May 11
25
Personal Trainer Marketing
PERSONAL TRAINER BUSINESS AND MARKETING STRATEGIES THAT WORK
Welcome to HowToMarketPT
Enter your details to get your prospectus
Welcome to HowToMarketPT. We are a UK and Online Training Company specialising in Sales, Marketing and Business Skills for Personal Trainers, Gyms and Freelance Class Instructors so they can get and retain more clients and have thriving businesses. Check out the PT Business Club Click here to check out “How to Build a Profitable Personal Training Business” Find out more out us by Liking us on Facebook and Following us on Twitter. Please use the contact form to get in touch for a Free consultation
Committed to your Success
Rich Lucas
Per
Hey, sorry for the absence, really busy training out “How to Build a Profitable Personal Training Business” and creating 3 Premier PT Client Getting systems on Internet Marketing, Lead Generation and Complete Gain and Retain Clients, you can see them for yourself at www.PTMarketingSystems.com
Anyway…On with the post
In Recent years, REPS have released a “Level 4″ exercise specialist qualification. With this qualification, you can specialise in things like Obesity and Diabetes, Lower Back Pain and Cardiac Rehab. While this is fantastic for increasing personal trainers knowledge, don’t expect a stream of new clients banging down your door…here’s why…
The Public really don’t care what qualifications you have, they care what you can do for them and thats it. I’ve been in the fitness industry for about 10 years personal training, teaching classes, teaching martial arts etc. and guess how many times I’ve been asked about my qualifications? Yep that’s right, a big fat zero! This is especially concerning considering I work with children. Of course, I’m REPS level 3 qualified, insured, CRB checked, First Aid Trained but the public don’t seem to be interested, I could have saved myself a whole lot of time and money and just blagged it 
(I am joking of course!)
Also bear in mind that the subjects on Level 4 don’t look to be massively profitable e.g. Obesity and Diabetes is more a lower social economic problem where sufferers cannot afford the cost of Personal Training, the only one that looks profitable is Lower back pain, as its a common one for office workers. You could charge a premium price for this but expect to be working more late evenings.
The only way you’ll get more clients is to get your marketing dialled in, check out whats on offer at www.PTMarketingSystems.com and start really building your business
In your Personal Training Business, you can do lots of things yourself and in the early days, its no problem. However, as time progress and your profile increases, you’ll find that you will need more professional logos designed, maybe literature or more website work.
The obvious problem is that you don’t want to spend out loads of money yet as you are more than likely in that transition phase where you need to spend money but you may not necessarily have it yet!
So sites like elance maybe a good option for you, you can get lots of different trades and services at very competitive prices, here’s the link
Find your flexible workforce at Elance. Post your job today.
Set yourself up as an employer and verify your payment method, then when the time comes that you need professional graphics and logos designed, you’ll be in a position to do so straight away.
Sometimes it pays to outsource something that someone could do quicker and better for the sake of a few coins
Internet Marketing for Personal Trainers is waiting for you right here – Check it out
Lots of people are going nuts at the moment for Internet marketing, the question is should you, as a personal trainer get involved or just stick to more traditional methods of marketing. So in this post, I’m going to try and draw a comparrison or sorts between online marketing and offline marketing for personal trainers
Firstly, lets define marketing…
Marketing is the process of telling people what you do, over and over and over again. Thats it! And can incoprorate aspects such as lead generation, advertising, direct mail etc.
Lets think about what your marketing should be
- Targeted to your niche with a clear message and call to action
- Consistent
- As low cost as possible
So firstly, lets look at offline methods
- Leaflets
If you think putting 10000 leaflet out is targeted, you’ve got another thing coming! Unless you put out leaflets every week, its not consistent either and to put 10000 leaflets of good quality out there every month, its going to cost you a lot of money for not much return
- Posters
Yes Posters are clear and consistent (unless they get taken down) if you put them up in a place where your prospective Personal Training Clients go then fine, but how can you be sure? Posters also cost money to get done right
- Print Ads
Hmm not consistent, who reads classifieds or ads? We are saturated with marketing messages so we block a lot of it out, plus they cost a fortune!
