How user-generated content boosts performance

Justin Ulrich
Perfect.

Allison Rand
Yeah, no hair. Brought him to show you my dedication to it all. Yeah. Okay. You go back to sleep.

Justin Ulrich
His name is Q Tip. That’s hilarious.

Allison Rand
Yeah, yeah.

Justin Ulrich
Oh, perfect. Yeah, when I was putting this intro together, I was just laughing. I’m like, it’s the most bizarre. No one is known for collecting their eighties vintage stickers.

Allison Rand
Oh, my god. Don’t get me started. That’s another podcast.

Justin Ulrich
Where do you, let me just ask, where did you just find them online?

Allison Rand
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or like, vintage thrift stores or eBay, Facebook, Etsy. Yeah.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, and you just keep them in a book or do you slap them all over things?

Allison Rand
I have a bookshelf here with the puffies, my Oilies, my dress up stickers. Like my Sandy Lions, my Lisa Franks. Oh, yeah, yeah. My Hallmarks. I don’t want to, but, like, yeah, there’s like, you know, there are boxes of them. Like, they’re just here everywhere you know.

Justin Ulrich
That is hilarious.

Allison Rand
You know, puffy stickers. Yeah. Anyways, I like the ET ones and Mr. T and, like, Weird Alf. You know, McDonald’s ones, like anything vintage.

Justin Ulrich
It’s funny. As a kid, I remember going through the stores and, like, there were like, sticker books. Like those Pan Am or whatever. They were sticker books where you just would buy the book, you buy the packs and get the random stickers and try to collect them all and that. I remember just being obsessed with those things.

Allison Rand
Yeah.

Justin Ulrich
Like, at the Simpsons, I had a Simpsons one. I remember getting all the stickers.

Allison Rand
Like, in the eighties, there were like, rolls of stickers sold. Like, so there’d be like, a gift store with, like, rolls. And you’d buy them in pods for, like, $0.25 each. And now people resell those little stickers for, you know, anywhere from $2 to $75.

Justin Ulrich
Holy cow.

Allison Rand
Yeah. So, like, I have, like, Smurf smelly stickers that are, like, worth like, one pack’s worth like $75.

Justin Ulrich
Don’t open them. Don’t scratch them. Once that smell goes away, it goes away.

Allison Rand
Yeah. Yeah.

Justin Ulrich
Just know in your mind that it smells.

Allison Rand
Yeah. You can’t take it out of the pack, and God forbid you take the sticker off. Anyway, this is like, I don’t know how you’re going to edit this podcast.

Justin Ulrich
So this is all staying?

Allison Rand
Yeah.

Justin Ulrich
Well, awesome. Well, before we jump into, you know, how you do local marketing, why don’t you give us a little bit about your background?

Allison Ran
Yeah, sure. So, actually started long, long ago at the first website for women called iVillage and got my start in media. So I was at Discovery for, like, five, six years, but I moved into fitness when we moved to the DC area, and I started marketing for VIDA Fitness, which is an upscale gym here in DC. And from there, I just fell in love with the fitness industry. 

And so, I mean, I was always a content person and earn media and content video was like my jam. But since I’ve really been in this job at YouFit, I’ve become more and more engaged with paid media and performance and growth hacking and stuff like that. So it’s evolved. 

But I love what I do, and I love the fitness industry. I’m committed to it. We were just at the hill this week with the health and fitness industry trying to promote a bill, the Fit Act, to get gym memberships covered by HSA and FSA. So I’m really committed to the industry and what we do and helping gyms such as my own YouFit, which is 65 locations, corporate-owned business, becoming, like, you know, more profitable.

Justin Ulrich
Very cool. Wow. That’s actually a really good idea to have the HSA FSA cover those.

Allison Rand
Right? It’s preventative, but again, we can do a whole other podcast on that with way smarter people than me, but it is a great bill, and we’re really trying to get attention to the fact that this is money that people have put into their account. It’s their money, and they should use it on preventative wellness.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. Well, in mental health, too, like, going to the gym, 100%. Not only clarity of mind, but just. I mean, there’s so many mental health benefits from being able to get your exercise in, no matter what type it is, right?

