by cabelmcelderry | Apr 19, 2011 | Personal Trainer Marketing, Personal Training Business Tips, Selling Personal Training
Effective fitness marketing doesn't require you to be a crappy car salesman.
Ok last week we talked about how we all get sucked into running awareness, branding type advertising campaigns because that’s what we’re constantly exposed to by big business. We also discussed why a low barrier of entry list building ad can be far more effective and how easy it is to measure it.
This week we’re going to talk about the other major campaign structure, and that’s the one that instantly creates sales. All of your campaigns revolve around one critical component, solving a major problem face by your most likely customer. Your marketing should reflect that. It’s not about you or the name of your business nearly as much as it is about educating, you earn their interest, trust and loyalty and they will be looking to learn who you are and remember it. Far longer than any flash in the pan branding campaign you or I could afford to do.
If you want to sell from an ad you must always provide an irresistible offer, each ad at best is a short flash in the pan. You are banking on the people seeing your ads are actually looking and ready to buy your services. On that note you have to do everything possible to move as many people to action as possible. If you previously missed it you should read this blog post:
http://www.profitablepersonaltrainer.com/2010/05/03/2-step-marketing-get-rich-by-first-giving-it-away/
The free session doesn’t cut it; the 10% discount is garbage. You have to give something today that shows so much value that I would literally be stupid and remorseful to pass it up.
Find ways to give high value trials of 2 weeks or longer, package them with value add services from strategic business relationships to up the ante even more value without costing you anything.
Now if you’re like most you are resistant or hesitant to give so much away for the fear of working for free forever. If you are afraid of this you don’t yet understand the process or you’re not very good at delivering results to you clients. If it’s the later then stop reading and pull out the classifieds, it’s time for you to get a different job.
For those of you that are afraid to give away so much service, understand it’s never free it’s a deferred payment plan. Your goal is to overwhelm your new client in their trial with tonnes of value and then provide multiple offers throughout the trial to encourage them to stay. This is far more effective than trying to sell a package in your ad for the simple reason that there are 2 primary reasons prospects don’t buy immediately:
1) Not enough perceived value. In an ad they will judge you and your value before they ever meet you, if it’s not enough value they quickly move on. Within an extended trial you can provide multiple offers stacking the value to find the point which offers enough value for your prospect to instantly convert. Which leads to the second point.
2) Lack of trust. The only other reason they don’t convert is that they don’t trust you yet, but within an extended trial you have an extended opportunity to win their trust and loyalty.
Tracking and evaluation of the campaign is easy, again all responses to the ad will come by phone, email or website. You can get a special number for people to call and track the number of calls versus the number of people that actually commit to the trial and then how many of those commit to a long term package. You could from that calculate your cost per lead, your ad conversion, and ultimately sales conversion down to the exact dollar to compare to the cost of the campaign. By setting up a separate email you could easily do this by email, or by using a dedicated web landing page you can go further to track how many landed on the page, inquired, signed up for the trial and then converted.
There you have it, the easy way to analyze any marketing campaign. This is just a very small fragment of the systems and analysis that can be accessed in our licensing program. If you’d like to no more check it out on the Business Essentials page.
by cabelmcelderry | Apr 12, 2011 | Personal Trainer Marketing, Personal Training Business Tips, Selling Personal Training
Recently a client was asking for my feedback and opinion on a display ad that they had run previously and was up for renewal. The ad was of the typical type that most gyms and personal trainers do. Logo in the top corner, some features or services in bullets, an address, phone number, hours, tagline, but no offer.
My response was simply not to run the ad.
Here’s the thing, when we think of advertising we think of the ads that we’re exposed to. All those commercials from the major brands and franchises, naturally we associate that with our business and assume this is what we should do also. The problem, we don’t have units nationwide and our advertising budget is just slightly smaller.
From right now forward you need to shift your whole attitude when it comes to marketing. Any marketing you do is for one of two purposes
1) To increase the size of your list. These ads are very low barrier of entry where you are generally giving something away in exchange for someone giving you their contact information (primarily just email is your best bet to get the biggest response.) By building your mailing list you are earning the opportunity to talk to people over and over again to establish a relationship that will lead them to you when they need your service.