- Lead Boxes
Same as posters really but probably the best of offline advertising
OK, lets look at online methods
- Blogging
Free, Permenant, demonstrates expertise and establishes a relationship with your prospective client base…nice
- Social Media Marketing
Free, Popular, Permenant, demonstrates expertise,builds a community and establishes a relationship with your prospective client base…I can see a pattern emerging here
- Free Online Ads
Free, works ok if you do it right, easy to repost so consistent
- Keyword and Backlinking Methods
Free, drives huge traffic hence more free advertising for you, leading to expertise demonstration and relationship building
Well its pretty obvious to me, I’ve been exclusively using online methods for about a year now to market my personal training business and it’s really easy to do
The hard part is working out how to do it (One of those “easy when you know how” sort of thing)
Fortunatlety, I’ve done the hard part for you, Take a look at Internet Marketing for Personal Trainers and make sure you don’t get left behind by the competition
1. I don’t know enough about fitness, I need to feel like I know what I’m talking about
Look, you’ll never FEEL like you know enough about fitness, the best personal trainers and constantly learning any way. Make some solid criteria that will define to you that you know ENOUGH and get on with it
2. Someone in my area is already doing that, I can’t beat them
I seem to be saying this more and more, There is NO COMPETITION there are other personal trainers and bootcamps, some people will love you and some will love others, this is healthy, this is good, otherwise it all gets a little cultish You need to market yourself right, take a look at internet marketing for personal trainers - a great way to market yourself for free
3. The Economy is bad, I’ll wait for a bit
You can ALWAYS get clients no matter what the economic climate, we are FREElance personal trainers meaning that we are FREE to seek out clients who are untouched by the recession, it comes down to generating leads, converting those clients and retaining those clients. If you are having trouble generating leads then the Personal Trainer Free Lead Generation System will help you out
4. I can’t risk leaving my job
I understand this and you really have to manage the risk, this blog post on quitting your job and becoming a personal trainer to see how its done
5. I don’t know how to get clients
What blog are you on again? The information I give away for free is incredibly effective if you choose to put it into action, imagine how good the paid for resources are, check out the Personal Trainer Business Blueprint
6. I’m not confident going it alone, I’ve no experience running a business
Fair enough, Get Business Mentoring or Take a Personal Training Business Franchise. Contact Me at howtomarketpt@gmail.com for more information on the franchise
Hey – Don’t forget, Lead Generation for Personal Trainers and Internet Marketing for Personal Trainers are coming out at a low price for the first 5 sold. Book yours at howtomarketpt@gmail.com . Meanwhile – I thought I’d do this blog post while it was still fresh in my mind from a recent experience
Don’t assume that your clients will refer you (we covered this in a previous post) but also even those that do, don’t assume that they will refer you in the right way. I had a client say to me “Hey, I referred you the other day, I told the person to go to the gym where you work, pick up your card and give you a call” Now thats really not going to work is it???!!
Firstly the potential client needs to take the trouble to go to the gym I work out of where they are not a member, speak to reception staff and find my card amongst many, then take the trouble to actually ring me…the chances are slim to zero that this will happen
Not my clients fault, I thanked her and then educated her on how best to refer clients to a personal trainer
1. Make it as easy as possible for the potential client to get in touch with you
Offer contact by e-mail, text and phone call, of course it is better to contact the potential client which we’ll look at later
2. Keep the focus narrow
Are you referring personal training? Bootcamp? Running Club? Knowing this will make the need greater from the potential clients side
3. Keep the contact control with the personal trainer
Ask your clients or referral partners to get the potential clients contact details and then the power lays with you as you now have a lead that you can contact and follow up
4. Give the referrer a reward
Make sure it pays you, I say if the referrer refers a personal training client to me that signs up monthly package, they get a session free, seems to work. I pay referral partners a fixed cost, what ever is going to work best for you
5. Make it easy for the potential client to try out the service risk free
Tell your referrers that anyone that they refer in will get a certain trial so they get to try you out risk free, this can help convert people in a big way
6. Tell the referrer what sort of clients you are after
You should have a clients criteria, let your referrers know, particularly if you have a compensation arrangement with them, its in their interests to get it right.
7. Thank each and every one referral you get
Its a big compliment to you when someone says to you that you are good enough that they want to send a contact to you, be sure to thank the person for each one you get
Don’t forget, Lead Generation for Personal Trainers and Internet Marketing for Personal Trainers, next couple of weeks, Book yours at howtomarketpt@gmail.com
I strongly recommend that when you set up a Personal Trainer Website, it needs to be very content rich rather than flashy. This provides you with good ranking on the search engines and it also demonstrates your expertise with people who vist your sites. And if you are still struggling with the whole “lead generating, payment collecting, content driven website” aspect, Get a Personal Trainer Website here
Now this is all well and good, only thing being is that not all personal trainers have the time, ability and/or inclination to write articles and blog posts. If this is you, here is a way where you can get quality content for your site for free and its called ezine articles.
This site which is one of the main article directories allows you to find an article and publish it to your own site by following the EZINE PUBLISHER button, this gives a link back to the initial author and you will get some free content don’t whatever you do just cut and paste the contenet and post it on your own site and try to pass it off as your own content, thats stealing and really not cool. If the author has taken the time to write this content and post it on ezine articles, its only fair that they get a link off you for using their content I write all my own content which contains fitness articles, take a look at http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Rich_G._Lucas feel free to use whatever articles you want, just be sure to follow the EZINE PUBLISHER link.
