4 Online Strategies for Strong Personal Training Sales

The personal training industry has been permanently changed by the pandemic that has swept the globe since early 2020. The demand for online training has skyrocketed, with many trainers adjusting accordingly. There are plenty of opportunities to maximize from this switch if you know what you’re doing.

Many personal trainers don’t.

Here are 4 social media strategies you can implement this week to get more clients.

Strategy One: Facebook Business Page

By setting up a business page on Facebook, you can see real-time results from interacting with your customers, allowing you to interact and engage with them for relatively little cost.

But how do you get started on Facebook?

The first step is to create a business page. These pages are easily seen by Google and many small businesses use a Facebook page as their first web presence. Facebook is free to join and use an update to feed into your fan's news feeds as you post. When your fans like or comment on a post, their friends get to see your page name on the newsfeed, which may create a viral effect.

To create your business page, you will need to have a personal account with Facebook.

Here are some tips that will help you generate new leads from Facebook:

• Post tips and great content regularly – your best posts should go on your personal and group profiles.
• Create posts that provide ‘behind the scenes’ insight into your business – provide screenshots and look inside videos that personalize the business.
• Have a good offer – this could be a free trial, a challenge, or the offer of a free cheat sheet.
• Offer plenty of free content without asking anything in return.
• Send an advert to the audience you have created by offering free content.
• Always answer questions promptly when people ask them.
• Share screenshots of your client’s before and after pics (with their permission of course).
• Create content that feels comfortable and natural to you and that will be useful to your niche audience.

Strategy Two: Facebook Ads

Facebook ads are a great way to drive traffic or collect email addresses for your database. They allow you to choose your advertising audience by location, demographics, interests, and connections on Facebook.

Once you’ve decided to go with Facebook ads you need to consider the four following factors:

(1) What is the goal of the ad?

(2) Who are you trying to reach?

(3) What is your weekly budget?

(4) How will you monitor the results?

If your goal is to generate brand exposure and gain more fans to communicate with you, your ad should be pointed to your Facebook page rather than your website. That way when your visitor clicks like and becomes a fan, you can communicate with them through their Facebook newsfeed in the future by sending them an update. If you send your visitors to your website, there is generally no way for them to interact with your site and those visitors may never return, so you have lost them.

You can set your Facebook advertising budget or as high as you want. You may begin with a budget of just $50 per week and, so long as it is targeted to the right market segment, it will bring you leads.

Strategy Three: LinkedIn

LinkedIn allows you to network with people you would not ordinarily come into contact with to build your business connection base and potentially grow your business. There are more than 500 million users on LinkedIn, with 44% of them earning more than $75,000 per year. That makes it the perfect platform for you to position yourself as the expert personal trainer in your niche to target high-earning professionals.

Here are five steps that will enable you to establish your brand on LinkedIn:

(1) Create distinct personal and professional profiles - LinkedIn allows you to promote your business as both an individual and a company. You should take advantage of this as it allows you to reach a broader range of potential clients. In your personal profile, highlight all of your skills and qualifications and the personal qualities that make you an outstanding personal trainer. Try to reach them on a personal level that they can relate to.

     Your professional profile should be brand-centric. Focus on what makes your personal training business unique. Clearly spell out your USP. You should also endeavor to get the permission of existing clients to use testimonials. At the end of your profile use a call to action to encourage readers to get in touch.

(2) Endorse partners and competitors -if you endorse a business on LinkedIn there is a high chance that they will return the favor. So, identify individuals or businesses that you have worked with before. If they already have an established reputation among your target audience, all the better. This may include equipment suppliers, uniform providers, supplement companies, gyms, or other personal trainers. When you endorse them, you appear on their profiles and become visible to their followers.

(3) Use the built-in advertising campaign feature - LinkedIn offers a built-in ad campaign manager that allows you to select from a range of different advertisement types. You are easily able to create ads, choose the target audience, promote content and track engagement. Campaigns are available at extremely attractive budgets so, even if you are starting from scratch, this is an avenue worth considering.

(4) Create generation-specific content - if your target market is millennials with a high disposable income, then you need to create content that speaks to that audience. Research reveals that millennials are more likely to devour content that is inspirational, educational, and aspirational. It should also help them develop their skills. Rather than trying to sell to them, focus on solving their most burning fitness pain points. User LinkedIn’s publishing platform to establish your thought leadership in the fitness industry market space on that platform.

(5) Join groups - when you join relevant groups on LinkedIn, you can freely interact with industry experts and engage with prospective clients. Rather than directly promoting your service to the group, do so through the back door with the aid of:

• data backed industry reports
• polls
• quizzes
• free webinars
• Q&A sessions
• live stream videos

Strategy Four: Instagram

Instagram has more than a billion regular users. 71% of them are under the age of 35 and the average user spends 53 minutes on the platform every day. Around 75% of US businesses are now using Instagram as part of their marketing plan. You need to be one of them. Here are five tips to help you make the most of marketing your personal training business on Instagram:

• Make your profile picture enticing - your profile picture will create the first impression of you. Prospective clients will either engage or disengage based on that first impression. Your profile picture should have a front-facing angle, use a soft light source and show you with an alert expression and the hint of a smile on your face.
• Post top quality photos – ideally you should post a minimum of one photo per day. Include action shots of you training your clients of you training your clients as well as before and after pics and exercise demonstration photos.
• Use hashtags wisely – Instagram posts with hashtags are 12.6% more engaging than those without them. Try to include up to 7 hashtags with each. Make use of Instagram’s built-in hashtags feature to see which hashtags are trending in the fitness industry.
• Share valuable, engaging content – research tells us that Instagram users prefer to watch videos 4 times more than looking at images or reading articles. They also share infographics 3 times more than photos. Instagram stories in the form of live-streamed videos are a great way to get your content shared, especially if they revolve around your clients achieving their goals.
• Improve your share-ability – create content that can be shared across your other platforms.

As with any platform, your goal on Instagram is to get followers, likes, and comments. Here are the best-proven ways to get more followers . . .

• Have a theme -the theme should be driven by your content strategy but you can break your themes down a little. For instance, your theme for May could be heart health month. Your theme within that could be healthy fruit and vegetables, which easily lend themselves to great image creation and messages.
• Keep it visual - take the best shots, add the best filters and create something special.
• Add a description that’s worth it - this is your space to talk about the image so tell a story and add some hashtags.
• Post consistently - do a daily where you can but whatever schedule you choose, stick to it.

About the Author

Steve Theunissen is a freelance writer living in Tauranga, New Zealand. He is a former gym owner, personal trainer and school teacher and is the author of six hardcopy books and more than a hundred ebooks on the topics of bodybuilding, fitness and fat loss. Steve also writes history books with a focus on the history of warfare. He is married and has two daughters.