If I asked you right now the #1 way to get new clients for your fitness business, what would you say?
I’d be willing to guess most of you would say…
… Referrals.
… Cold calls.
… Free consultation offers.
… Etc.
All of those strategies I listed above are outbound marketing strategies, which means that they are traditional marketing strategies that are designed to disrupt the audience and capture their attention for long enough to sell your product or service.
Outbound Marketing Strategies are great because they’re simple and they work.
The downside to Outbound Marketing is that it takes a lot of effort.
It’s a lot of manual labor and not of automation.
These can be great tactics, but you definitely have to be willing to put in the time and effort.
… But what if I told you that you could reach MORE people in LESS time?
… And that you could have prospects come TO you, rather than chasing them down?
This is where Inbound Marketing comes in.
Inbound Marketing Strategies are ones that bring customers to you by providing value, education, and entertainment that is tailored to their interests.
Let’s say one blog post takes you about 60 minutes to write.
That blog post has the potential to reach hundreds or thousands of people simply through good SEO that drives traffic from search engines like Google.
That’s not the only way you can get traffic to a blog post.
You can also leverage your social media presence by driving your followers to the articles you publish on your website.
Again, depending on how many followers you have on social media and how engaged your community is, you have the potential to drive hundreds or thousands of visitors to a new blog post by promoting it organically on your social media channels.
In addition to these two free tactics, which have the potential to bring several thousand visitors to your articles, you can use paid advertising to further increase the amount of traffic your blog posts receive.
Facebook and Instagram Story advertisements are great options. There’s also advertising on Google and YouTube.
Depending on how much money you put into the ads and how long they run for, that’s several hundred or thousand more people reading your articles.
In this simple example, one blog post taking only 60 minutes of time has the potential to EASILY reach 5,000-10,000 views.
That’s thousands of people reached in just 60 minutes.
Compare that to any Outbound Marketing Strategies.
With cold calling, you’ll be lucky if you get 5 people on the phone in an hour.
With cold emailing, you’ll be lucky if you get 10 replies from 100 emails sent.
Again, I’m not knocking Outbound Marketing. I think there’s a time and place for it.
For example, if you need a client right now, you should go with Outbound Marketing.
Inbound Marketing is more of a long term strategy.
It takes time to see results and you must be committed to consistently building your Inbound Marketing Strategy.
With that being said, not only is Inbound Marketing easier, because the clients come to you, but you do not need a lot of skills to begin.
In fact, I’ve narrowed it down to just 5 Skills That You Need To Master Inbound Marketing For Your Fitness Business. They are:
1. How To Write Blog Posts
2. How To Write Emails
3. How To Create Social Media Advertisements
4. How To Get Email Sign-Ups
5. How To Grow Your Social Media Community
I’m breaking down why these Inbound Marketing skills are the only ones you’ll need and what it takes to learn each of them.
How To Write Blog Posts
Blog posts are still one of the top ways to reach your audience online.
On average, companies with blogs produce 67% more leads per month than those without.
Online articles are effective because you can easily reach your audience wherever they are — on their phones, on their computers, at work, on the go, etc.
Fitness companies that invest in digital content also reap the benefit of being able to build trust and credibility with their audience quickly.
Consumers are continuing to increase their use of search engine inquiries, as it is now as simple as asking Siri, Alexa, your Google Home device, or TV.
Where do the answers to those inquiries come from?
Blog posts.
You can use SEO to optimize your content to rank at the top when someone searches for certain keywords or topics.
Unlike social media posts that are relevant for anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours, blog posts can continue attracting leads and prospects for months.
In fact, 1 in 10 blog posts are “compounding,” which means that organic search steadily increases their traffic over time.
If you’re already using social media to market your gym or personal training business, writing regular blog posts and articles is the obvious next step.
Once you know how to write a good blog post, you can easily create and publish content that is used to either capture your audience’s attention, build trust, or highlight the value of working with your company.
A business blog gives you more control over your information and how it is shared with others.
For example, Instagram and YouTube have been cracking down on bot accounts and accounts that they determine to be breaking their policies.
While you may think you’re in the clear as long as you’re following the rules, you’re not.
Many of the banning and disabling of accounts is done automatically and accounts have been accidentally banned or disabled.
Unfortunately, if this is the case, it is near impossible to recover your account.
I’m not saying this to discourage you from using social media.
I am saying this to encourage you to build a diversified digital presence for your brand.
Build assets that you own and control, like blog content and email lists.
Boost those assets by combining them with other digital tactics, like social media.
The articles you write are just bonus content that you can share and distribute to your email list and social media audience.
If you’re already creating content for other platforms, it is well worth it to invest some of your content creation efforts into blog content for your website.