All Personal Trainer Websites built by us gets 3 post readily put in to get you started, see more on getting a personal trainer website built here
OK Just a quick plug “Lead Generation System for personal trainers” is coming out in the next couple of weeks, seriously this stuff is gold dust, its not a training manual, its a process including the lead bait, HTML code to embed, JPEG images and the rights to use also the training videos to get you to put it into action. Its helped me massively build my personal training business in a snap and I’ve always got a steady stream of leads coming in. I am letting the first 5 go for £47, after this, the price goes up, e-mail me on howtomarketpt@gmail.com to reserve your copy
…On with the post…
As personal trainers, its important that we keep clients on side and not alienate them with daft faux pas as I’ve outlined here
1. Assume they know what the client needs
Not every 35 year old housewife and mother wants to lose weight and tone up, have a consultation process that really gets to the bottom of what the client is looking to achieve, also you should be talking 30% of the time and listening the other 70% of the time, people love to buy but they hate to be sold to.
2. Shoehorn the client into one way
Just because you are a super vegan who trains 6 times a week twice a day, it doesn’t mean this is right for the client. This is why its called personal training, it needs to be personalised and you need to take into account their current fitness level, their current diet, their lifestyle, their professional life and their family life. You really need to take a wholistic view
3. Go on about their own workout
Doing this when unprompted can intimidate some clients, and more probably bore the rest, you are training them and they are paying you, keep the focus on your client
4. Go on about the next charity bike ride that they are doing
I was at a business networking event once, paid good money to be there and there was another personal trainer there, while I used the business networking event to ask for leads and referrals, I got quite a few, the other personal trainer told everyone about his super bike ride, didn’t get any referrals (or sponsors). Keep the focus on the things that matter
5. Use the words “never” and “always”
Easy way to back yourself in a corner is to use the above words, it should always depend on the situation, the clients goal and what resources you have to hand
6. Ridicule other trainers in the gym
Come on, have a bit of professional standard. How do you think that makes you look if you are talking down another fitness professional. If you are continually talking down someone else, you either want to be them, they are a threat to you or you are attracted to them! Maybe not! But you need to take a look at it if you are constantly talking someone down.
7. Ridicule diets and exercise systems
OK I do this to known and select people but generally it’s not good practice. It’s best to think that everything has a place somewhere for someone, you can have your opinions, just careful where you air them
Don’t forget, The Personal Trainer Lead Generation System, e-mail howtomarketpt@gmail.com , don’t hang around…only 5 copies…
The more prevalent that the internet becomes in publicising a personal training business, the more of an essential skill it becomes when someone starts a personal training business. Writing articles and blog posts can be some of the most cost effective ways and efficient ways to drive traffic towards your website.
Some of the advantages could be that it costs nothing to get started, it can provide good link juice to your websites, you can optimise with keywords relevant to personal training and more specifically your personal training niche. Couple this with the fact that a good article website usually gets high traffic and has an option for other people to use your content on there site with the condition that they include a link back to your site.
Some disadvantages could be that it does take a considerable time and commitment to write the required amount of articles, its a long term strategy meaning there is no quick cash here and there is also the creative concern, how do you keep coming up with quality articles?
Here are my top ten tips on writing articles and blog posts
1. Commit to writing 3 times a week. Accept it is going to take time and build your articles and blogs up gradually. The more articles and blog post with a link back to your page, the more your traffic and clicks will accumulate
2. Every time a Personal Training client asks you a question, make it into a blog post or article. You can also expand on each question e.g if a client asks you “how do I lose weight?” You could write about “how to lose weight” and another on “how to lose weight over 40″ or “How to lose weight when you gain easily” etc.
3. Use your Articles and use them for inspiration for your blog posts, this saves time
4. Keep your articles to 400 words, keep your paragraphs short and easy to read and keep your style easy to read and relaxed.
