“How To Promote Your Fitness Business, Find High Quality Leads And Most Importantly… Convert Them Into Paying Clients“

Why You Need To Drop Everything And Read Every Word Of This Report If You’re Serious About Your Fitness Business

Congratulations, just by making it to this page, you’ve already surpassed half the trainers that request this special report. You see, most trainers are looking to click a few buttons and magically have a storm of new clients… Most trainers never take the time to read this report in it’s entirety. Let me ask you a question, how serious is the trainer who won’t invest a few minutes of their time? The more important question is… How serious are you?

This report alone could be the most beneficial report that you’ll ever read. No, that’s not hype! I’m giving you the ultimate shortcut to understanding the fitness marketing game.

I’m putting a lot into this report and all I’m asking for in return is your time. To get the most out of this (or any) program, there are three things you need to do to become a superstar fitness business owner:

1) You need to read and re-read this report from cover to cover.

2) Understand the contents and strategies outlined within this report.

3) Apply the strategies and take immediate action.

That’s it! Those are the three traits that separate the average fitness trainer from those who are serious about their business and are willing to become a successful fitness entrepreneur. I say “willing” because everyone wants to become a successful entrepreneur but few are willing to put in the work.

Wait, Who Am I And What Do I know About Fitness Marketing???

Well, first of all, I was a self employed fitness trainer for just over 22 years in a highly competitive area. For 22+ years my livelihood depended on my ability to attract new leads and convert them into paying clients. It’s crazy to think about, but at the time of writing this, I have been a fitness trainer for over half the time that I’ve been alive! Wow, that was a crazy realization but it’s true. For 22 years, it’s been one fitness marketing campaign after the other.

Shortly before ending my career as a fitness trainer, I co-founded a marketing agency. Withing a few years we were able to scale that business to just over a $40M valuation. That business is now so well systemized that I’ve been able to fully step away and come back to the fitness industry… Not as a trainer, but instead, I’m merging my passions for fitness and marketing to help fitness business owners like you. My goals in writing this is to give you clarity and guidance towards the path that will take your fitness business to the next level. With that said, let’s get started!

Learning From My 3 Biggest Mistakes

So, I had the best rates in town (big mistake #1) and my doors were officially open. Now, I just needed to get people to come in and try a workout. The question was… How do I get potential clients to come try my services? Well, at the time, I figured I would just do what everyone else was doing (big mistake #2) and offer the ever so popular Free fitness consultation.

At the time, I didn’t realize that everything requires selling. I didn’t try to sell the value of my initial offer (big mistake #3) and thought that selling was only a skill needed when there was an exchange of money.

Even if you’re giving away free consultations and free trial sessions, you need to understand that this is an offer that you’re making and you need to sell your prospect on the value. Everything is a sell, even if there is no monetary exchange. I even sold you this free report that you’re reading right now. I had to sell you on the fact that this report contains valuable information regarding your fitness business. You didn’t pay for this report with money but you are exchanging your time… which is more valuable.

The same is true when promoting your initial fitness offer. You need to sell your prospects on the idea that they’re getting more value than the time they’ll be investing with you. In the next section, I’m going to share with you a few ideas and my past experiences with creating fitness offers that bring in qualified leads. But first, I want to remind you of 3 very common mistakes made within the fitness industry:

Big mistake #1 Advertise lower rates instead of charging what you’re worth.

Big mistake #2 Do what everyone else is doing and blend in instead of stand out.

Big mistake #3 Promote a boring cookie cutter offer that doesn’t get attention instead of stacking value to your offer.

The Turning Point – My Very First Fitness Offer And How It Evolved Over The Years…

Want to know the crazy part? I didn’t change what I was offering or giving them. I just changed the verbiage as to how I was promoting my offer. You see, my original offer was…

Boring!

Yes, my original offer was super boring.

Want to know what it was? It was… “Sign up for a free consultation and receive one personal training session”

Sure, it brought a few people in but that wasn’t the goal. The goal was to have the phone ringing non stop. The goal was to have an email inbox filled with new notifications of another consultation booked.

I had no problem converting those who came in. Between the consultation and the session, they immediately saw value in what I had to offer. The program basically sold itself at that point. I just needed people to understand that this offer actually had value.

I didn’t change what I offered, I just changed how I presented it. The revised version (which still wasn’t perfect) looked like this:

In the next sections I’m going to share with you how to use promo codes and gift cards to get more out of your fitness offers and create instant urgency. Before you read ahead, take some time to evaluate your current offer and brainstorm ideas on how you can add value, a promise and urgency to your offer.