There’s a lot more I could get into with blog posts, but I’ll save the rest for another day.
In short, blog posts are a great way to generate awareness for your brand, build trust with your audience, and nurture the relationship with the prospect to get to the sale.
If you’re a Personal Trainer, Gym Owner, or Fitness Pro, I know you want those benefits.
You’re in the business of finding clients…
… And I bet you’d be happy to know how you can attract clients without ever picking up the phone.
Content Marketing is where it begins.
Your social media, website, or blog content are likely going to be one of the first places your brand gets noticed by a new prospect online.
For that reason, if you want to know how you can learn blog writing and content marketing, it all starts with picking the right topic.
You want to select topics that are going to a) capture your audience’s attention and b) give them value that is going to help them solve a problem they are having.
How do you know how to select the right topic?
Ask your audience.
Ask your social media following, reach out to your email list, and have conversations with clients.
Also, do research and see what the top questions individuals in your niche are asking and answering.
Look at your competition.
Look back at past social media posts and see which ones performed best.
The best topics come directly from your audience in the form of questions and inquiries.
From there, your article should simply answer the question or address the topic that you’ve researched and determined to be relevant to your audience.
I could probably write an entire series of blog posts on creating content for your website, so I’ll leave you with this for now.
Just remember, creating blog posts are an important asset for your business and nailing the topic is the most important part.
How To Write Emails
I briefly mentioned email marketing in the last segment.
That’s because email and blog posts go hand-in-hand.
Use your blog content to promote your email list…
… And use your email marketing to promote your blog content.
You AND your audience win with this strategy.
Why?
Because you’re nurturing the relationship with your audience. (Aka, you’re answering all their questions and helping them feel ready to buy your products or services.)
AND (if you’re doing it right), you’re delivering tons of value to your audience.
Email Marketing is quite possibly the most important skill I’m mentioning in this list.
Like blog content, email marketing is valuable because it is something you own and control.
An email list is like a community of prospects that continues to grow.
Unlike other lead lists you may have, you can reach your email list 24/7, you can reach thousands of individuals at the same time, and it costs little to no money.
You do not need to be a professional writer or have any marketing skills to be successful at email marketing.
What you need is to deliver value for your audience and talk to them authentically.
In other words, be yourself.
If you’re a personal trainer, share your tips, advice, and expertise with your audience in your emails.
The same goes for gym owners. Give your audience value. Help them overcome their obstacles. Address their pain points.
About 80% of your email content is just going to be value.
From there, you will incorporate your products or services which really should be added value.
80% of your emails should say, “hey, here’s this really great trick I have to help you lose weight.”
(Or, insert whatever pain point your individual prospects have)
Then, the other 20% of your emails should say, “hey, I know you’ve tried those tricks I’ve given you for losing weight. I can help you lose weight even faster and more easily by working with you one-on-one to implement those tricks and adjust them to get you a result.”
Do you see what I mean here?
Whether you’re selling your prospect on something or you’re giving them valuable insight, you’re still helping them either way.
That’s all there is to email marketing at its core — helping your prospects.
How To Create Social Media Advertisements
Disclaimer on this skill…
… You don’t NEED to know social media advertising to master inbound marketing.
You can build a successful inbound marketing strategy without paid advertisements, but they’re helpful in getting you the results you want faster.
That’s why I’ve included it here.
If you have any marketing budget at all, then social media advertisements are one of the best investments you can make.
To learn social media advertisements, you want to know more than how to simply create an ad.
That part is easy.
The part you need to master is learning how to target your specific audience with ads AND you need to know the strategy behind the advertisements.
Just throwing up an ad boosting a recent post or driving traffic to your website is not how you can maximize ROI on your social media ads.
I want to help you get a bang for your buck when you’re investing in paid advertising on social media.
You can do this by learning a few things.
First, you want to learn how to use social media advertisements to grow your email list.
Remember, your email list is an asset. The more qualified prospects you have on your email list, the easier it will be to get prospects when you need them.
Second, use social media advertisements to drive traffic to your blog post (where you will be directing your visitors to sign up for an email list or make a purchase).
Third, retarget your website visitors.
What this means is that if someone visits your website, you will follow up after their visit with an advertisement on social media that is tailored to the part of the site they were visiting.
For example, if they had an item in their cart, you could remind them that they need to complete their purchase with a paid social media advertisement.
Or, if they visited your blog post, you could follow up with an offer to get some sort of free advice or educational information (related to the topic of the blog post they were reading) in exchange for providing their email address.
The fourth and final social media ad strategy you must learn is how to use social media advertisements to grow an engaged social media community.