Allison Rand
100% agree. Mental health and combating loneliness.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. Yeah. So the one thing that you were talking a little bit about, the content, like, I imagine that this industry is, like, you get so many opportunities to leverage, like, user generated content.

Allison Rand
Absolutely. It’s really interesting because when I started, we would create this high quality content, right? Coming from Discovery. You wanted to be a beautiful, well shot video, very controlled. And now we’re really more focused on, like you said, user generated content and the authentic experience, member driven content or content just shot on an iPhone that really tells, like, first person experiences. 

So it makes it easier to get, it’s way cheaper to create. And it’s also, I think it’s more engaging and it may not from like a, if you’re like a purist from a brand perspective, it’s sort of hard because you want to control exactly how everything looks. But in terms of performance, it will outperform it any day.

Justin Ulrich
Any day. I agree with that. Are you taking then, the user-generated content that engages the most, it has the best performance. Are you turning that into paid ads?

Allison Rand
Yeah, I mean, we also sort of create our own. Right. Like, some of it is user-generated content, some of it looks like user-generated content, but it’s all shot in the same vein. And I told you this before and many other people, but, yeah, we test many, many creatives every month. And then, so we’ll do a small test budget, see if it performs, and then move it into our evergreen account.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, that’s very cool. I did notice on your LinkedIn feed there was a commercial. It’s like an eighties-style gym commercial.

Allison Rand
That’s the opposite. That’s the opposite. That was like a real production. Really proud of that video and that our brand, you know, so we went bankrupt during COVID. That’s no secret. You can find that on Google. And so there’s some brand rebuilding that we’re still working through. Right. 

Which is to tell people we’re not the brand that you knew. Because maybe we build people during COVID or maybe there are things, like, we want to say now we have more heavy lifting, lifting platforms and heavy lifting machines and more free weight. So we’ve evolved, and so is fitness. Right. Because it’s no longer just jazzercise or treadmills. Anyway…

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, it’s. If you have it, if you don’t know what we’re talking about, you have to look up Allison Rand. I know it’s on LinkedIn and it’s not too long ago, so check out her feed. I think the video is hysterical. We’ll actually. We’ll pull it and we’ll link to it in the details for this episode.

Allison Rand
Yeah, it’s on YouTube, so you can grab it from there.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. Very cool. So with all the testing that you’ve done across, because you’ve been at multiple companies now and you do a lot of different local marketing testing. What do you think is the most important aspect of local marketing for your business?

Allison Rand
Well, I mean, it varies brand to brand. So it looked a little bit different when I was in DC and I was at VIDA versus now where we’re bigger and more spread out. But at the end of the day, it’s really about your community and how you get to know and understand your community and how you’re a part of that community. 

So if you’re a bigger brand, like YouFit. I may not be like literally in my community, but it might be how I engage with my community from a digital and content perspective. And then, like in VIDA, it was really about being literally in the community, being part of your chamber, being at events, partnering with your local real estate, you know, being part of the community, you’re part of the 5K races, all of that really great stuff. 

And if you can’t do that because your company is too big and spread out, then it’s really about being, from a digital perspective, part of your community. And also, like, we talked about this, but really like how you put forth your brand in an authentic way so that it shows you are part of that neighborhood, not just some big global brand sitting back. Don’t you agree?

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, 100%. I think if you, if you’re an operator, too, at a local level, if you’re going around and trying to make as many inroads as possible and shake as many hands, just like throughout your day to day, and because, you know, there’s so many folks out there who could potentially be your mouthpiece, and you’d be surprised at how many folks are willing to do that if you just, you know, be human with them and kind of establish some rapport. 

You highlight them on your social channels, maybe tell a story about them or share a video about their location, maybe if it’s a cookie shop or, you know, it could be a local small gas station, whatever it might be. Anything where you’re highlighting local folks that’s going to win them over, and in turn, you’re going to win over local advocates.

Allison Rand
Oh, 100%. My social media producer has an ambassador program, and she finds and partners with people in the local communities, and that’s, it drives content on our end, it drives engagement. But we have a senior director who manages about a third of our locations, and he never sits in the office to work. He sits in the community, he sits at the car wash, he sits at the local. 

