CWA Blog Archive-Marketing Advanced Programming In Climbing Gyms

Marketing Advanced Programming In Climbing Gyms

Pdf Summary

Intermediate and advanced programming is some of the hardest to build, sell, and run well. Kirby Kahl lays out the hurdles, recruiting and keeping staff who can teach the material, building curriculum, filling classes, and aiming marketing precisely, and focuses this piece on that last challenge: reaching a narrow target market. Her central insight is that segmentation, usually treated as a digital marketing strategy, applies just as well to live programming. As programming elevates, the audience narrows. The pool for advanced classes is much smaller than for beginner or even intermediate offerings. Communities with strong outdoor access, like Salt Lake City and Denver, have larger pools to draw from, but she stresses that many smaller communities can still run higher-level programming successfully if they market to the right people. Before marketing can work, two things need defining: what counts as an advanced program, and who the target audience actually is. Both vary by location, so the definition that fits Denver may not fit a smaller market. The article includes a CWA sidebar defining key terms and helping operators determine their target audience, then explores tactics for getting that audience to try advanced offerings. The throughline is precision over reach. Advertising advanced programming to your whole membership wastes effort, because most members aren't the audience. The win comes from identifying the small segment ready for advanced work and speaking directly to them, using the same segmentation logic that drives digital marketing. For owners and programming staff, the message is that advanced programs can succeed even in modest markets, but only with a clear definition of the offering and disciplined, targeted marketing rather than broad promotion.

Asset Caption

Advanced programming is hard to fill because the audience is small. Kirby Kahl argues that marketing segmentation, usually a digital tactic, applies to live programs too. Define what "advanced" means for your market, identify the narrow target segment, and market directly to them rather than promoting broadly.