When starting any new business, marketing is obviously one of your primary concerns - figuring out how you are going to drive people to your business is necessary to make any money. Personal training is no different, but it is somewhat unique in that if you are self-employed, YOU are the business. You must be the marketing department as well as all the other parts of the business.
[b]What makes people choose personal trainers?[/b]
I'm not talking about why you would choose to visit any [url=http://kevinkellypersonaltraining.co.uk/]personal trainer[/url], but why you would want to visit one personal trainer over another, i.e. you?
-Expertise
-Experience
-Testimonials
-Trustworthiness
-A shiny new website
-Simply knowing they exist
I'm sure you can think of others, but let's look at the bottom one first: Simply because they exist. You can be as qualified as you like, but without anybody knowing it, you'll get no clients at all. There are obvious methods to counter this, starting with offline marketing in your local area. Talking to those at your gym or a local poster campaign for example, are good starting points. However, this passive marketing often is not enough - you want to target those who are already actively looking for a personal trainer.
With any small business, it's important to be found via Google search. Personal training is again, no different, but what can you do as one person? At the very least, you'll ant some kind of
web presence that appears in a search for your business name.
Step one is to create your business a Google Places page. You don't need to have a website for this (but it helps), and it allows you to appear both on Google Maps for local searches such as "personal trainer ", as well as in the Google search results - separate to the 'normal' search results.
These local searches can be excellent ways of driving business to you - they are from people looking for exactly the service you provide - personal training in your local area.
Go to [url]www.google.com/placesforbusiness/[/url] and you'll be able to create a Google places listing for yourself. Ideally, you want the address as the gym at which you work - though if they are already listed themselves, this isn't always possible. Alternatives can be to create an 'address within an address' where you are at personal training, etc. or use your home address. You will receive a postcard from Google to the address that you need to enter the pin from to confirm that you are really based there. Once you've done that, you're set - Google places is setup.
Now, you'll usually find there's lots of people who are personal trainers in your area - how do you become the first one in that list? Two ways: Citations and reviews. Citations are listings on business websites, such as Qype, Yelp, Yell, Thomson Local etc. You need to fill in you business details EXACTLY as you did on Google places so Google can link them all up and give you the benefit. These are easy to create, if a little time consuming - you are best giving as much detail as possible to maximise the effect. Reviews should be something you encourage customers to write - if you have a website, out them on there, but also get people reviewing you on Google places, and all the websites you got citations from. Get lots of citations and reviews and you'll start to crawl up the rankings.
For the next step, you'll need a website. These can be picked up pretty cheaply, if you can find a skilled freelancer- often for £300-500 for a basic one. Once you have a professional looking website, (and make sure you have updated Google Places with your new website address) you need to start building links to it. Links are what Google sees as a vote of confidence - if a site links to yours, Google thinks that site is saying 'hey this is pretty cool' and consequently Google gives that site a small boost in the rankings.
[b]Let people know you are an expert[/b]
In an ideal world, your website should have some sort of blog area, where you can write regular posts. Google really likes content, and the more of it you can have on your site the better. It needs to be quality content however. Your blog is your chance to show people you know what you're talking about - give tips, give exercises people can try at home, give nutritional recipe ideas, share your knowledge. Make sure you add pictures and videos too.
This expertise can be pushed out through social media too - be professional but light hearted. Make sure things are well written (avoid 'lols', misspellings and other immature sounding words) and don't be afraid to joke with your followers. Ask questions of them to encourage interaction - get them talking back. Social media and blogging is not about the hard sell - don't be continually pushing your personal training classes down people's throats. It's about getting people to talk back to you, sharing expertise, or even having a joke. Writing posts on your blog and then putting them out on social media should be the least you do.
Bear in mind, apart from the website itself, everything mentioned so far can be done for free. Once you start getting a budget for marketing as you grow, there are places you can spend it to maximise your investment.
Facebook ads are quite useful here. You can target people very precisely, which means you can maximise your return on investment. For example, you could target all women between 25 and 45 who like Weigh Watchers - and write your advert aimed at that exact audience. You pay either each time your ad is clicked, or per 1000 views of your ad.
You can also look at Google Adwords. Though you should be careful about how much you spend here - there is a learning curve to get to the point where you can make it profitable. If you have no experience, it's perhaps best left up to the experts as things can get very expensive! Used well, however, you can put your highly targeted advert in front of people who are looking for your service and see a decent return on your investment.
Hopefully this gives you an idea of the things you can do as a personal trainer to help get your business off the ground for minimal cost, then as you begin to have a budget for markting; how to take things further.
How To Market Yourself as A Personal Trainer
