It’s nice to see the world returning to normal in the wake of this bizarre pandemic! It’s only now in most parts of Canada all the Covid restrictions are falling away.
I finally see the trend developing that should see advanced recovery in a lot of industries in the coming months (namely the fitness industry)
So I just wanted to reach out today because well….it’s July.
July typically is the most poorly attended month of the year (followed by December) maybe it’s not that way everywhere but anywhere that has 4 seasons I’ve noticed this to be true.
It’s also a time of year that’s it’s more challenging typically to create a steady stream of new trials (not always but if you weren’t gearing up for this season that’s fairly typical.)
So what should you be doing in July?
1) Think ahead to September. We all know September post Labour Day is a key time for people to start thinking about their own routines. I’d argue it’s the true beginning to our 9 month peak season (not January.)
This is where the “Whole Summer Deal” came in.
We found there were still plenty of people throughout the summer that were looking to get started and take their health more seriously (in fact many of the “get in shape for summer” pundits still hope they can accomplish that even this late in the game.)
The commonality with these consumers is getting started needs to address one very specific fear, “I don’t want to waste money on time I am not going to use…maybe I should wait until September.”
We found most people typically holiday for about 2-3 weeks through the course of the summer, so on average we tried to offer up about 4 weeks of service free as part of the Whole Summer Deal. For most this made it attractive enough for them to commit now and get started because they really had nothing to lose. (This is for brand new clients only of course, and not applicable to exiting memberships.)
There’s a variety of ways you can package this, it can be the whole summer at a greatly reduced cost as your outward promotion.
Internally as time ticks away you may need to alter the deal to reflect. The goal was always to have an aggressive promotion to get people in our system now with the goal of having a renewal plan for just after Labour Day as this always fit people’s commitment cycle.
A pro-tip we often was to price the deal aggressively, but not as aggressive as we might have been willing, in addition to the price point as a selling feature to help close the deal when we met with prospects was to explain that we also offered them a reimbursement for any time missed on this particular program (which basically made it a no brainer) but the key is that reimbursement came by way of a renewal onto a long term program in the fall.
It’s never about the first sale, it’s always about the long-term value of the customer.
Here’s a copy & paste example of one of our old emails for this promotion:
Notes about promo:
We always began offering this somewhere in mid June through to the middle of July, the price was typically about 1 month price X 1.3
As a general rule the agreement stated this program would automatically renew in September at our ongoing month-to-month price (typically unlimited) and as a courtesy we would contact the customer right after Labour Day weekend prior to billing them (this is a key time for people to return to fitness, so often many would first hesitate then sometimes ask for the courtesy to delay the start one week until kids were firmly back to school, this always boded well for us to ensure they continued come September.)
Subject lines:
Subject 1 – Summer Already?! Special offer inside 😉
SUB 2 – Whole summer one low price (For A Limited Time)
SUB 3 – In case you missed this…(Big savings for you.)
Send the same email 3 times with the above subject lines.
Email:
Can you believe it’s summer already!?
Doesn’t the first half of the year just seem to fly by?
The weather is finally getting nicer. People are walking, biking, swimming and playing outside.
Have you ever said “I don’t need my gym membership in the summer because I’m going to be more active outside?”
I hear this all the time, and while people generally have really good intentions about this, it doesn’t usually work the way we want it to.
It’s not even necessarily that people are less active, it’s just that we eat and drink a lot of extra empty calories in the summer.
Ice cream, drinks on the patio and lots of bbq. You can relate right?
With all these extra empty calories it doesn’t take long before we’re consuming more calories than we can burn by just being active outside in the summer months.
That’s why I went to the boss and told him we have to help! We have to help people stay accountable in the summer to their goals.
After some tough convincing, and a lot of back and forth emails, we came to an amazing agreement 🙂
I have a special offer for new clients to find a workout program that will work for the summer!
If you act fast I can offer you the whole summer, that’s from the day you sign up until August 31st for just a 1 time fee of $199(Your price). After the summer you’ll continue at our best unlimited VIP rate 🙂
The best part of this deal is everything we do is backed by an unconditional 30 day money back guarantee. If you don’t absolutely love boot camp in the first 30 days we will refund your money.
That’s unlimited boot camp sessions + accountability and nutrition support for 2 whole months for just $199(Your price)
Do you know what you can accomplish with this type of workout/support in 2 months? If you workout as often as you can and follow our nutrition guidance (while still indulging in a few summer treats) you are going to see some big changes. You’ll see changes in your energy levels, you’ll sleep better and you’re going to see some changes on the scale or in your clothing as well!
Who doesn’t want to buy a new fall outfit?!
Don’t miss out on this great opportunity, it’s only going to be around for a couple of days!
Reply to this email or text me today at (your phone) before time runs out!
Be #Unstoppable
SIGN OFF
The Fine Print – Only new clients and first time participants are eligible for this offer, no purchase is necessary and it may not be combined with any other offer unless otherwise stated. May not be applied to, combined with or replace current active trials or memberships of any kind.