His name, Sam Park. He’s amazing. And he’ll sit literally at the water park and talk to people in the community and sell memberships from the water park and we have a relationship with that water park and we give out like, you know, discount memberships to it and it’s a really great collaboration and it’s like these small things that to your point, they do grow.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, 100%. No, that’s awesome. Do you then turn around and offer other folks discounts, like from your locations?

Allison Rand
Oh, yeah.

Justin Ulrich
Oh, I know some facilities will have like a, like a bulletin board or something where they can have local, local folks highlight their businesses as well.

Allison Rand
Yeah, we have open houses and we invite the local community in and we’re always like, oh, bring a table and set up and, you know, talk to our members, give them opportunities to join, you know, whatever you’re doing. We’re always, always excited to collaborate with our community.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, that’s a great idea. Yeah, we had a, we’ve got it. I live in a small community. No one’s heard of it. It’s Denver, North Carolina and we have Denver.

Allison Rand
That’s Denver. I was like, I’ve heard of Denver.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, North Carolina. We have one, one main gym. But I see them do like when they have like, you know, different crossfit events or whatever they have, like you just mentioned, a bunch of local, you know, businesses will set up a table with some tents or whatever and they make a whole kind of festival around it and it really allows you to be kind of a core staple in your community.

And, you know, bring others to you who may otherwise not have come to you, but also build those relationships with, with others that you give them that, that chance to showcase their business so that when they get the opportunity, they recommend folks to come your way.

Allison Rand
Yeah, absolutely. Another thing that’s probably less glamorous is the way we treat, like, our local listings. So we’re really focused on our local listings and how our local listings impact our SEO. And we’ve started, I’m not saying we’re there yet, but we’ve started a recent initiative to double down on like, local content. 

So our blogs and our website pages, not just optimizing them for like our local locations, but also like creating first-person content, which we all know from the Google core updates is important. So that’s like a really big focus and it’s a really good opportunity for those listening who can’t get into the field because maybe their locations are too spread out.

Justin Ulrich
Very good. Yeah. Your reviews and your listings are, there’s a lot of businesses, even in any industry, that kind of live and die, by those, I mean, and making sure that those are maintained, your core hours are updated. You know, if you have other things like in the restaurant space, some have pricing or whatever on there, your menus, whatever it might be, make sure that those listings are, are up to date. 

Because nothing’s more frustrating than when someone is in the moment of their buyers journey when they are going to make a choice to potentially come to your location and they get hit with false information or just, you know, information that’s inaccurate or not up to date, and it creates a frustrating experience. You could potentially lose that customer. That could be long term.

Allison Rand
Yeah, we have, over the last year, we’ve been really, really trying to get all of that updated and accurate, but then we’re also now saying, okay, well, what more can we do? What more can we deliver to local listings to optimize them? Like offering more photos. 

Like the thing, you just want to get it done. It’s so unsexy. You just want to be like, type, type. Here it is. Okay. Like, I never want to look at that again. It’s not like another thing you want to tend to, but it’s an important element of driving local SEO.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, that’s a good point, actually. It makes me think, you know, folks think that it takes a lot of time. It’s just like, oh, it takes so much time. I don’t have time to do this thing or whatever, but every day that goes by that you don’t do it, you’re prolonging the inevitable for someone else to end up, start doing it and start gaining the traffic that could be coming to your page or your listing. 

But it’s also like if you look at it as an investment, then it’s a little more palatable because if you do a little bit of time here and there, over time it gains traction and has an exponential or expounding effect. And you know, the results that you’re able to drive through those listings.

Allison Rand
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve, ever since the core updates like this March, I’ve been obsessed with SEO because when I google something now and I get all these Reddit, I get all the, like, aren’t you noticing so much more Reddit in your search?

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. Yeah.

Allison Rand
And I’m like, I know I can’t win on Reddit. Like, I’m just not a brand that’s going to win on Reddit. Okay, so what do I need to do from a first-person perspective to drive? And it’s definitely like everything. We’re talking about driving partnerships with other people who can talk about my business from an like authentic first-person perspective. And then like what can I do with them to like link back and connect and support them?

