Increasing your client base as a personal trainer will seem daunting at first. Without knowing where to start or where to target your marketing campaigns can leave you feeling stressed. Fortunately, there are tools and steps you can take to not only find more clients but to encourage them to become loyal members of your personal training business.
Spending time improving your presence on social media, adding some basic SEO to your website, and even connecting with other professionals in the fitness industry are just a few of the steps you can take to increase your business's exposure. With a few tips and tricks of the trade, this article highlights some simple solutions to help grow your personal training business through earning more clients.
Photo Credit: The Fitness Game
Focus on your branding and your image
Whether you're a new or existing business, it's never too late to build branding into your business. Having a clear brand identity, message and way to set yourself apart from other personal trainers can help you attract more clients. Clients want to know what you are offering, where and when you are offering your services, and what makes you different to your competitors. Once you know what it is you're setting out to achieve with your PT business, it'll become so much easier to implement a number of strategies and use your brand to earn new clients.
Have a basic SEO strategy for your website
SEO (search engine optimisation) is something anyone with a website should take into consideration when creating content, especially for marketing purposes. SEO is how websites ensure that they get a higher ranking on Google so their page has more likelihood of being found and viewed by potential clients. Google is a fickle friend, and basic SEO will help your website to fall within the first few pages of a Google search. Using local SEO is a good place to start. With tools such as Google Ads and Keywords Everywhere, you can easily find out what search terms are trending in your area so you can go ahead and make your website show up as far up the results page as possible.
Write blogs and features for your website
Having a blog on your website will help increase your website's visibility and the amount of traffic you are getting. Blogs are a proven SEO tool for driving traffic to websites. Basic use of keywords, internal links, and external links to pertinent websites with a higher domain authority all help to increase your visibility on Google. It's important that your blogs and articles are relevant to your business and the training you offer to support the brand you've created. You may also wish to include guest features from other people working in the health & fitness sector, or offer another website an article yourself, another useful way of networking.
Focus your marketing on your ideal clientele
Once you've laid out your plans for your business and you know what your brand and message to potential clients are, you need to get your name out there and encourage potential clients to sign up for your memberships. While it may feel as though the best thing to do is to get as many people as possible to sign up to your classes and sessions, you want to concentrate your marketing efforts towards your ideal clientele, whether you aim to help people with their physique sporting performance, or general fitness.
Depending on what your PT sessions will consist of will ultimately dictate the best fit for your classes. You don't want to have a revolving door situation with clients so ensuring your marketing is clear and simple, really outlining what it is you're offering so as to target the right potential clients, you should find yourself getting inquiries and bookings from your ideal clients.
Create an online presence through social media
Social media has become a really important marketing tool, especially for new businesses, and it's fundamental in raising personal trainers' profiles. Instagram is a great way to share photos and videos to demonstrate what you offer. The use of relevant hashtags with a high search number will lead users to find your content and help to increase your following. Facebook is another platform for sharing photos and videos, but it's also somewhere for you to create a business page or group. Making a group on Facebook will help you to create an online community for your clients. You can share any upcoming offers as well as tips and advice for clients. A presence on one or more social media platforms will help you to:
- Make the most of free internet marketing
- Show potential clients what you offer
- Post and create shareable content that will drive profile and website visits
- Connect you with clients and other professionals that you can build a network.
Keep your clients up to date with weekly emails
Once you have your clients signing up to your classes and sessions, keeping them engaged with a weekly email offering tips and advice, as well as updating them with what you're offering is a simple but effective marketing strategy. Keeping them relevant to your clients is a great way to of ensuring that they actually read your content as well. If you've noticed something that several clients could work on regarding form or there are certain injuries you're spotting, you can offer advice in improving their performance and "how-to's" for dealing with common strains and injuries that anyone who practices sports will occasionally have to deal with.
Get your clients to spread the word with offers for referrals
Your returning clients are one of your best marketing resources. There's a reason they keep coming back, and you should make the most of the fact that you've made a great impression on your loyal clientele. Asking them outright to recommend your services to their friends and family may feel uncomfortable, so why not make it an appealing prospect for them? If one of your clients sings your praises and gets someone to sign up, you can offer a referrals based incentive, for example, a discounted class for your established client and a free trial for their referral. TeamUp's referral program is an easy way to organise this as you don't have to do anything to set it up. On your customer site or their member app, your clients will see a referral code in their profile that they can share with friends and family.
Turn your clients into social media brand ambassadors
An appealing referral program is a great way to get some more clients through the door, but your social media presence can really benefit from your clients sharing your services on their own pages. We all know people who love to share their fitness goals and achievements, and they often want to give credit to anyone that helped them get there. By asking your clients to share a link to your social media pages or giving you a shout out on a pertinent post they share, your online visibility will increase. With your online classes and on-demand content offering great options for clients further afield, you never know who might join you for a class or where.
Share customer reviews on your website
When it comes to testimonials and reviews, potential customers understandably want to know what previous clients think of a service or product. It's not uncommon now for businesses to ask customers to share a review on either their website or a review page. When you have recurring customers who are clearly happy with the sessions you've been leading, asking them to leave a review and a rating online isn't out of the ordinary. It's a vital part of increasing your business's visibility online as well as increasing its reputation.
Invest in the right management software
Organisation is key. Obvious, yes, but it's not something that can be overlooked, especially when you're trying to increase your clientele. That's where management software comes in, and TeamUp offers the ideal solution for numerous business types, including personal trainers. Having all your admin in one easy to access place will infinitely improve the service you offer prospective clients. Our scheduling features for personal trainers take the responsibility away from you to keep track of all your bookings.
Your clients will be able to use your customer site to book a session with you, and they will also be able to pay you through our online payment processors. All of your customer information, scheduling records, and payment information will appear on your dashboard with our clear and concise reporting feature, meaning less paperwork for you and complete transparency for both instructor and client.
Take your classes online and upload on-demand content
TeamUp does more than just organise your paperwork. Thanks to our partnerships with both Vimeo and Youtube, you can offer online classes and even create On-Demand content. Offering online classes is the perfect way to expand your client base since you will be able to give one-to-one sessions with clients further afield. On-Demand content is the perfect solution for your clients who are unable to make it to a session. Uploading recorded classes gives them the chance to do the session in their own time. It's also an additional service for those clients who want to take advantage of your curated content. This doesn't just mean that your clients don't miss out on training with you, it also guarantees that members will continue to pay for your services.
Invest time into a focused marketing strategy
From using your current client base to spread the word to increase your online profile through SEO and social media posts, you're giving yourself the best opportunity possible to raise your profile with potential clients. Investing some time to implement a focused strategy using some of these basic tips and tricks will benefit your business in the long run.
Find out more about implementing marketing strategies and check out our article about how on-demand content can improve your business here.