Let’s compare that for a moment to the ad I mentioned my client was going to run. That ad was going to cost more than $1000. The hope is that by creating awareness it may generate new sales over the course of the year, however the problem is we will likely never really know if it worked and if we would have sold those services anyways as when someone looks and converts on a branding ad they were already actively looking for the service anyways.
By comparison if I offer you something high value in exchange for your email I can now contact you as often as wish at the push of a button and for no extra cost, I don’t have to hope you are looking for my service today. Isn’t it obvious why spending that same $1000 on advertising geared toward list building would be much more effective? Things like e-book offers, free giveaways, etc.
Now here’s the best part, a list building strategy is completely trackable. Since the ad I’ve been criticizing was a print ad let’s assume our list building program will run with a similar print ad. Instead of features and benefit the ad should provide information about a big problem your most likely customer faces, then offer a solution in terms of your free ebooks, videos, etc. Even wrap it up with high profile consumer goods like Apple products and you have a really solid giveaway that will garner tonnes of interest.
Now in that ad we can direct them to enter online, or by phone. In either case we can measure, by tracking page visits we know how many people responded to the ad, by comparing that to the number of people that entered you can learn how valuable they thought the offer was and converted. And over time as you email them you can (thanks to email software) see how many open the email and how many respond further to any offer you give them. Now with simple math you could work backwards with the cost of your ad instantly knowing if it was a good investment or not.
Now the second type of ads you should run…well you’re just going to have to wait until next week to discuss that.
by cabelmcelderry | Mar 29, 2011 | Personal Trainer Marketing, Personal Training Business Tips, Selling Personal Training
Email marketing is one of the most cost effective and time efficient ways to provide over the top value to exisiting clients and easily attract new ones. Especially if you are still training a lot of clients personally you should be using email marketing to really maxmize your time so you don’t fall victim to the “desperation wave”. (Watch the video, you’ll see what I mean.)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrP63ySU3jE[/youtube]
There are a number of different options for email marketing software, Aweber and iContact are among the most well known and the cheapest. However inspite of the slightly higher cost there is none that remotely compare to the done-for-you, specific to fitness professionals features that FitPro Newsletter uses. You should be using FitPro Newsletter, it’s hands down one of the best products available for new or veteran fitness professionals.
by cabelmcelderry | Mar 1, 2011 | Personal Trainer Marketing, Personal Training Business Tips, Selling Personal Training
This weekend I invited some of my coaching clients to take in a day of coaching and role-playing at my studio in Red Deer. I left no secret untold and exposed them to every aspect of our “million dollar” sales presentation.
When it comes to sales success is not about manipulation or dirty tricks but rather helping your potential client find comfortable affirmation in the decision to use your services. Understanding their fears, concerns, emotions and body language is incredibly important in the sales process. In this short video I discuss a few of the aspects of what makes our consultation so successful.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORfvTiS68UY[/youtube]
by cabelmcelderry | Feb 15, 2011 | Personal Trainer Marketing, Personal Training Business Tips, Selling Personal Training
Looking for a new way to attract more personal training clients? One of the strategies I used for quickly recruiting more personal training clients early in my career was the local lunch and learn. Not only is this a fast way to fill your schedule but it will also quickly builds your reputation in the community as the local expert.
It doesn’t take much, 4-6 slides is enough to fill 20-40 minutes of speaking time, don’t forget to always leave time for questions and answers. Now I know what many of you might be thinking, “I don’t know what to speak about.” Truth is you perform these same presentations over and over again every week. Just about every new client you meet always needs the same basic information when they begin.
Topic ideas:
- Boosting your metabolism with frequent eating.
- The best time to perform cardio for fat loss and why.
- The 10 top stretches for people who work in an office.
- The three best exercises for better posture.
And so on, and so on…
Make a list of businesses in your area. Keep in mind this is a numbers game, you are going get 8 no’s for every 2 yes’s, so to book 10 presentations you will need to visit 50 businesses. Try to approach businesses with at least 10 employees or more.
To increase your chances of success keep these tips in mind:
1) Business owners are solicited all the time, they are prepared to deflect you and say no. Surprise them by not telling them what they can do for you but rather how great they are to their customers. “Hello Mr. X, I just wanted to stop by because so many of my clients have said how great your business is and how well they have been treated here, I just had to see it for myself.”