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, for sure. No, this is all great stuff. What do you think is something that you’ve tested that you’ve seen that was like really moved the needle, had a big impact on driving towards your goals?

Allison Rand
This isn’t local specific. In fact, it’s almost like the opposite. But we recently tested Advantage Plus, which is the new Meta product. And Advantage Plus is like the Performance Max of Google. And I read about it and I was like, I want to test it, but it’s not like the kind of thing where you can be, you know, you just kind of hand the keys over to Meta and you’re like, drive me somewhere special. 

And so we’re like, it’s sort of tricky for a gym where you set your trade area. You have your audiences, you have your very specific ideas for like what’s going to drive membership. With Advantage Plus, it’s sort of a black box. But I was like, well, let’s test it because it’s new and it’s, you know, theirs, but you don’t have audiences, you don’t have trade areas. But we’re like, let’s test it. 

And we’re actually getting like a really strong cost per join from our Advantage Plus ads. And it’s because like their AI knows what it’s doing. But at first it was interesting. It would push ads to places where we don’t have a YouFit.

Justin Ulrich
Oh.

Allison Rand
So I would get comments on the ads like, oh, this looks cool. We don’t have a YouFit in Denver.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah.

Allison Rand
And I was like, why is someone in Denver seeing my ads? But at the end of the day, the cost per join was still better. And so I was like, okay, like, let it continue to learn and it just gets better and better.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, over time. Yeah, that’s right. One thing that you kept saying that stuck out was test it. Let’s just test it. And whether you’re talking about that functionality within Facebook or anything, you know, it’s always good to encourage folks to just, if you have an idea inspired to try something, try it, test it. 

You don’t have to go all in and have some grand strategy baked out. Sure, you want to have some direction, some goals you’re trying to achieve, but test into what actually works. It’s if you need to push it out ugly, push it out ugly. And eventually, you know, you’ll get to what actually, like, works for you, you know?

Allison Rand
Yeah. It’s hard as a marketer to become, like, less precious and to, like, give in to, like, okay, well, whatever works. My social media agency made this really ugly gif of someone, like, kind of going like this. It was like a water bottle, and it turned into a weight or something. I don’t know. We all. We were all like, those. So ugly. 

And it was like, our best retargeting ad. And I was like, okay, great. It turns out, across platforms, the bicep does really well in creative interest. And. Yeah. And I’m like, I don’t know why, but okay. Like, you know, like, some people will come to you.

Justin Ulrich
I would say if you think of strength, I mean, that’s what people attribute to strength. Like, even look at the muscle emoji, it’s just someone. It’s the bicep getting flexed.

Allison Rand
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I just never know. Like, to your point earlier about mental health, somebody was like, let’s do some Meta ads on the value of mental health. Working out for mental health. And I was like, we can test it, but all people really want to do is see, like, physical changes in ads. And I was wrong. 

Mental health did really well. And I’m like, great. That makes me so happy. I never care if I’m right or wrong when it comes to this stuff, all I care about is the numbers.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. Test. If you fail, fail fast, fail forward, you learn from it, and then you can continue to go from there. Like, if you would have never tested those things, you’d never have found out that the bicep works well or that the mental health is a significant thing to focus on.

Allison Rand
We had just…we run programmatic, you know, display, and we always feel like, is this really moving the needle? Because it’s sort of in a weird place in the funnel, in my opinion. Right. It’s not like I searched for a gym, and I found one. It’s like, I found a little ad on a website. So we like, okay, like, let’s turn it off in a region and see how that impacts search branded search volume. 

And it did have an impact on branded search volumes. So we were like, oh, okay, great. Glad we know. Like, didn’t really hurt anything to do the test. Learned something. We got a reassurance from something that we didn’t have, and we continue to use it.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. Because most folks think if it’s just a display ad, if they’re not clicking on it, that’s the thing that you look at to measure. Yeah. Interesting that it had a direct effect for you.

Allison Rand
Well, if you look at who clicks on your ad, you’re going to be really sad, right? If you try to do, like, a cost per lead on programmatic, it’s like you’ll just, you’ll just cancel it. Which is why I wanted to cancel it.

Justin Ulrich
Right?

