Is your marketing plan bringing your fitness business enough new leads and clients to hit your goals?
If you’re like most fitness pros the answer is “NO!” But, it’s not your fault. You’ve probably never been taught how to market effectively and if you’re looking for help many “gurus” will give you bad advice.
Hate to break it to you, but there’s no single marketing idea, FB ad or fancy funnel that will drastically transform your business. It’s easy to buy into the snake oil that’s being sold to most struggling fitness businesses out there trying to get more clients. You want to believe that you can put a FB ad and instantly get more clients.
And, yes, there are a few success stories out there of business owners who hit it out of the park on their first try. They bring in dozens of new clients almost instantly. But, for the majority that plan won’t work. Plus, its dangerous to put all your success and the growth of your business on just one idea. The second something changes (like Facebook’s algorithm or rules) you’re in serious trouble.
Instead, let’s take a look at your marketing plan to discover opportunities for improvement. Sound good?
What’s your marketing strategy?
Ever feel like your marketing just isn’t hitting the target? It’s like you’re talking to no one. Or worse, bringing in the wrong type of leads.
If that’s the case, start with doing a quick audit of your strategy.
The following is a good place to start:
- A marketable Core Offer
- Perfect Prospect Profiles or Ideal Client Profile
- Positioning Statement
- Differentiators
If you’re having trouble making profits with your current offerings or your prospects are choosing the wrong program for themselves it’s time to look at your Core Offer. The Core Offer must be the ONE THING you are best at doing, fit the needs of your Ideal Client and be the economic driver for your business.
Don’t make the mistake of having too many offerings and not focusing on building one true Core Offer. You want this to be the thing that you are known for in your community. It can be 1-1 training, boot camps, large group training, small group training or semi private training, but you need to pick one and master it.
Next, it’s time to dig into your Ideal Client Profile. This allows you to focus your marketing on a very specific person (one you’ve made up) and hone in on their pains, challenges, goals and values. Being able to get inside the head and understand the emotions of your Ideal Client will help you steer your marketing and craft your message.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is creating a profile that describes a client after they have already joined your program. You want to think about an Ideal Client and what they need when they are searching for a solution to their problems, hence the term Perfect Prospect.
What makes you different?
Most business owners can’t really answer that question. They will spew out a list of features or bland, boring statements that just about every trainer would use in their marketing. If your differentiators can be easily replicated or knocked off they put you at a big risk.
A great example is having certain equipment in your gym like MyZone or Inbody. That certainly helps you and is likely a great thing for your clients but the trainer down the street can easily go buy those things and instantly take away your differentiation.
Instead, a differentiator would be that you use the latest technology to better results for your clients in less time.
Now you can filter decisions like investing in new technology or equipment for your gym to help you stay ahead of the competition. You’ll have to stay on top of the new products, but for the right type of client this could be a huge differentiator.
Consider what makes you different. Do you have an advanced degree, deliver results in a unique way, have statistics that help you stand out?
Being able to clearly communicate why what you do is different, in a way that matters to your prospects, is the ultimate marketing weapon.
Once you know who your marketing is aimed at, what you are marketing and how you are different craft up a quick positioning statment that clearly communicates it to your audience. Test it out on your clients, friends, and people in your network to see if it resonates with them. Ask them how they would describe what you do and what makes you different to get a good sense of the language and terms to use in your marketing.
What’s Your Marketing Plan?
You should apply the same diligent planning and preparation for your marketing activities as you do when preparing a client’s training program. This is the driver for growth in your business.
A great marketing plan uses your marketing strategy to help guide what marketing you will do, the message you’ll communicate and the places you will need to market your programs.
Your marketing plan should leverage 3 marketing channels:
- Internal
- Offline
- Online
This ensures you have a diverse marketing plan and reduces your risk if something happens to one of the channels. Your message will spread much faster and reach more people when you take this approach.
Looking for more resources to help withy our plan? Check out our Guide: How To Create a Gym Business Marketing Plan – From Strategy to Execution.
Where Do Your Leads Come From?
Once you’ve mastered the basics with a great strategy and plan it’s time to dig in a bit deeper. Do you know where most of your leads are coming from and which lead channel is producing the highest conversion rates?
This all starts with tracking your leads. You need to one place to compile your data, keep track of your lead follow up and evaluate your marketing performance. Without a high powered, expensive CRM or software the best way to do this is by using a spreadsheet.
Using a Lead Tracker you’ll be able to get detailed insight into your marketing and learn where to invest more of your time, energy and money to produce the results you want…
GET MORE CLIENTS!
This is only effective with discipline. You must track every lead that comes your way and update your Lead Tracker frequently. This ensures your data is accurate and clean. Once you start inputting your leads into your Lead Tracker you’ll assign them a lead channel and keep track of them as they go through your follow up processes.
Now you’ll have a clear look at your bottlenecks in the marketing or sales process as well as best performing lead channels.
Implementing high level, but simple, activities like Lead Tracking into your business is what will eventually allow you to grow and scale quickly. Without it you’re simply guessing!
The Marketing Game Never Ends
You’ll never perfect your marketing. It’s a constantly evolving skill that you will need to develop and hone as you become a High Performing Business Owner. You’ll improve your messaging, targeting, copywriting, and conversions as you grow.
Marketing is like oxygen for your business. Without it you can’t survive long!
If you need a bit of help to improve your marketing make sure to check out our Guide: How To Create a Gym Business Marketing Plan – From Strategy to Execution.