My Fitness Marketing Game Changer

My “2 FREE Days Of Fitness” promotion worked really well for a while. Once the area started to get saturated with gyms and other fitness studios, things started to change. Everyone was competing on the same messaging. Every gym was promoting something for free. The word “free” was quickly overused and began to attract the wrong kind of leads. You know the ones… those who just want to jump from free program to free program with no intent on purchasing anything.

Here’s what I did

This was mostly out of frustration but probably the best decision that I ever made for my fitness business. I dropped the word “free” from my promotion. It was no longer “2 Free Days Of Fitness” but instead became “2 Days Of Fitness”.

I added a checkout process on my website and put a price tag on this same promotion. This added instant value and appreciation for my offer. It didn’t convert as a stand alone offer but it was definitely perceived as more valuable than any of the other local free offers.

Here’s a super random non-fitness related example. Come to San Diego and I’ll treat you to lunch. Since it’s cheat day, we’re having burgers (or beyond burgers for my vegan friends.) It’s my treat and I’ll give you two options… We can go up the street and grab some 99 cent burgers or I can take you to a spot that has these $40 wagyu burgers. Where are we going for lunch? There’s a direct mental correlation between price and quality.

*Just to be clear, I am NOT buying lunch for everyone who reads this but if you’re ever in San Diego… reach out. If I’m in a good mood I just might treat you.

Okay but wait… what do those burgers have to do with fitness marketing?

What if you had the chance to grab one of those 99 cent burgers for free? How excited would you be? You probably wouldn’t go out of your way. But, what if I have you a certificate or a gift card good towards one of those wagyu burgers? I’m pretty sure you would take advantage of that. And, that’s just a $40 burger. What if we applied this same concept to a valuable fitness offer? Now do you see the potential?

Instead of offering a free fitness package which had low perceived value, I was promoting gift cards and promotional codes (see the sample offer above) that waived the fee of the same offer. An offer that now had an immediate higher associated value with it simply because I wasn’t giving it away for free… Even though, at the end of the day… I was!

Does this mean I should not run free promotions?

Of course you can and should run free promotions. When you structure your business and website like this, you’re also adding value to any free promotions that you run. If everything you offer is free, then nothing is valuable. If your main offer is advertised as a paid offer, your free offers are now exciting.

Let’s say you want to promote a free trial bootcamp. Someone sees your ad and visits your site to learn more about you. If the first thing they see is another free offer then the thought process becomes… “Oh, I’ll come back when I’m ready.” There’s no urgency.

If however, they see an offer that is not being advertised as free… Now, they don’t want to miss their chance at your free offer. So, yes, you can still promote free. You just have to do it behind your primary offer.

In the next section, we’ll talk about how you can promote your offers…

Now That You Have An Offer, Let’s Talk About Promoting Your Fitness Business And Getting New Clients

The 3 Main Areas Of Fitness Promotion

• Relationship Marketing
• Online or Digital Advertising
• Print Advertising

Within those 3 forms of advertising, there are typically only 2 immediate goals. The end goal of a promotion is always the same (to acquire a new client) but the immediate goal will be either:

• Get someone to commit to a trial or introductory program (like my 2 day offer)
• Collect a new lead that will hopefully later become a paying client

Many marketers are biased to one of those outcomes. Some say it’s important to build and nurture a list while others prefer to get clients in as fast as possible. I prefer to get a client to commit as fast as possible but the reality is, both are beneficial and here’s why…

Not everyone is in the market for a fitness program. It’s a big commitment and the timing might not always be right. You might promote a a video series that shows people your favorite home workouts. After a few newsletters and reading your blog articles, they might finally open up to you and join your intro offer.

It sounds great, but at the same time, not everyone wants a video series. Jane might be ready to join a fitness program, she might see your ad and she has zero desire to watch your videos.

You just can’t assume where people are in the buying process.

Okay, so there are 3 types of advertising and 2 goals. Let me show you a few examples of marketing strategies that you can put to use right away.

Relationship Marketing

• Referrals
• Networking

Referrals are a huge component to your overall client growth but other than the typical “I’ll give you a free session for every client you bring in” most trainers just don’t have an actual referral marketing strategy.

Like I said before, your clients appreciate you and they want you to succeed but there are two things you need to do to get more referrals. You need to incentivize your clients for any referral they bring in (with more than just a free session or month of service) and you need to make it easy and natural for them to talk about you.

When thinking about incentives, you should first consider how much you’re willing to pay for a new client. How much does it currently cost you to get a new client? You should incentivize your clients with a reward that is at least of that value. Also, try to get a little more appreciative than just giving them more of your services. Put some thought into your incentives.

