Not true for fitness professionals! You can study all the best techniques, ace your certifications, purchase the most modern equipment and build yourself up to be the best trainer you can be, but all of that will not drive potential clients to your door.
Without an effective online marketing strategy, you will be working out alone.
You’ve built the expertise; now it’s time to build your expert status so your potential clients will learn about you, fall in love with you and hire you!
Let's pump up your social media muscles.
Before you throw out post after post, define your audience
Clearly identifying your target is an essential first step. If you don’t know the audience you are catering to, your marketing is about as useless as the Shake Weight. You cannot appeal to everyone. Researching and narrowing your target audience instead of attempting to have a broad appeal is money and time well spent. When you are clear on your distinct target, your social media marketing will be so much easier.
Are you targeting millennial men? Busy moms? Professionals? Knowing this up front will not only help you decide in which platform to invest your energy (saving you lots of stress and time), but will also help you speak directly to them, accelerating their trust in you.
Be visual!
A picture may speak a thousand words, but a great visual from a fitness professional can change lives – and build your business!
Instagram provides the best platform for sharing before and after photos, inspirational goals, and nutritional #foodporn. Motivate your audience with valuable photos that inspire – at least 2 or 3 times each day, and watch them run to you when they’re ready for some accountability.
Video is the ideal medium for showing off your training. And your audience doesn’t only want more video online, they want more reality. An unscripted livestream is just what users are demanding. With the introduction of Facebook Live and the announcement that the network will give preferential treatment to Live videos, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be cashing in on this exposure. Getting your video placed at the top of followers’ news feeds is a marketing goldmine.
Periscope is also an easy-to-use phone app that makes instant live streaming simple. It’s a portable way to stream your classes or a sample workout. Plus, it’s still fairly new, so you can be an early adopter, and take the Fitness Livestreaming world by storm!
Make friends
Let’s all say it together: “social media.” The key word is social. This means engaging with your audience, not simply broadcasting and hoping you get loads of likes and shares. Respond to comments, share others’ posts, ask your fans questions and make yourself accessible to your community. Build authentic connections with your followers, address them by name, recognize their existence, and they will in turn, want more of you.
There’s no magic social media bullet, but if you put in the time and energy - consistently posting and engaging, measuring and fine-tuning your approach, you'll be able to quickly and continually speed (sort of like a magic bullet) toward your fitness marketing objectives.
