Have you recently launched your personal training business and you are looking to add more clients to your list? Or you have been a freelance personal trainer for some years and you feel like your membership has stagnated? If you’ve answered yes to any of the above questions, then this article is for you.
Regardless of how long you’ve been working as a personal trainer, you will need an effective personal training marketing plan to attract more clients to your fitness business. Without a marketing plan, your personal training business will not grow, regardless of how great of a personal trainer you are.
The good news, there are plenty of personal training marketing ideas, which you can implement and attract more clients. In this article, we will take you through some ideas and strategies on how to get more personal training clients. Without further ado, let’s jump right in.
1. Offer Free Trials
Some fitness marketers will advise you against offering free trials. But, when you are trying to attract more clients to your fitness business, offering free trials can prove to be a very powerful method of getting clients as a personal trainer.
At the end of the day, potential personal training clients need an opportunity to assess your personal training methods for themselves. And without that chance, they may never sign up for your gym membership.
Fortunately, offering free trials can provide that opportunity. Free trials allow potential personal training clients to experience and assess your personal training methods without having to make any commitments.
Also, these free trials will give you a chance to collect their contact details, which you can then use to retarget them. And if your personal training methods are impressive, it’s highly likely you will end up converting some of them to paying clients.
2. Host Free Pop-Up Events
Apart from hosting free personal training trials in your gym, you should also consider running a free pop-up event. Free pop-up events provide yet another opportunity to showcase potential personal training clients your personal training skills. Also, it will allow you to showcase a sample of your personal training work-outs and methods.
For this event, you should identify a spacious venue and invite members of the public for a free workout. The venue can be a rooftop restaurant, a local park, a local brewery or any other spacious location. Ensure you collect the contact details of everyone taking place in the event.
Also, you should remind people to dress appropriately for the fitness session. For instance, if you are holding a 45-minute free weights session, you can request the participants to wear comfortable workout clothing and training sneakers. You can also ask them to come with water and a towel.
Once the event is over, you can then give each of the participants a goodie bag featuring some merchandise, together with your flyers and your business cards. Again, a free pop-up personal training event can help personal trainers to get more personal training clients fast.
3. Offer Discounts
If you are a new personal trainer or you’ve been in the industry for a while, but your membership has stagnated, offering discounts can help you to land more personal training clients.
For example, if you charge $50 for a 45-minute personal training session, you can offer a 50% discount, meaning you will only be charging $25 for the same session.
But, for this method to work, you need to do it strategically. You will need to place a time limit and a membership limit. For instance, you can say that the offer is only open to the first ten members who sign up. You can also add that the offer will only be up for a week or so.
Creating such an offer with limits will urge people to sign up due to the fear of missing out (FOMO). However, don’t get into the habit of offering discounts every now. Doing so may make it look appear as if your personal training services are not up to standards. Also, offering too many discounts will affect your bottom line. The trick is to do it strategically.
4. Work On Your Website
Every personal trainer looking to land more personal training clients should have a professional-looking fitness website. Simply put, a personal training website is the foundation of your online presence.
Assuming that the above three methods we’ve discussed above will land you some prospects, there’s a high chance they will want to know more about your fitness business. And, your website is the first place they will visit.
So, if you don’t have a website or your website is not aesthetically appealing, it’s highly likely they will not sign up for your gym membership. Therefore, make sure you dedicate some time to work on your website.
And if you don’t have the skills to design or re-design your website, you can hire a professional to do it for you.
Once your personal training website is up and running, you can use it to promote your personal training services, thus helping you to generate more personal training leads.
Also, make sure you ask for testimonials and post them on your personal training website. Before purchasing a product or service, most people these days browse the internet to check for social proof. And your personal training business is no exception.
Clients looking for personal trainers will first check the reviews and testimonials on your site. And if they are positive, valid and relatable, such clients may eventually end up becoming your members.
5. Partner With Local Businesses
Partnering with local businesses is another effective way of getting more personal training clients for your fitness business. You may be probably asking yourself how this method will help you to land more personal trainer clients. Well, the approach is straightforward.
For example, you can visit a local nutritional supplements store, introduce yourself and ask the owners whether they may be willing to enter into a cross-promotion deal. With such a deal, you will be recommending your personal training clients to their store, where they can purchase their nutritional supplements. At the same time, the nutritional supplements store will recommend personal training clients to your store. Hence, it will be a win-win arrangement for both parties.
6. Distribute Flyers
Most personal training marketing ideas these days focus on digital methods. So, does that mean that traditional marketing methods like distributing flyers no longer work? Well, to the contrary.
Flyers remain a reliable means of reaching out to more clients. What makes them a relevant marketing method even today is that they are easier to distribute and hand out. Furthermore, they are aesthetically appealing. Also, they grab attention quite fast.
But for this method to work, you need to identify strategic locations where you can place or distribute them. Some of the places where you can place your personal training flyers include community bulletin boards, utility poles, elevators, spas, laundromats, offices, and chiropractor clinics, among others.
7. Don’t Forget Referrals
Referrals or word-of-mouth marketing can help personal trainers to generate a considerable amount of personal trainer leads. In fact, they are more powerful than the majority of online personal trainer marketing methods.
According to a recent report, clients referred by a friend, colleague, family member or any other close associate are four times more likely to make a purchase. Also, the same report states that 92% of consumers trust referrals from close associates.
Therefore, it goes without saying that referrals should be part of your personal trainer marketing plan.
For referrals, you simply need to ask your current personal training clients whether they may be interested in participating in a referral program. You can either ask them in person or via email.
If they are interested, you can request them to refer their friends, family, work colleagues or other close associates. And for the rewards, you can offer discounted membership, free personal training or other incentives.
8. Leverage Social Media Marketing
With approximately 57.6% of the world’s population using various social media platforms, then your personal training business needs a strong social media presence.
But first, you need to identify the social media platforms where your target audience prefers hanging out. For example, some fitness enthusiasts prefer Instagram while others prefer Facebook. You may also find some who prefer Twitter, just to name a few.
Once you’ve identified the social media platforms where your target audience hangs out, you then need to create a page or account for your personal training business if you don’t have one already.
From there, you should then start sharing informative and educational posts. And these may inspire some of your followers to start their fitness journey.
9. Send Emails
Besides its popularity, email marketing is also one of the most cost-effective methods of acquiring new personal trainer clients.
So, if you already don’t have an email list, you should start by creating one, using the contact details you’ve gathered so far.
Once you’ve built an email list of current and prospective personal training members, you can then go ahead and start sending weekly emails.
For prospective members, you can target them by sending personalized workout plans, customized meal plans, and fitness tips.
With the right approach, an email marketing campaign can help you to net new personal training clients.
When communicating with your prospects, it will certainly help to have a pre-written sales script.
10. Enhance Your Online Presence
Your personal training business needs a strong online presence to get more clients. And you can achieve this by creating a Google My Business (GMB) listing. So, why is a GMB listing important?
Well, if someone is looking for a personal trainer in Houston, Texas, they will head to Google and type “personal trainer near Houston.”
Assuming your personal training business is already registered on Google My Business (GMB), there’s a high chance it will appear among the search results. And if your listing has your location and your contact details, a potential fitness client may reach out to enquire about your services.
11. Closing Remarks
Developing an effective personal trainer marketing strategy is key to attracting more clients and growing your fitness brand. And the good news is, it doesn’t have to be a complicated process. You simply need to select some of the personal training marketing ideas we’ve provided in this guide, implement them and you will notice some changes. But, don’t expect to see the results overnight. You must be patient and be ready to make adjustments along the way.