This one is the most obvious use of social media advertisements.
It can take some time to grow your social media presence organically, so if you are just starting out on social media, you can learn how to use paid social media advertisements to drive more traffic to your pages and grow an engaged and loyal following.
Once you have the systems in place for your inbound marketing strategy, social media advertisements can help you multiply the results you get.
How To Get Email Sign-Ups
Within this article, I’ve already outlined two key methods for getting email sign-ups.
The first one is through your blog posts and the second method is using social media advertisements.
Both of these methods and any other strategies or methods you decide to employ are going to require the use of a lead magnet.
A lead magnet is a free offer that you provide in exchange for someone providing their email address to you.
It is very important that your lead magnet is tailored to your audience…
… And not just to your audience in general, but tailored to the exact individual that is being prompted to join the email list.
I briefly touched on this above.
You can tailor your lead magnet to be the obvious next step for someone who is reading your blog post or someone who stumbled upon your social media page.
The more tailored and helpful the lead magnet is, the more people will sign up.
Another reason that it is important to make sure your lead magnet is tailored to your audience is because you want to make sure you are attracting the right people.
For example, if your Personal Training services are focused on helping people who lose weight, but your lead magnet is “5 Nutrition Tips For Powerlifters,” you will not be attracting the right audience.
The more places you can put out a lead magnet, the faster your email list will grow and the more easily you’ll be able to obtain new clients and customers for your fitness business.
How To Grow Your Social Media Community
By now, you’re probably starting to see how these Inbound Marketing Strategies are all intertwined.
The fifth and final Inbound Marketing skill you need is how to grow your social media community.
Similar to the other four skills, this one enhances and adds to the other skills as well.
Alone, a social media community is a powerful inbound marketing tool because it can help increase brand awareness, build trust with your audience through value-driven content, nurture a prospect for a product or service, and support your customers after they’ve made a purchase.
When combined with other inbound marketing tactics, it becomes even more powerful.
You can use your social media presence to drive traffic to your articles.
This works great both ways because blog posts are interesting content to share on social media AND it helps you get more traffic on your site.
That’s not to mention the benefits for your audience, who are receiving access to your tips, recommendations, and lessons.
You can also utilize your social media presence for building your email list by placing one of your lead magnets as your website in your profile. You can also promote your lead magnet in relevant posts and content you publish.
To grow your social media community, you need to do two things primarily.
Now, these things are not difficult to do, but they are difficult to stick with in the long term.
Stay committed and be patient and you will see results with social media.
The first thing you need to do to grow your social media community is post consistently.
Aim for a minimum of once per day per platform.
Eventually, you want to aim for 3, 5, or 10 posts per day per platform.
The more content you put up, the faster you will grow…
… But each piece of content helps, so do not get discouraged if you cannot create tons of content at first.
The second thing you need to do to grow your social media community is engage.
I cannot emphasize this enough.
If you want to grow your social media community, then act like it’s a community you care about.
Talk to your audience by commenting on their posts and replying to their tweets.
Show you care by watching their videos and reading their articles.
Give their posts some love!
Following interesting people in your community (and don’t be afraid to follow a lot of people).
It really is SIMPLE. You make content and you throw yourself in the community and talk.
That’s it. That’s how you grow a social media community.
I think everything on this list is doable for everyone.
The thing is, most of you won’t do it.
It’s not because it’s too hard.
You won’t do it because…
… You won’t get started.
… You won’t keep up with it.
… Or, you won’t be patient enough to see the results.
That’s the thing about Inbound Marketing.
It’s awesome because once you get it set up, it only requires maintenance and updates.
It’s also awesome because you get your customers to come to you.
I love Inbound Marketing because I’m not just promoting myself, I’m helping people. And those that want more help from me can get it.
… But Inbound Marketing is NOT EASY because it takes time and dedication.
You probably already have most of the skills you need.
That’s why I highly encourage you to start TODAY. Take one step. Get started.
That step you take today and the next one you take tomorrow are going to contribute to the system you have running in one month or one year from now.
You have to be willing to put in the work if you want to get the results.
To recap, Inbound Marketing is comprised of systems you have in place to reach prospects with content that is valuable and relevant to their lives. It’s something they welcome, rather than something that disrupts their lives.
Inbound Marketing is something you should invest in now, rather than later.
While there are many facets of Inbound Marketing, the 5 skills Fitness Professionals need to master Inbound Marketing are:
1. How To Write Blog Posts
2. How To Write Emails
3. How To Create Social Media Advertisements
4. How To Get Email Sign-Ups
5. How To Grow Your Social Media Community
Which of these 5 skills would you most like to know?
Comment and let me know! This gives me ideas for future articles.