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When Gleason's Gym London closed in May 2009 I was approached by it's former manager, John Rooney Jnr., to create a new gym brand - Rooney's Boxing Gym - as he had decided to open his own gym.
Working on a very tight deadline, less than 10 days, I concentrated initially on the brand design and then on creating a temporary website .
On the 1st June 2009 Rooney's Boxing Gym opened it's doors for the first time and at the same time the website when live.
Now that the gym was very much open to the public I refocused my efforts to gain new members. One slight problem though, there wasn't a budget available for advertising. Never being one to be fazed by little problems like that I concentrated my marketing and promotion to those I could get for free. Obviously I am not going to give my strategy away here.
The first major success I achieved was to optimise the website so that it shot up the search engine rankings to become the number one ranked boxing gym on google, under most relevant parameters, in just seven days!
Next up was a publicity campaign utilising any opportunity that should arise. This has proved highly successful, so much so that various Boxing magazines now prefix the press releases sent with Rooney's Boxing Gym. Why is that so special you may ask? Previously the only organisations to receive a named prefix in the title are the major promoters.
To assist further with the development of the gym I created the sub brand MilXtreme for Alex Clarke, whom I had approached to work at Rooney's as a personal trainer. I have also been developing relationships with various professional boxers with a view to them using Rooney's Boxing Gym for their training.
To add extra impact I created a strategy to encourage television and movie companies to film at the gym. This has already proved a highly effective promotional tool, so much so that I am now also promoting various of the gym's fighters to the movie and television companies as extras and/or actors - various projects have already successfully been undertaken.
The success of the strategy is clear for all to see as after just six months, on the 1st December 2009, Rooney's Boxing Gym had attracted 147 full members and around 300 irregular day members.
As you will see, from the press releases listed below, I have been highly creative in the development of newsworthy scenarios from which to promote Rooney's Boxing Gym taking absolutely any opportunity that presents its self.
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