Did you know that approximately 20% of small businesses fail in their first year? This figure is probably quite daunting if you’re thinking about starting your own business as a personal trainer. Whilst we don’t want to make you break a sweat, this demonstrates how crucial it is to invest in ongoing marketing for personal trainers.
Most independent PTs start with bringing on loyal clients from previous jobs. The common problem, however, tends to be expanding their business to a new and wider audience. This is where the team at VerriBerri can step in to help! We have the expertise to deliver a bespoke marketing strategy to promote your fitness brand and prepare your business for long-term success.
How Do I Get More Clients?
This is a question we’re commonly asked as experts in marketing for small businesses. Unfortunately, there’s no simple answer. When it comes to taking on more clients, it’s not something that will happen overnight. The process involves meticulous research, building brand awareness, and a well-targeted marketing strategy.
Let’s delve into the steps involved in developing your fitness marketing campaign.
What Do You Want to Achieve?
Firstly, you need to identify what your goals are and what you’re looking to achieve. A useful way to determine your objectives is to follow the ‘SMART’ approach – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time based. This makes it easier to create a detailed plan and it provides you with something that your team can refer to when necessary.
Who is Your Target Audience?
Establishing your target audience is one of the most important factors to consider when it comes to building an effective marketing strategy. Directly appealing to your target market means you can focus your time on those who have a high intent or interest in your services. Through researching their wants, needs, and best methods of communication, you can tailor your campaign to resonate with them at a personal level. In turn, this helps to build your trust and reputation as a brand.
What is Your Budget?
The saying is true – it takes money to make money. As a start-up business, it’s unlikely that you have a huge spend to focus on marketing. This being said, you will need some kind of budget if you want to make any kind of positive impact. Having a budget in mind also ensures that you don’t overspend or neglect other areas of your business.
Marketing for Personal Trainers
The fitness industry is booming, meaning competition is tough. Your brand needs to be unique to stand out amongst the crowd and stay ahead of the game. This is why many personal trainers are choosing to work alongside marketing agencies to help their brand reach new heights. Here are four proven strategies that can be used to help your fitness business succeed.
Social Media Marketing
Social media is a valuable tool for any business, especially for those within the health and wellness industry. After all, with over 57 million active social media users in the UK alone, this is something that you don’t want to be missing out on! It allows you to reach a vast audience and encourage customer retention through creating engaging content.
However, you need to use the right platform for your business. For example, the well-known fitness app, “Nobs App”, has a unique selling point (USP) in the fact that they focus on complete beginners and body positivity. They use Instagram as their main platform. Contrary to popular belief, you should focus solely on one or two channels to create optimised content that captivates your target audience.
Social Media Advertising
The terms “marketing” and “advertising” are often used interchangeably, but there are subtle differences between the two. Marketing is the process of delivering your message to potential customers in a nurturing, less direct way. On the other hand, advertising is a form of promotion that uses paid techniques with a focus on pushing sales.
Paid social media advertising is used to share content with a particular segment of your audience. The ad will be pushed towards those who fit within the demographics you have chosen. Captions are usually directed at getting people to make a purchase, rather than focussing on brand awareness and boosting your reputation.
PPC Using Google Ads
Despite 45% of small businesses using some form of online advertising, pay-per-click (PPC) is something that still eludes many of us. It’s a form of advertising that allows your website to rank at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) using Google Ads. Moreover, you can assign relevant keywords to direct quality leads towards your website and only incur costs when somebody clicks on your ad.
If you include “personal trainer Chelmsford” as a search term, for example, then if somebody searches for this on Google, your advert will appear at the top of the results page. Furthermore, this is a “local keyword” as it includes a specific location. The cost of each click will vary dependent on a few different factors, such as the quality of the ad and the competitiveness of the auction. However, local keywords tend to be cheaper in comparison to more general terms, such as “personal trainer”. PPC marketing for personal trainers should include a mix of both types, but it’s important to remember that localised keywords tend to have a higher conversion rate.
Website Optimisation
Considering that the Google Index has 40 to 60 billion web pages, an optimised website is an essential aspect of marketing for personal trainers to improve visibility. You will need to use search engine optimisation (SEO) to rank higher on Google, meaning users will be more likely to click on your website.
One of the most effective ways to improve your SEO value is by including blogs on your website. This can’t just be any old content, however. These blogs need to be optimised to meet the requirements of Google’s algorithm to be recognised as high-quality. This includes adding relevant keywords evenly spaced throughout your blog and uploading content consistently, for example.
Contact Us
Here at VerriBerri, we have a strong understanding of the fitness industry and what it takes to succeed. If you’re keen to learn more about marketing for personal trainers, get in touch with our experts today! Give us a call on 01376 386850 or click here to message us directly.