2) Spend a little more on marketing in the summer. Look I know, Facebook etc, not like it used to be, but regardless in the summer months there’s more noise. People have many distractions, your message needs to be delivered more times to move them to action, this means your lead cost will be higher so to continue to acquire an adequate number of leads you are going to need to be advertising more not less. (This is why we use the Quarterly Business Review with my clients to track our average lead and customer costs so we can anticipate these costs quarter to quarter and budget accordingly.
3) This is a great time to review your operational policies. Every summer, but I’d say this summer more than ever, if you are not yet brimming with activity it’s a really good time to review your ops manuals. Fix any small problems that have developed, update and replace redundant policies because if you ever hope to step away from or create an exit in your business it’s this one document that will make or break that opportunity!
I’ve certainly seen a number of my clients are having an unusually busy summer as a result of the “pandemic” seemingly subsiding once and for all, it’s really great news to see consumer demand return in this fashion, and the best part, mark my words this will be magnified once we return to the normal seasonal trend cycle for our business.
Of course there will be new problems (like massive amounts of new competition coming) but more on that later! Hope you are well, remember I am always here to help!
Cabel
P.S. Now that I can see a trend developing I’m cautiously taking a few new coaching clients. Coaching with me is different, I work closely with each individual, I don’t force you to operate in the same box as everyone else, it’s inefficient so I only service a handful of dedicated individuals. Sound like you? Click if you’d like more details on a business coaching consultation: https://calendly.com/cabelmcelderry/freeconsult
I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve had that really struggled with how to present pricing when selling personal training or fitness service.
It seems like so often we’re apprehensive to ask for money, I know at one time this was a problem for me too.
I was so passionate about fitness and working out I just wanted everyone to know what I knew; and I felt bad asking them for their money.
That sounds so stupid, even as I typed it, but totally the truth; and I suspect you might feel some of this too.
This video explains the exact process I used for years and years, it’s worked well for teaching others, giving them a guideline and method to follow that makes the conversation natural and authentic when presenting pricing for personal training or any fitness service.
It also (as you’ll learn in the video) creates something that can be given to the client to take home, and helps guide the spouse conversation that’s usually the roadblock to a decision today.
I’ve always preached that you need to be, “fishing in multiple ponds,” when it comes to generating enough leads to successfully grow your fitness business (or any business for that matter.)
So something I’ve always taught my clients is what I call the “5X25 Fitness Marketing Model.”
You see we live in a time where online is so easy and appealing, because it’s quick and easy.
And then days happen like recently where both Facebook and Instagram were down for a good part of the day.
Not to mention that both of these platforms are becoming exponentially more expensive, competitive and consumers are just getting flogged with so many offers that the responsiveness of these campaigns is becoming more unpredictable.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you shouldn’t be advertising on Facebook, in fact I’m certain for most it’s still where the largest portion of their fitness marketing budget will go.
But…you need to be beyond Facebook.
In fact I’d even argue that when you utilize multiple channels well they will all even work better making your cost per lead and marketing ROI dramatically drop.
In this video I explain the 5X25 Fitness Marketing Model, simply put we want to be drawing at least 25 leads from 5 different sources each month, so this way if one or more fail our business doesn’t stall.
While others freak out that Facebook or whatever is down or not working, you’ll continue to grow and in times where adaptation is needed you’ll be able to take your time and do it right!
“Email marketing doesn’t work for personal trainers!”
I seem to hear this a lot late, but this statement couldn’t be more false.
In fact there’s a reason it’s not working for many (and one I’ve even fallen prey to from time to time.)
Your content isn’t good enough.
In the midst of all the day to day hustle, the million things that pull you in, what feels like, thousands of direction it’s hard to make time to generate truly good content.
And let’s face it, we live in the “delegation world.”
Over these most recent years everything has been about speed, about outsourcing, and there’s some pretty compelling services out there that make it easy to let go of the reins, heck the stuff they provide is often even pretty informative and well written.
There’s just one problem…
There’s no soul, no life, character or personality…namely yours.
I’m happy to tell you I’ve never send you anything I didn’t write.
For a time I used a fair amount of ghost written content for my fitness studios to allow me to focus, but over time I could see the responsiveness of my lists on the decline.
Even with you my trainers and fitness professionals, at times where I’ve been overloaded or stressed my content became a little more robotic, less from the heart and truly that just doesn’t fly.
In fact it’s probably why you’re saying email marketing for personal trainers doesn’t work!
But I’ve got good news, it does, and it will be easier than you think to re-ignite your email list.
First if you’re using a pre-generated newsletter, kill it.
If you’re using outsources content stop.
Start with just once a week and write something from the heart, don’t worry if it’s not earth shattering education, just write from the heart.
Your clients, subscribers and team like to hear from YOU, they bought into YOU, so be you.
Don’t make it “I” focused, but do express your vision, what you’re excited about, what’s rolling around in that marble of yours on top of your shoulders.
Yes, make it relevant to your desired field, just don’t feel like you have to always be a scholar.
Recipes are still amazing, but try to focus on ones you’ve actually tried or legitimately want to try.
And when sending a recipe my favourite thing to do is send it on Saturday morning, because if you’re like me the weekend affords more time to try something new.