2) Body language will show you when they relax, by first complementing them they will let their guard, this is when you prepare to strike ask by complimenting again and setting the stage. “Mr. X, because I know how hard you guys work to keep your customers happy I’d like to do something for you in return…”
3) Now deliver your pitch. “…I really like to share what I am passionate about with great and deserving people. I’d like to provide a free lunch and learn for you and your team. I just share with people great knowledge about their most common weight loss questions.”
4) Seal the deal and justify why you would do this for nothing in return. “…there is no charge at all for this and don’t worry at no point am I going to try to sell you or anyone here anything. I do this because it creates awareness, I want to be associated with good businesses and ultimately that brings me more good customers too.”
Now you are wondering, “How do I get clients out of this?” By speaking to the group you earn their trust and credibility, at the end of the lecture before you answer any questions simply state you have two really good articles (which you find on Google) related to what you have spoke about today that you would like to send them. Additionally tell them that people always have questions after you are gone so if they think of any they can simply respond to this email and ask their question. You have just provided additional value that should earn you most of their contacts.
Collect all the emails, you’ve now just added them to your contact list and should begin sending them regular content and offers. (In fact I suggest an immediate series of content and offers to bring them in for a consult right away.)
It really is that simple, and if you are not already using it, this link is the ideal tool to provide content, automatic emails and regular done-for-you-relationship-building content on a regular basis.
by cabelmcelderry | Feb 8, 2011 | Personal Trainer Marketing, Personal Training Business Tips, Selling Personal Training
My Last slide from my presentation upcoming at the 2011 Fitness Business Summit in Anahiem, CA
Today I was preparing my presentation for this year’s Fitness Business Summit in Anaheim, California. I’ll be speaking there in about 6 weeks from now. I’ve really become known in my mastermind group for the systematic way I approach, execute and build my business. In the last few weeks working with new and old coaching clients I’ve been reminded of our (people’s) tendency to just jump into things without a plan, support or a foundation to lean on. It’s no wonder that more than 50% of new personal trainers don’t renew their certification or that the majority of small businesses fail within the first year.
I want you to complete this very important exercise. Who is the most likely customer of your business? By the time you finished that sentence I am sure many of you feel you have answered or know the answer to this question but you are wrong. Your answer should fill 2-3 typed pages.
- How old are they?
- Are they male or female?
- What do they look like? (Even better find a picture to represent them.)
- What are their fitness goals?
- What do they do for a living?
- Do they have kids? How many? How old on average?
- How much money do they make?
- Where do they live? (Suburb in relation to 15-20 min drive radius of your business.)
- What do they like to do?
- Where do they hang out?
- Where do they shop? What kinds of things do they buy?
- What kind of clothes do they wear?
- If you wanted to find a bunch of them in the next 30 minutes where are they likely to be?
- Think of even more questions to ask…
This may seem silly but the more you can think and put yourself in someone’s shoes the better you can communicate with them. Imagine the steps you would go through to try to communicate a complex idea to a small child (or maybe the dreaded parental sex talk for instance.)
By having this comprehensive word picture you can write an article that speaks to your desired client, you can use images that may appeal to them. You might place draw boxes, business cards, or co-op offers in the places they frequent. Your whole business should develop a razor like, consistent, ongoing focus and effort to communicate with these people. Like magic you should just always seem to be in the same place they are, coincidence? I think not. This will set you apart from your competition and immediately give you massive amounts of credibility with much less effort. Not only will you begin to quickly attract your desired customer but other segments too. Because you will begin communicating specifically and so intelligently to your specific group other groups will become immediately more receptive automatically increasing your value.
Ok you’re half done. The next part is equally critical. Now put the almighty internet to work for you, look for the census and economic statistics for your community. From the questions above compare as many points of data as you can. Home value, ages, gender, children, income, occupation etc to the customer profile you have developed. Soon you will have pretty accurate picture of just how many potential customers there are that fit your profile or who you feel you are trying to communicate to. As my coaching clients have found this can be suddenly very different than what you had originally assumed and big reason why you may be struggling to grow your business.
