You might be one of thousands of personal trainers who have opted to leave a gym job and take on self-employment. Perhaps the pandemic motivated you to do so, or maybe you’re pursuing a lifelong dream. Either way, when you’re neck-deep in administrative responsibilities, you’re probably hunting for best practices and efficiency tips. One thing you might be looking for is specialized marketing tips just for personal trainers.
We’ve got five marketing hacks for you here, but it’s important to know what they all start with: Understanding your target audience. Once you understand the details that drive your target audience, you’ll be able to connect with them more effectively through your marketing strategy.
Why Narrowing Your Audience Matters
Offering your service to anyone and everyone won’t get you far. You would be wasting time and money marketing to people who aren’t interested, or who can’t feasibly retain your services. Narrowing your audience leads to much better results.
Start with a general demographic, such as a key age range or your particular speciality, and drill down from there. For example, do you work primarily with teens? With women between 35 – 50? Do you specialize in a certain type of exercise, like Strength and Conditioning or Pre-Natal Fitness?
When you begin with those questions, you can consider the motivations, needs, problems, and goals of your target audience.
Then, try these five marketing hacks to attract new clients, maintain current clients, and establish yourself as the go-to personal trainer in your area.
5 Marketing Hacks to Add Muscle to your Business
1. Leverage the Power of Reels. 🎥
Video marketing is a popular and effective strategy to implement in 2022. For personal trainers especially, video marketing is a must-have!
Enter Instagram Reels! Reels are a great form of video marketing, and they provide a huge opportunity to show off your skills, offer encouragement, and build your client base. Consider creating Reels that showcase proper form, workout tips, and before and after clips of your clients.
2. Optimize Your Website. 📈
Before people buy a product or invest in someone’s services, they conduct online research. You can count on potential clients to search for your website when they want to learn more about you. So, make sure your website is optimized with a fast load time, a clean appearance, and a user-friendly experience.
Multiple tools are available to you, to measure your website speed, incorporate compelling content, and give visitors an easy way to glean information. But websites are never “set it and forget it.” Analyzing, maintaining, and optimizing is a continual process. Investing in a web developer will maximize your website’s ability to attract new clients, and it often yields a great ROI.
3. Engage on Social Media. 💬
Getting stronger and healthier is a deeply personal journey. Clients depend on you to support them through this journey – even when you’re not making them sweat.
Building a robust social media page (or pages) is a way to offer continued support, tips, and encouragement. This will help you maintain strong relationships with your clients, build a vibrant community of support, and increase those coveted word-of-mouth referrals.
4. Create a Google Business Profile. 🤳
Often, before potential customers find your website, they’ll find your Google Business Profile. When potential customers type, “personal trainers near me” into their search bar, Google Maps will present top hits in their local area. You could be one of them!
If you operate as a home-based business, with no store front, you might not want to list your home address on your Google Business Profile. Never fear! Google allows service-based businesses like yours to identify the local area they serve, not their physical address. When you have your Google Business Profile set up, you’ll dramatically increase the possibilities to be found.
Download our free guide to help you set this up!
5. Create Ads for Small Audiences. 🎯
Yes, you read that right. You don’t want to create ads for the whole country. For one thing, the whole country can’t commute to train with you, and for another thing, not everyone is interested.
So, create ads that target a narrow niche of people who are likely to hire your services. Narrow down by location, age-range, types of fitness, interests, behaviors, lifestyle, and more. Think back to your “buyer persona” to help you identify these demographics.
Marketing for Personal Trainers: The Time Is NOW
Demand for your services is HUGE. The pandemic taught people that establishing and following healthy habits isn’t just a good idea — it’s essential. Your services could provide the answer they’re looking for!
So don’t wait another minute! Invest time into these marketing hacks and watch your business grow.
💪 Need help? Spicy Lemon Marketing specializes in fitness marketing. From web design to social media management and more, we love helping people like you — help others! We’d be honored to talk with you about your vision! Contact us today to schedule your free consultation.