And because I know a lot of people just skim their inbox (I know I do) I like to start these emails with, “Just want you to know I appreciate you, and here’s a recipe my family and I are trying this weekend.”
So even if you don’t open it, well you know my intentions are clear.
Try to do this for a couple of weeks, and now we’ve set the stage to deliver an offer, it’s time for you to watch the video below.
In it I outline exactly how I structure my email campaigns. Always 4 emails, always start Sunday (or Monday on a long weekend) at 4 PM, and always written to what I call the 3 personalities.
The Impulse Buyer
The Analyst (yep that’s me)
Eyore (yep you read that right, not a Pooh fan?)
Follow these steps and you’re going to be saying, “email marketing for personal trainers works just fine in 2019!”
Even if you’ve been in the industry for a while as a personal trainer you expect that when the clock strikes twelve on January 1 that there will be a line up outside your gym like Best Buy on Black Friday!
But that’s rarely the case, and as the days tick on, you begin to get a little nervous and wonder what’s going on?
Even worse you have more clients cancelling than usual, it’s January, everyone has a fitness New Year’s Resolution, what’s going on?
Truth is, it’s like this every year, unless you realize what you’ve missed.
January presents a unique consumer psychology that doesn’t exist at any other time of year.
New Year’s creates a “Blank Slate” mentality, I mean I can’t even deny that on January 1 there’s a sense of relief that good or bad the old is gone the new is here I am, once again the master of my future (even though I know and believe this can hold true for any day of the year.)
When you add all this together you have consumers that are hyper-motivated and ultra-price sensitive, in other words they look for cheaper solutions because “they can surely do it on their own this time.”
I talk about this weird phenomenon in this weeks video and share with you the fitness marketing strategies to use to overcome it.
What a year 2018 has been, I can’t believe it’s already drawing to a close.
I hope you are set to take time off and enjoy family for the next few days.
Don’t forget to take a deep breath and reflect on all this year has brought, and then gaze ahead to the horizon…what is your biggest goal for 2019?
Since it’s the end of the year I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting myself…and a lot of thinking.
I always get asked; what do I see happening in the coming year? What will be (if any) the biggest changes in the coming year?
Truth is, it’s kind of already happened and you’ve likely felt it.
Facebook ads getting disapproved more than ever before, ads initially approved and later shut down.
Pushed by Facebook to limit what we show on our landing pages.
Our industry thrives on social proof more than many others and we’ve become more and more limited in how we can proudly display our social proof than ever before.
And it’s only going to get worse…
Yet.
This is actually GOOD NEWS!
Yup, not a typo, this is good news.
Everything comes full circle, and this is no exception.
If you’ve been around as long as I have you likely remember what it was like before things like Facebook.
Getting new clients was largely referral and B2B based.
You had to put yourself out there.
Form real relationships.
And it generally took more than one interaction (think of it like dating.)
It took time to get people to know, like, and trust you before they would commit to buy a premium service like yours.
Well, that’s come back around.
You see for basically the last 10 years direct response marketers had a heyday on Facebook.
We ‘d put up an ad, take people to a landing page then use long form sales copy with fancy headlines, videos, testimonials and before and afters to build the relationship there.
The longer we kept them on the page the better chance we had at getting a sale.
Now I’m not saying this is completely gone or done, in fact quite the opposite, you’ll still see plenty of this and many of these same strategies will work…only just not like before.
In 2019 and beyond you’ll need to be in the groove of building relationships with potential customers on platforms like Facebook through multiple interactions.
Only then will you find the Facebook advertising rules will make it easier to show them your landing pages the way you’ve intended.
And here’s why that’s good news:
You’ll soon only be showing your ads to highly qualified prospects who know who you are, what you do, and are somewhat actively on the lookout for you. This will make those ad clicks much much cheaper.
Your offers and content will become perpetual, which means you won’t need to constantly reinvent the wheel. Your brand recognition will grow as a result, and it’s going to take you less time to market more effectively than ever before.
And maybe the best part of all, it’s going to be really, really hard for your competitors to duplicate, see fully and harder still to understand just what your true marketing strategy is.
All of this will be accomplished with content cycling and custom audience targets, and I’m excited about it!
Why?
Well because everything comes full circle, and in 2019 we get to return to what made us great, we can focus more on being the phenomenal educators that trainers are.
Our marketing will become a showcase for all the amazing knowledge we gathered around training and nutrition, not just the latest marketing mumbo jumbo!
2019 is going to be a great year, are you ready?
If not, you still have time, that’s my Christmas gift to you, this new process is a marathon not a sprint, you start today and your results will steadily increase, your costs will decline and unlike your marketing now each new piece of content will increase your brand and recognition in the community!
Let’s do this!
Merry Christmas from my family to yours!
Cabel
P.S. In January my coaching clients now get to enjoy our ad setup and management services, meaning if all of the above sounds great but leaves you ever confused well we could just do it for you. J I’m taking on new clients in the New Year, would you like to schedule a consultation? If so reply to this email, I’d love to help you make 2019 your best year in business!
