months I will be talking about the successes FIA member benefits has delivered to our members both operators and suppliers and also ask what more the industry is looking for from it trade body.

Over the last year we have seen members benefit substantially from the FIA collective purchasing scheme that is now place saving thousands of pounds on business services ranging from stationary to utilities. FIA Business Services is currently finalising a basket energy agreement that will help all members large or small access even greater savings on their electricity for the future.

We are now also coming to the end of the first moreactive4life campaign. For those of you who do not know this is the industry’s sub brand for the department of health’s change 4life campaign.

Over July and August over one thousand FIA members have taken advantage of the free collateral and national exposure to generate hundreds of extra enquires for the facilities as well as using the campaign to manage retention.

Now we are starting to build for year two, looking to develop new marketing channels to expose moreactive4life to an even wider audience. I will keep you updated on how this develops and more importantly how you can be involved.

Richard Blackmore - FIA Sales and Marketing Director