Do you know what the most popular profession in America is? Personal trainer. With so many people looking to get in shape, it’s a great time for any personal trainer to capitalize on this growing trend and start making more money. Unfortunately, not all personal trainers are successful at marketing themselves and getting clients. The following article will provide 25 different ways that you can market yourself as a personal trainer today! Take your personal training marketing to the next level!
1) Write for Industry Blogs to Increase Authority
Writing for industry blogs that already have a list of your ideal clients is a great way to get exposure and to increase your name as a personal trainer. A good way to get articles published on fitness blog articles is to show the editor how your content will be beneficial to their readership. In order to find the right industry blogs, you can search through Google for the top fitness business blogs in your area and then submit a pitch to them. You can re-write the article and create a campaign to sending a bunch of emails at once in an autoresponder.
2) Build an Email List
Building an email list can be one of the best ways to market to your clients because you will be able to send them messages about upcoming workshops, new blog posts, and more. You can start building your email list by asking for clients’ emails when they come into the gym or are setting up a consultation session with you. If you do not get any responses from this method, there are other ways to build an email list such as running ads on Facebook (although these may cost money).
Personally, I believe the best way to build an email list is to incentivize the people who are visiting your website. You do this by creating a “freebie” offer. Some examples of freebies for fitness coaches are :
- Free one-week membership to the gym
- One week of unlimited personal training sessions
- A consultation session with a trainer over Skype for half off.
- Or even something as simple as a TDEE calculator quiz.
If you need help marketing your business or need help with Freebie offer ideas I’d be happy to help you create everything you need to be successful online. Schedule a consultation today.
3) Send Emails To Your List Often
The money is in the follow-up! Once you do start actually getting people to sign up for your email list it’s important to send emails to them frequently but not too frequently. My personal rule is to send a weekly email that’s informative and engaging for readers but doesn’t over-promise or under-deliver on what the emails will contain.
What’s most important when it comes to frequency is keeping your subscribers up-to-date with helpful tips so you can stay top of mind when they are ready to purchase from you.
4) Get Personal Training Clients on Social Media
Being on social media is another excellent way to get new clients as a trainer because you can interact with them and they may check you out because of it. The more you engage with your audience on social media the more likely they are to be interested in your product or services.
5) Ask for Referrals, The Right Way!
Asking for referrals can be a daunting task because you’re putting yourself out there and you don’t want to come off as pushy to your clients. The right way to ask for referrals is to talk about your relationship with them and how you’ve helped them to achieve their goals. As a trainer, you can ask for referrals in a variety of ways, whether it’s during an appointment or at the end of one, but make sure that you don’t do so until they are completely satisfied because then they will be more likely to want to refer friends if they’re happy with your services.
6) Take Advantage of Cross-Referrals
Cross-referrals are another excellent way to get new clients. If you can partner with a gym or a trainer who offers a different service they can help refer their clients over to you. One way to get more opportunities for cross-referrals is to use your personal training marketing ideas to promote other services and then ask them for the favor in return. Even if you don’t offer fitness business consultations or dietary plans, for example, make sure that your prospective and current clients know about them so they’ll have an opportunity to refer their friends over to another service from the same company.
Cross-referrals are also a great way of getting referrals when working with gyms because many times those partnerships will include cross-promotion on social media sites like Facebook or Instagram. When someone posts something related to a gym’s business, tag it in there as well so that people who follow both accounts can see what each organization has going on without having to look at multiple pages or profiles.
7) Create a Super Targeted Niche
Niching down and targeting a specific type of client is good because it helps you to focus your efforts.
A niche is a specific type of client that, when targeted, attracts more clients because there are already fewer competitors in the space, and those who do work with this specific kind of person know what they’re doing and can provide better service than someone who doesn’t have as much experience or expertise working with people like them.
If possible, create an expert persona: learn everything about your potential customers so you can best serve their needs. You will need to tap into all different aspects of marketing – advertising on social media channels (Facebook), creating videos for YouTube which target these people instead of just general fitness trainees – anything that could be helpful for targeting this group specifically as opposed to everyone else out there
If you’re a female trainer you could target another woman in certain areas of their life. An example of this would be “Bridal Fitness”.
8) Build an Amazing Community And Provide Value
Building a group of people who are helpful to others and offer value is awesome because your community benefits through this.
If you are building a community around your main product, make sure to promote the different ways people can contribute and participate in discussion forums or other online interactions. This will not only help encourage others’ participation but also provide volunteers who have expertise about relevant topics that may be able to share their knowledge for free with members of your group; providing more value than someone who doesn’t have as much experience or expertise working with people like them.
9) Establish Clients That are Loyal To Your Business
Establishing clients that are loyal to the products and services that you offer is crucial because it will help to ensure that your business is sustainable and successful. Here are some marketing ideas for trainers to consider in order to establish loyal clients:
- Provide feedback on their experience with the product or service so that they feel valued, acknowledged, and encouraged about future purchases
- Asking them what products or services they enjoy the most may give insight into how often they use the services (which could provide direction as far as when promotions should be sent).
10) Apply to ALL The Personal Training Directory
Putting your business listed on directories across the web will help you get more clients. On top of getting listed on niche personal trainer directories, we recommend applying to the following directories:
- Your local Chamber of Commerce
- Yelp
- Google Places (formerly Local)
- Facebook for Businesses (Note: you must have a business page in order to apply)
This is how you can improve your backlink profile for local SEO as well in order to get your business listed in Google maps.
11) Add Trust to Your Website Using Testimonials
Having testimonials from real clients on your website will help you get more clients.
