Marketing as a personal trainer requires more than just touting your services. Success comes from fostering your relationships with your clients through training and pushing them to achieve their goals. Your brand is the experience just as much as it is the results — so you'll have to find what makes your training unique and convey that through the marketing channels that you have available. This marketing guide will cover how you can build a unique brand and market to your core audience to see even more success as a personal trainer.
If you haven't established your niche yet, you may want to consider tailoring the services you offer so that you can target a specific audience. This could be anything from strength training for athletes to fitness for seniors. Specializing your training will allow you to focus on a specific market segment, and you'll have an easier time making your services look tailored to the wants of your audience.
Once you've determined the kinds of services you want to build your brand around, you'll have to consider your brand identity. Knowing what visual and intangible elements distinguish you from other personal trainers will help you tailor your brand to something uniquely your own. Ideally, you will want something that resonates with your audience on an emotional level. Here are some of the elements you should consider when it comes to your brand:
Social media is the ideal venue for generating attractive content related to your training services. It's perfect for posting short clips of your favorite exercises for targeting specific muscle groups or reaching fitness goals. Other tips and tutorial videos are good for showcasing your expertise in fitness or even just your unique style of training. As you continue to create content and reach larger groups of people, you'll attract more followers who enjoy your style.
Also, don’t forget about how effective client success stories are. With personal testimonials and before-and-after photos and videos, you can emphasize the progress and results that your clients can achieve with your guidance. This will demonstrate your competence as a trainer and inspire others to look into your services further.
Your website is the biggest digital representation of your brand that you have at your disposal. It will serve as a first impression for many prospective clients, so you'll want to ensure that your brand is conveyed in the best way possible. The first step in doing so is technical optimization — ensure that your website is free of 404 errors, broken links, and long load times. Keeping your site free of technical frustrations means that your visitors will remain longer, and also help you elevate your position on the search results page for relevant search queries.
Don’t neglect the importance of site navigation and how your pages flow from one to another. You might want to have separate pages featuring a gallery of photos and videos detailing your various training courses. You may also want to consider a page for testimonials from your previous clients with some before-and-after photos. Be sure that a call-to-action statement is featured on every page at the bottom, leading visitors to take the next step toward booking a trial session, or whatever you'd like them to do.
Optimize your website for search engines by introducing a blog. On your blog, you can post articles that address commonly searched topics regarding fitness such as "How much water should I drink" and "How do I speed up muscle recovery." By adding articles to your blog, you can catch more searchers who are looking for answers to these queries and lead more visitors to your website. You'll also build domain authority which further enhances your site's position in organic search results.
You can enhance brand awareness by partnering with local businesses and creating partnerships that drive client referrals. Gyms and fitness centers are a great place to start. You can offer to lead group fitness classes or workshops to network while showcasing your capabilities as a trainer. It increases the visibility of your brand to people already interested in fitness. You can also offer to provide personal training sessions as part of the gym's membership packages. This may end up tying your brand to the gym's, but it could also give you free access to a space with all the equipment you need to conduct your training.
Other health-oriented businesses like cafes and nutrition food stores make ideal partnerships as well. You can host events in tandem with nutritionists or protein sellers to cross-promote your services with their products. Attending these events will increase awareness of your brand by aligning your services with a health-conscious audience.
Direct mail is a highly-targetable method of marketing that can work to your advantage as a personal trainer. You can use it to deliver a marketing message to individuals within your geographic area who resemble your target audience in terms of age or other demographics. A direct mail postcard can feature imagery and design elements that make a memorable impact on the minds of its recipients. Postcards make a great vehicle for your marketing message because, with no envelope obscuring its view, they'll have your audience's undivided attention the moment they pull it from the mailbox.
You can also use direct mail to spread the word about promotions, limited-time offers, or upcoming events. Be sure that any postcard you send for marketing features a Call-to-Action statement that instructs the recipient on what you would like them to do next. QR codes can be included in the design of the postcard if you want to minimize the effort required to get from your postcard to your online sign-up form.
Client testimonials can help you illustrate the quality of your services to other potential customers. You can encourage those you've trained to submit a review of you for your website, or on Google My Business if you have an active profile. You can even feature quotes from these reviews on direct mail postcards to show your audience how others have benefited from your training. It's a good idea to collect as many reviews as possible over time, so encourage your clients to give you a review if they haven't already.
These are just a few of the ways that you can branch out and get your brand in front of a wider audience. Expanding your marketing endeavors can be challenging when you have to simultaneously manage your timetable of clients and other aspects of your business. Luckily, you can expedite your initial marketing campaigns by enlisting the help of an agency. Cactus Mailing has over 22 years of experience creating postcard campaigns for a variety of industries — including fitness. We'll take care of each step of the process from mailing list selection to design to printing and distribution.
Get in touch with one of our direct mail experts today and open the door to direct mail success.