I'm an online personal trainer, not a marketer.
If you're serious about building a sustainable online personal training career, you're going to need online marketing. Sustained growth is the lifeblood of any online career, and it's going to require ... drum roll ... marketing.
For a long time, the most efficient way for a personal trainer to market their service was simple; buy ads. Ads worked. Ads were a bargain. Ads paid for themselves.
But ads are no longer the best way to market yourself.
People are tired of ads. They're looking for something more.
Big businesses with large marketing budgets can afford to invest in ads knowing they can get a return. Small businesses don't have the reach or budget to compete on this scale. But the good news, we don't need to, and we have something far more powerful to offer that big businesses can't replicate.
Big businesses have teams of people working on designing, building, market, and selling their products and services. They need to buy ads and sell to the masses to survive. And this is where small businesses can outperform big businesses.
Small businesses can tailor-make products and services for a specific audience. Small businesses can build higher levels of trust, greater levels of connection and deliver far more value to a niche audience. We don't need to serve the masses to survive as a small business. The fact is, we can't serve the masses, so it works in our favour.
When I say niche audience, this is still more potential clients than you could ever hope to serve.
If you're going to successfully build a sustainable online personal training career, you don't want to be competing with the big businesses, and you will lose.
When your online marketing strategy targets a niche audience, you'll no longer be competing with big businesses.
"But, I don't like marketing. I'm not a pushy salesperson."
Often personal trainers think of marketing as a negative thing.
I get it. You signed up to be a personal trainer, not a marketer.
However, there are a lot of fantastic online personal trainers using marketing because they know they can make things better. They're prepared to engage with online marketing because they know they can improve the online fitness culture.
If you stop and think about it, marketing can be a generous act of helping your clients find you. Generous marketing involves very little in the way of shouting, hustling, or coercion.
Instead, it's a chance to serve the clients who want your help.
Generous marketing does more than boost sales and entice clients to invest in your online personal training services. Through generous marketing, you can build and maintain a reputation while also creating a deeper level of trust.
Trust is a lot harder to build online.
Marketing can be the generous act of helping your clients become who they seek to become. It involves creating honest stories—stories that resonate and spread.
One of the best ways to connect with your audience is through a story. Humans have been using stories for 1000's years as a tool to share and remember valuable information.
Does your marketing content invite your dream clients into an irresistible story?
90% of online personal trainers marketing content is a story all about them.
Personal trainers post about their training, diet, cheat day, progress, and motivations. Or, they post general health and fitness advice about exercise, nutrition, stress management, sleep, and lifestyle factors.
I get it. I posted general fitness advice for years.
But, this is lazy marketing. It's easy, costs nothing, and take very little time or energy. It also fails to generate client leads.
Being a personal trainer is not about you. It's isn't even about general health and fitness advice. It's 100% about your clients and their specific needs.
Generosity ensures that your target audience thinks of you as a helpful resource and trusts you more. It positions you as a GUIDE and your client as the HERO, and it also makes you memorable.
By being generous with your specific knowledge and tailoring your services for a specific audience, you provide value to your dream clients, gain their trust, and build a loyal tribe.
The next time a conversation about your specialist field comes up, your audience will remember you more than a competitor who doesn't have a clear, generous marketing strategy.
So now the question is, how do you do it right?
A generous marketing strategy answers the question – what do your target clients want?
People want different things.
Everyone has a problem, a desire, and a narrative.
WHO will you seek to serve?
You'll never be able to serve everyone, which is comforting since you're less likely to be crippled by imposter syndrome.
You need to be specific about WHO you seek to serve and precisely what PROBLEM you can help them solve.
Choose the clients who want what you're offering.
Choose the clients most open to hearing your message.
Choose the clients who will tell other people…
Stop trying to serve everyone. Your work is not for everyone. It's only for those who signed up for the journey.
This is where you will find work that you can be proud of.
It takes guts to narrow down your audience and position yourself as a specialist. The smallest viable market is the focus that, ironically and delightfully, leads to your online career growth.
Is your marketing strategy generous enough to give your dream clients what they want?
A lot of online personal trainers have trouble explaining what they offer. They’re afraid to narrow down their audience because they think they’ll lose clients.
So, I've created a three-step sales pitch framework to help online personal trainers grow their business by clarifying their marketing message. When they do, clients engage.
It’s the fastest way to confidently build a sustainable online career.
I'm inviting you to a live coaching event on Wednesday 15th of December 10th at 6:30 pm AEST to show you how to create an irresistible offer by making your clients the HERO.
After the 90minute live stream, you'll know exactly what you need to do to attract more clients without spending money on ads.
It won't even feel like selling.
