Personal Trainer Marketing

Like any small business owner, a personal trainer must have a good marketing plan in order to succeed. A marketing plan lays out how you are going to introduce your product or service to your target audience.

Having a solid and clear marketing plan is essential to your business because that is how you will gain new customers. In this article, you will learn how a marketing plan works and various marketing strategies. You will also learn how you can use social media to market your business.

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Personal Trainer Marketing Plan

The big question is how do you ensure that your marketing strategy will work? Well, to answer the question, you need to know how a marketing plan works. Once you know what a successful marketing plan looks like, you will then know how to create a marketing plan specific to your needs as a fitness trainer.

A marketing plan states the goals and objectives for how you want others to perceive your company. Do you want to be known as the fun, upbeat personal trainer? Do you want to be seen as the fitness trainer who pushes clients to their limits?

Those are questions you should consider when creating your marketing plan. You want your marketing strategies, whether it’s sending emails or having great social media pages, to show possible clients who you are and why they should choose you to be their personal trainer.

There are five steps to creating a successful marketing plan:

Step 1: Mission

In order to create a successful plan, you need to first figure out what your mission or goal for your business is. A well-written and thought out mission statement will explain to possible customers why they will benefit from your services.

If you are struggling with coming up with a mission statement, ask yourself these questions: Why are you in this business? What is the purpose of your services? How do you want the public to perceive your business? If you are able to answer these questions, you will be well on your way to writing a great mission statement.

Step 2: Situation Analysis

In this step, you want to evaluate the internal and external factors that affect your business. There are many ways to complete this analysis. A common analysis people use is the SWOT analysis. By analyzing these factors, you will have a better idea on what our strengths and weaknesses are and how you can use them to your benefit.

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Step 3: Marketing Strategy 

Once you’ve identified the internal and external factors, you can actually start mapping out which opportunities you would like to prioritize and pursue. While writing your marketing plan, you will specify who your target audience is and how you will reach them, set realistic goals, and find and create your marketing budget.

Step 4: Marketing Mix

After establishing your plan, it’s time to figure out how you are actually going to implement it. Your marketing mix includes the product, price, promotion, and place, better known as the four Ps of marketing. Keep in mind that there are many different ways to market your business; however, not every marketing strategy works for every business.

Step 5: Implement and Control the Plan

After all your hard work and planning, it’s finally time to actually implement your plan and see it in action. At this point, you will reach out to potential customers to show them why they should become your newest clients. You might need to make adjustments as you begin to apply your marketing plan; but, that’s totally normal and just part of the process.

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More Personal Trainer Marketing Strategies

  • Create videos

Digital marketing is the perfect way to reach the greatest number of people. One example of digital marketing is creating videos of your personal training business. Because everything is so high-tech, videos are the perfect way to reach out to people.

You can create video workouts, tutorials, testimonials, weight loss progression, or any other kinds of videos that you think your target audience will enjoy. You can output these videos any way that you would like. For example, you can send them through emails or publish them on your website or social media pages.

  • Collaborate with local businesses

Forming collaborations and connections is a great way to benefit your fitness business as well as support other local businesses. Ideally, you want to collaborate with businesses that share the same target audience as you. As a fitness trainer, one business that would be perfect to connect with would be a health food store. You both share the same target audience of people who value their health and fitness.

  • Attend meetups and events

It is just as effective to do in-person networking as it is to do digital marketing. For example, showing up to local events and other meetups is a great way to meet new people. In addition, when people get to talk to a real live person, they are more likely to form a connection to you and your business. At the events, talk to people and show them how passionate you are about what you do.

  • Create promotions

One of the best ways to gain new clients is by creating promotions, including special programs and package deals. For example, you can offer special event discounts that will make people want to become your newest customers.

Another example of a special deal is offering a discount to people if they purchase a certain number of classes or refer a friend. The key to creating a good promotion is by giving it a fun name and specific time frame. If the special promotion or deal is only available for 24 hours, people will definitely want to sign up before it is gone.

  • Create Facebook Ads

Advertisements are a good way to increase brand awareness. Facebook Ads is the perfect platform place to start advertising on because it is so widely used. In addition, Facebook is a convenient social media platform to use because your business should already have a business Facebook account in order to stay connected to your customers and others in the fitness industry.

Personal trainer Facebook ads are often less expensive than Google ads. You can track the effectiveness of your Facebook ad campaign with the Facebook Pixel. It is similar to a tracking pixel that you would use on your website, but for Facebook pages. With this information, personal trainer Facebook ads can be highly targeted to your custom audience.

  • Give free trials

Making the first session free of charge is a great way to gain new customers. By offering the first class free of charge, people are more likely to sign up or at least visit your landing page. Especially if someone is on the fence about signing up for a personal trainer session, giving a free trial will allow them to try the class out without the stress of having to pay for something that they might not end up liking.

This is essentially what marketers call a lead magnet. The free session is the lead magnet. It is costly, but it is certain to expand your email list and your lead generation.

  • Create unique classes

Of course you want to stand up above your competition. Therefore, you want your fitness sessions to be unique. In addition, changing up your classes every once in a while will keep your customers engaged and interested in your fitness services. If customers start to get bored with your classes, they will not want to keep paying for your services. Therefore, don’t be afraid to switch it up now and then to keep people on their toes.

social media presence

Personal Trainer Marketing on Social Media

Social media marketing is a very effective way to gain new customers and engage with people. Especially in today’s day and age, it is essential for businesses to be active on social media. Follow these three main tips to ensure that your social media activity benefits you as a personal trainer.

  • Brainstorm, research, and set goals

Like any good plan, you need to brainstorm, research, and set goals. While developing your social media marketing strategy, you want to keep these things in mind: niche, brand, message, goals, and consistency. Your niche might include people who are trying to lose weight, runners, or those who are just trying to maintain their physique.

You will want to do some research on your target audience to see what they like and dislike. Once you determine your niche and target demographic, you can start to shape your brand message. Do you want to be seen as the mindful, young trainer, or the tough-love kind of person? You want to set clear goals so that you know what you are working towards.

What do you want to gain through your social media posts? Do you want to gain new clients? Do you want to connect with similar businesses? Lastly, you want to be consistent in what you post. When people see your fitness account, they should be able to tell that all of those posts have to do with the same business.

  • Create unique content

In order to make your posts stand out, you need to produce unique content. In addition, don’t be afraid of going outside of the box or changing things up once in a while. If you are not sure what your followers would like to see, you can ask them yourself. You can set up polls or just ask them up front to see what kind of content they would like to see.

There are many types of content to choose from. For example, you can post videos, behind the scenes, short workouts, or inspirational photos. To help boost user engagement, always include a call to action.

  • Strategically choose your social media platforms 

You should have business pages on social media. There are many different social media platforms. Some of the most popular platforms for personal trainers are Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Pinterest. Each of these platforms is good for different reasons.

For example, Instagram is more focused towards photos and short videos, versus YouTube which is specifically for videos only. If you have a hard time choosing between the various platforms, don’t worry! You can choose to be active on more than one social media platform.

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Personal Trainer Marketing Help

Now that you know what goes into creating a successful marketing plan for an online business and some marketing and social media tips specific to personal trainers, it’s time to apply that information to your fitness training business. If you follow these points, you will definitely see a positive change in your business ventures. For help, call SEO Design Chicago today!

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