Allison Rand
Most people do.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, most people do. Very, very cool. So if you had one suggestion for someone who’s maybe struggling to drive growth or drive engagement, you know, from a local marketing perspective, what would you suggest that they do to maybe try today or sometime this week?

Allison Rand
I mean, I feel like you need to really, like, define your, like, define your neighbors, define your area. That’s like the one overall thing. And some of it I’ve kind of already touched on, on this, this conversation. But, like, understand your trade area. So if your trade, like, you’re not going to just choose random zip codes in your neighborhood. We work with an agency, Roar, that helps us create very specific trade area. So, like, if the bridge over here, people are less likely to join on this side of the bridge than this side of the bridge. We don’t advertise to them. 

So, like, know your area, know who the people are that are likely to come to your local business and know, like, what you’re dealing with in that local area. Like, who are your competitors? Like, so you kind of have a better sense of where to really place your budget. If you can’t win on this side of the bridge, don’t waste your money over there. 

You know, like, you can get to the point where you could be like, well, on that side of the bridge, everybody is already going to this other gym. As much as I would like to get them over there, there’s low hanging fruit on this side of the bridge. And getting to know your neighbors, being part of your community, which we already talked about staying authentic. We already talked about that. 

And then I think just create local content, like a local content strategy. So it’s great to have these, like, high level brand terms for SEO, but someone’s searching for gym near Germantown. You know, they don’t care. They don’t need to get, like, general workout advice from you. They need localized content from you.

Justin Ulrich
Well, perfect. No, those were all great insights. I appreciate you sharing them. You know, we talk a little bit about mental health, and it leads me to think, like, what does Allison like to do in her free time, you know, to kind of decompress. And you let me know in some of your facts, along with the eighties stickers and the hairless dogs, that you also like to spend a little bit of time camping. But is there a favorite place that you like to go?

Allison Rand
We go, well, tonight I’m headed to Assateague Island, which is a two RV. It’s glamping at Assateague Island, where there are, like, wild ponies that are in the campground. So while you’re camping, they’ll come and they’ll pretty much eat your coffee grounds and anything else you leave out. But you can’t touch them or play with them. And, one thing that’s really neat about the ponies is there are pony gangs.

Justin Ulrich
Oh, really?

Allison Rand
So, yeah. Like, there, it’s like gangs and the ponies don’t get along depending on what gang they’re in.

Justin Ulrich
Classic pony gang scenario.

Allison Rand
But it’s. Yeah, it’s just classic.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. That’s hilarious. Yeah, we had a. We did a little vacation a couple years ago out to the Outer Banks, and there were horses that would just walk across your deck. It was the craziest thing, but it was so cool.

Allison Rand
It’s really cool. I love the Outer Banks.

Justin Ulrich
I thought that maybe you might choose a mountain scene, but I was wrong.

Allison Rand
Oh, darn. But you made my hair look really good.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. It might also be cool to slap some of those stickers on your rv. I don’t know how your rv actually looks, but, yeah. Anyways, fun. I appreciate you joining us. If you want. Before we head out, how should folks follow you? Follow YouFit as your brand.

Allison Rand
Oh, well, if you want to follow us on YouFit, go to Instagram. If you want to follow me and what I have to say, go to LinkedIn. Allison Rand on LinkedIn or YouFit on Instagram.

Justin Ulrich
Very cool. And we’ll throw some links up in the episode description. Also, if you’re looking for a gym, check out YouFit gyms. There’s tons of locations across Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Virginia. Did I miss any?

Allison Rand
I don’t know. Florida.

Justin Ulrich
There’s a lot in Florida.

Allison Rand
Affordable personal training, you know, accessible to all. Yeah.

Justin Ulrich
Very cool. Very cool. Well, awesome. This is great. Allison, thanks for joining us.

Allison Rand
Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Justin Ulrich
You bet.

As always, thanks for joining us in the Local Marketing Lab. This podcast was sponsored by Evocalize. To learn more about how Evocalize can help you grow your business, visit evocalize.com. 

If you learned something from today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook @Evocalize. That’s Evocalize and on X at Evocalize. 

And remember, keep innovating and testing new things. You’ll never know what connects with your customers best unless you try. Until next time. Thanks for listening.