5. Have your keywords in your article title wherever possible and in the text of the article, don’t over do it once every 100 words should do
6. Don’t forget to input your keywords, make sure they are relevant to your article and your niche
7. Always include a link to your site, remember the reason why we write articles and blog posts, its not to win journalistic awards but to drive traffic to your webpage and demonstrate your expertise
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6993724
Internet Marketing for Personal Trainers is nearly ready for release, e-mail on howtomarketpt@gmail.com to get you special price launch copy
A great strategy when you become a personal trainer is to work totally independent, whilst this can be very profitable, try to avoid the follow 10 mistakes
1. Not allowing for travel time between clients
Chances are you’ll be travelling inbetween clients homes and local parks so take this into account when you are working out how many hours you can work a day
2. Not having a contingency for bad weather days and seasons
As hardcore as you are, your clients are not, try getting one out for a run in hammering down rain. Try to get an agreement with an independent gym where you can take your clients in during inclement weather. It means you’ll keep more clients, longer
3. Not having their marketing dialled in
No Gym means no marketing vehicle, have solid lead generation, sales consultation and client retention processes in place. This may include advertising, networking and publicity such as writing for the local newspaper
4. Not taking the extra health and safety issues into consideration
Apart from the obvious uneven ground etc. you need to consider safety issues, are there gangs loitering? Broken Bottles etc. are the goal posts sturdy enough to hang a suspension trainer off? Best do a reccy before you take clients there,
5. Not being prepared
Training people outside means that you’ll need a change of clothes, waterproofs, extensive exercise equipment and an extensive first aid kit in case of any mishaps
6. Not properly recording clients progress
Being outside means that its not so easy to carry a clipboard to record results. So you need to make sure that you record your clients progress on an excel spreadsheet so you can continue to progress them
7. Not taking their own health and energy levels into account
Its one thing being indoors but when you have to take each and every client running, this can drain on you after a time even if its well below your own pace. Arrange so you don’t have to run with them every time
8. Not allowing for fuel costs and extra marketing costs
Yes you’re not paying rent but you also don’t get access to the vast amount of prospective clients that gym based personal trainers do, so you will need to up your spend on advertising. Plus you need to travel to your clients so you’ll spend more on fuel, also allow for the fact that you won’t be able to do as many sessions in a day as a Gym based PT would due to the travel time
9. Only doing one to one sessions
Doing a Boot camp and marketing it provides not only an additional income, it also advertises you as a personal trainer to passers by, a great strategy
10. Not being properly qualified
Working outdoors means that if in the UK you’ll need to get your TIDE (Training in different environments) qualification, plus, suspension trainer instructor, kettlebell instructor etc. If you are not qualified, you aren’t insured. Not the most professional way to run a personal training business
Internet Marketing for Personal Trainers is nearly ready for release, e-mail on howtomarketpt@gmail.com to get you special price launch copy
Join the PT Success Club if you are serious about building a successful personal training business
A Popular route when you become a personal trainer is to take a position in a health club, leisure centre or gym, either as an employee (although there doesn’t seem to be that many of them around) or as a self employed contractor paying rent to market their services and uses the facilities.
However, during my time at my current gym (2 years) I’ve seen 4 personal trainers come and go when things haven’t worked out for them. Upon my observations, here are my top ten mistakes that Gym based Personal Trainers Make and hopefully by reading you can avoid them
1. Not having a Presence at the gym
I’ve said before that if someone doesn’t refer to you as “part of the furniture” you probably aren’t there enough. Especially in the early days. Be there at core times (Mornings, Lunchtimes and evenings) and look busy, this may mean doing free tasters or training a friend in the early days its better to look busy. Also, think about training youself in your branded PT kit, as long as you are fit and do impressive training methods that “awe” others looking on, this can get you business
2. Not Marketing well enough
Make sure you tap into the different marketing vehicles you have at your disposal, this may include a PT Profile board, notice board, reception promotional area, lead boxes, posters, business cards, have three articles in the newsletter if your gym has one, do an informational article on your gyms website
3. Not Networking with members
Its not enough just being there, you need to talk to people, don’t try and sell to them as this is a right turn off, get to know them as people and gently introduce the aspect of how you can help them, Be approachable and friendly
4. Only concentrating on Personal Training
In my opinion for most PTs starting out, personal training is a dangerous thing to bank your entire income on, you need to get your classes going on, sell nutritional supplements, do plans and diversify as much as possible
5. Only Marketing to Gym Members
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, make sure you maintain a good marketing presence outside your gym. You never know, your gym could kick you out, go bust or double your rent tomorrow. Market outside and bring people into the gym if you need to
6. Not Branding up
Wear your colours! Have your logo with “Personal Trainer” and your contact details on the back, it gets into people psyche eventually
7. Not differentiating themselves and their niche
Rather than trying to be all things to all people, specialise! Bodybuilding, Nutrition, Running, Fat Loss, Lower Back Pain, Bootcamp are all potentially profitable niche’s to explore
8. Not Networking with staff
Reception and sales staff can make or break your business get to know these guys and get an arrangement where they refer people to you and get a payment if the referral books in
9. Not being visible when training clients
It maybe easier to train a client in an empty studio but who can see you? Be out and visible to other prospective clients when you are working
10. Not asking clients for referrals
People who come to the gym, usually have friends at the same gym . Ask for referrals and reward your clients for doing so
Join up at the PT Business Club and get the righe help from the off withis sort of thing
Fill in your details below to learn the 5 lessons every personal trainer needs to know