Asking for referrals is great but aside from incentivizing your clients, how can you help make the referral process easier for them? We like to use referral cards that double as gift cards. It’s basically a gift card from a friend that points new leads to your main offer while giving them a promotional code. We believe in this method so much that aside from the 1,000 gift cards that you’ll receive when you work with Gym Site Solutions, you’ll also get 1,000 referral cards to give to your existing clients. These cards work the same way as your gift cards but are designed to help you track your referrals. Now, your clients have an incentive to refer you and you’ve made it easy for them to talk about you.

Aside from referrals, another popular form of relationship marketing is networking. Please don’t jump to the next section just yet… A lot of fitness trainers immediately lose interest when they hear the phrase network marketing. You’ve probably tried exchanging business cards with another business owner only to find those cards collecting dust and eventually in the trash can. Exchanging business cards is not network marketing.

I like to teach a method that I call local influencer marketing. Local influencers are other business owners who serve your ideal client. The idea behind this campaign is you find these local influencers and instead of simply exchanging business cards, you help the host a client appreciation event for their clients. Basically, you’ll collaborate a fitness challenge, class or bootcamp that is exclusive to their customers as a thank you from their business.

Do you see how powerful this is? They’re promoting your service but you’re providing an event that is valuable to their business. They come out looking like a hero for offering this service to their clients. The impression is that they paid for and organized this event as a thank you / client appreciation event. This helps build loyalty to their brand.

All you have to do is help them (your local influencer) promote the event and register those who are interested. If you don’t have a website, you can take registrations over the phone or on location. We provide our clients with an event registration page that you can use for this kind of marketing campaign. Of course, we’ll help walk you through the steps to make sure your campaign efforts align with your business structure.

Online Advertising

Currently, the two online advertising giants are Google and facebook. Each of these platforms have their advantages.

While Google allows you to get in front of an audience that is actively searching for fitness solutions in your area, facebook has an amazing audience selection tool where you can really pinpoint who will see your ad.

There are several facebook ad objectives but the most popular are:

• Getting traffic to your landing page (and converting them to a qualified lead)
• Getting a direct lead from facebook’s lead ads
• Using messenger ads to engage a user and communicate your offer through messenger

The key to a successful facebook ad campaign is to really take some time narrowing down your audience to a specific group of people. Do not try to offer a general fitness program that attracts anyone looking to get in shape. When you try to speak to everyone, nobody will listen. Narrow your targeting and design your ad as if you’re speaking to one person.

Everything from the verbiage used for the ad to the image needs to align with your audience. One ad might target the busy new mom who wants to get in shape but can’t seem to find the time…

A key component to online ads is your ability to follow-up quickly and efficiently. Your ad might not be the only ad that intrigued a potential client. You can’t simply collect an email address, send them one email and then move on. Email is still a great tool but people overlook their emails all the time. Think about how crowded your inbox can be at times. You need to be consistent and persistent with your follow up.

A great thing about online advertising is that you can quickly test various offers and headlines. This gives you the opportunity to see what kind of messaging your market is responding to before moving onto other platforms.

Print Advertising

This is by far the most underutilized marketing strategy of the three. Print advertising can be costly, it can take time to craft the right message, put it on the right media and send it to the right audience. There’s definitely a learning process and that’s why I saved it for last.

Some call direct mail and other forms of print advertising “old-school” and “extinct” methods. If that were the case, then why is Google the tech giant spending millions of dollars on mailers? Think about that for a second…

People respond to print advertising differently than they do with online ads. People are more intentional with how they respond to print ads. We’re generally in a more serious and productive state of mind when we’re looking at print media vs online media.

There are various methods of print advertising but the two most common are direct mailers and doorhangers. I like to start with door hangers because again, they give a fast response. You can target an entire neighborhood in a day and track your campaign results almost instantly.

Some people find door hangers to be a bit invasive. Here at Gym Site Solutions, we design door hangers with your clients in mind. We try to make the door hangers helpful and welcoming. For example, we might use the approach of sharing a few fitness tips then add a gift card towards your offer.

The key to direct mail advertising is the approach you take when designing your mailer. People assume that the majority of mail is “junk mail” or an advertisement. Honestly, they’re right. We all have our method of sorting through mail and we all have a designated junk mail ritual.

With direct mail, those little extra efforts can make a big difference. Here are a few example:

• A slightly padded envelope gives the impression that the contents are sensitive and important.

• Include physical gift cards

• Invitation envelopes and invitations (similar to how you would receive a wedding invite) that promotes and invites people to a local event that you’ll be hosting

• Larger and thicker envelopes, thicker paper stock, quality print… all small details that make a big difference.

Make them an amazing offer and be sure to include a strong call to action. Give them a few options on what they should do next… Visit a url, scan a QR code, call or text a phone number. Everyone likes to respond in their own way.

Today, more an more people are enrolling in programs online. Fewer businesses are relying on phone calls. Your fitness website needs to act as your marketing hub. That’s where we come in…

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