Creating a page dedicated to testimonials and asking for people’s feedback on social networks will get you results, but adding them to your website is even better because it shows up in the search engine rankings too.
You can either show photos of past clients or just their quotes (you’ll have to ask permission first).
12) Give Out Business Cards and Brochures and Flyers
Having business cards on hand as well as brochures can help you get more clients.
Give them out to people you meet in person or at networking events and set up a table with brochures when you’re handing out fliers around town as well.
Just make sure your business card is easy to read, including the best way to contact you!
Personal trainers can also include information about fitness goals on the back of your card and give it along with a brochure that includes some basic exercises for beginners so they feel like their needs are met too.
The same goes for setting up a table: Include things newbies might want such as gym clothes or water bottles.
Brochures should always have social media links included because this helps build your brand awareness online while still getting contacts offline
13) Look The Part, Professionally
Your professional image is important because you want to make sure your clients see you as professional. Obviously, you wouldn’t wear a tuxedo at the gym but you have to remember that you are your brand. You will be the sole person representing your training business so you should dress accordingly. People judge you based on the first few minutes of meeting you so it’s important to put in extra effort when dressing for your online and offline events.
14) Offer Packages and Pricing Incentives
Offering package pricing as a personal trainer will help you do more business and get more training clients. It’s important to know that the majority of personal trainers offer package deals and it can be a great way for them to get clients, especially when they have limited time availability or other limiting factors.
15) Partner With Other Relevant Verticals
Try to find partners that serve the same training clients that you want for your business, but in a different way so that you can reach out to them for a partnership of some sort that you would both benefit from. Shout them out on your social media profile and then make contact with them. For better success offer to exchange freebies and build relationships with others in your vertical. That way you can get exposure to their audience.
16) Use New Fitness Tech and Encourage Clients to Use It
Using the latest and greatest fitness technology is a good way to show potential clients that you’re ahead of the game. Try to get a client that uses it too so they can see how great their results are!
17) Brand Your Personal Training Approach
As a personal trainer, you are your own brand. Your methods and teachings should be unique to help differentiate you from the competition.
18) Offer a Free Class
People love free stuff! Offer a free class so that your leads can get a feel for what it’s like to work with you. In turn, they may be willing to purchase a package with you.
19) Teach Programs in a Group Setting
If you aren’t already, teaching your classes in a group setting is great because it allows you to build relationships with the participants. The more they get to know and trust in each other, the easier it will be for them to open up about their fitness goals or struggles.
In addition, teaching a group class also saves time because there’s less one-on-one instruction needed when working at larger groups of people who are all learning together! This helps keep your cost affordable too as well as keeping you from getting burnt out.
20) Start a Facebook Business or Fan Page or Group
Starting a Facebook Business page of Group will help you as a personal trainer to be able to interact with more people in a private setting. This is great for building trust and relationships before you start charging them as well!
It’s also possible that they’ll refer friends or family members because of the personal nature of Facebook pages, especially if it has “friends-only” privacy settings enabled.
21) Create Your Own Personal Trainer App
This is a little bit of a pricier approach but if you can afford to do so it could have a great payoff for your success. You’ll definitely be able to present yourself as an expert in the field and it will be very convenient for clients to book appointments with you.
Fitness apps are also great because they’re an interactive way of learning new workouts that people might not find on their own!
Just make sure your app has a low monthly fee so the client doesn’t feel like they’re being charged twice for essentially the same service!
22) Develop a Consistent Content Marketing Strategy
The reason you need a consistent content marketing strategy as a personal trainer is because it helps build your visibility on the web.
Every day, people are being bombarded with advertisements all over the internet and a lot of them will have forgotten about you by tomorrow!
That’s why consistency is so important for personal trainers: we need to make sure that our potential clients can find us when they’re looking for help.
23) Go to Local Meetups and Events
Local meetups and events as a personal trainer are great because they’re a different way to meet other people in your industry.
Since personal trainers are usually self-employed, meeting new people is works because they might also be potential clients!
Another perk of going to local events is that you might get the chance to show off some of your skills and demo an exercise or two for everyone there. That helps establish credibility as a trainer with those who didn’t know you beforehand.
24) Create Facebook Ads for Client Acquisition
Facebook ads can be a quick way to get new clients as a fitness coach. In order to create success with your Facebook ad. You should use an ad that is interesting and informative in order to catch their attention. You can then offer up your freebie or give potential prospects a reason to either sign up for your services or get on your email.
25) Be Yourself and Show Your True Personality
Most importantly, you should be yourself. This will help you to be authentic and so that you can connect with your potential clients. You should also let them know what services you offer, any qualifications or certifications you have, and the experience that you bring to the table because these are all things people will want from a personal trainer.
26) Create a Free Video Series (Video is a great tool for personal training marketing)
A Free video series is an excellent way to help build trust with prospective leads by demonstrating expertise as well as offering helpful tips that they might not be able to find elsewhere. Plus, there is some added value attached – taking advantage of video positions you as an expert in your field and sets your training business up for success.
Conclusion
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. So far in this article, we have talked about the importance of a blog. We have also discussed the various types of content you can include in your posts and why it is important to use each type. We looked at how to create better content for leads by utilizing long-form content or free video series which will help build trust with prospective clients. We also talked about the importance of creating a freebie in order to generate new leads and much more
Hopefully, you were able to learn something new about what it takes to grow your business as a personal trainer. Like any business, marketing takes time but it is well worth the effort you put in.
The end! Now it’s your turn to go make great stuff!
What are some other ways you would like to see content coming from this blog? Feel free to give me your feedback below.
The end! Now it’s your turn to go make great stuff!