In this post I’m going to show you three fitness marketing funnels that you can implement today and piece together all of your marketing assets, including your personal trainer website, blog, Facebook page and ads.
While a website, social media, landing pages and Facebook ads are all designed to help us get more clients and reduce the stress of running a fitness business, they can often leave us with more overwhelm and stress than we started with.
So before we start, it’s important to note that although these fitness marketing funnels address clients at every stage of their buyer journey, clients can jump in and out of any funnel at any time depending on their own preferences, personal lives and how they connect with your business.
Ultimately, the goal of these funnels is to invite people in to your business by offering them something that’s of value to them at every stage of their buyer journey. We'll be breaking down this:
So before we start, it’s important to note that although these fitness marketing funnels address clients at every stage of their buyer journey, clients can jump in and out of any funnel at any time depending on their own preferences, personal lives and how they connect with your business.
Ultimately, the goal of these funnels is to invite people in to your business by offering them something that’s of value to them at every stage of their buyer journey. We'll be breaking down this:
Read on to learn how to structure your fitness marketing funnels and get more clients.
Funnel #1: Awareness
The Awareness stage of your client journey is the least utilised and least understood stage of marketing.
Most PT’s likes to jump straight in to sales pages and Facebook ads with offers to cold audiences who have never met them, never showed interest in their service nor heard of their company.
It’s the digital equivalent of walking up to a stranger in the street and shouting “Hey you!! Buy my stuff!!” at them. Then wondering why nobody is taking to your “incredible offer".
However, you’re a smart PT because you’re here reading this, so you’re probably, even if it’s just a little bit, aware that a solid client base is built on trust and rapport over time.
That’s what we’re going to do with an Awareness funnel.
An Awareness funnel is designed to invite people in your target market, who have never heard of you, in to your social circles so that you can build trust and rapport with them.
But here’s the kicker and here’s why nobody does this: it takes time!
Yep, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you that creating a long term sustainable fitness business that will feed your family for years to come is not the “walk in the park” your course provider made it out to be.
Like ANYONE in the world who is selling something, the value of that something is amplified by the trust and rapport you have with person receiving it. It’s why people choose the same mechanic, the same butcher and it’s why they’d choose you over another personal trainer.
Let’s take a look at the Awareness Marketing Funnel for personal trainers (click to download the PDF).
Most PT’s likes to jump straight in to sales pages and Facebook ads with offers to cold audiences who have never met them, never showed interest in their service nor heard of their company.
It’s the digital equivalent of walking up to a stranger in the street and shouting “Hey you!! Buy my stuff!!” at them. Then wondering why nobody is taking to your “incredible offer".
However, you’re a smart PT because you’re here reading this, so you’re probably, even if it’s just a little bit, aware that a solid client base is built on trust and rapport over time.
That’s what we’re going to do with an Awareness funnel.
An Awareness funnel is designed to invite people in your target market, who have never heard of you, in to your social circles so that you can build trust and rapport with them.
But here’s the kicker and here’s why nobody does this: it takes time!
Yep, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you that creating a long term sustainable fitness business that will feed your family for years to come is not the “walk in the park” your course provider made it out to be.
Like ANYONE in the world who is selling something, the value of that something is amplified by the trust and rapport you have with person receiving it. It’s why people choose the same mechanic, the same butcher and it’s why they’d choose you over another personal trainer.
Let’s take a look at the Awareness Marketing Funnel for personal trainers (click to download the PDF).
I imagine that looks pretty overwhelming so let’s break it down in to steps.
Step 1: Getting Traffic
The first thing all successful businesses do to create a sustainable and profitable audience is create content and send traffic to that content. It’s the core of any inbound marketing strategy and it’s especially awesome because it’s free to do.
In this first step we’re going to send traffic from Facebook (including organic and ads/boosted posts if you have the budget), Twitter, Instagram and and email subscribers you’ve gathered in the past to your blog or other form of valuable content.
The beauty of this first step is that should your blog serve your niche well, only people who are in that niche will click on it. Let's say you train marathon runners and you write a blog about "How to Avoid Shin Splints".
Now you have an audience of people who are interested in your topic of expertise.
You’re building a fan base!
Step 2: Making an Offer
Next up, within that blog post we’ll have a link to a landing page with an offer for your readers.
For example, if your blog post is about avoiding shin splints, you might have a landing page with an offer of a “5 Exercises to Help Marathon Runners Avoid Shin Splints”.
Naturally, the people who are reading this blog post are trying to avoid shin splints so an eBook that promises to solve that problem would be of value to them.
Step 3: Organising Leads
Should they take the offer they will be added to a value stream, a series of emails that offer more value, explain your services and include some soft offers like joining a free Facebook group (this is ours and it's mega-awesome-well-good!).
Should they not take the offer, no problem, because you read my blog on how to use Facebook re-targeting and added a re-targeting pixel so you can offer more value to them later.
Ok. Moving on.
Step 3: Organising Leads
Should they take the offer they will be added to a value stream, a series of emails that offer more value, explain your services and include some soft offers like joining a free Facebook group (this is ours and it's mega-awesome-well-good!).
Should they not take the offer, no problem, because you read my blog on how to use Facebook re-targeting and added a re-targeting pixel so you can offer more value to them later.
Ok. Moving on.
Funnel #2: Consideration
The Consideration stage is where a lot of personal trainers spend a lot of their marketing dollars and time.
You know the posts:
"If you're a [INSERT NICHE] who [INSERT PROBLEM] and wants to [INSERT SOLUTION], you should definitely buy my stuff".
These types of posts are appealing to people who are already at the phase of their buyer journey where they're aware they have a problem and are considering solutions.
Your job is to position yourself in front of these types of clients with the right tone and right offer.
Here’s how.
You know the posts:
"If you're a [INSERT NICHE] who [INSERT PROBLEM] and wants to [INSERT SOLUTION], you should definitely buy my stuff".
These types of posts are appealing to people who are already at the phase of their buyer journey where they're aware they have a problem and are considering solutions.
Your job is to position yourself in front of these types of clients with the right tone and right offer.
Here’s how.
Step 1: Getting Traffic
In the Consideration stage, traffic comes from several sources.
The first source of traffic are the leads you gained from your Awareness funnel. These leads come in the form of email subscribers and website visitors whom you'll be re-targeting on Facebook should you have a marketing budget.
The second source of website visitors are people who haven't met you yet but have been considering a PT anyway. These people may drop straight in to your Consideration funnel without having been through your Awareness funnel. That's normal.
Should they find your business, usually via Facebook and Google, and be happy with the services, pricing and convenience of working with you, these people may become clients.
To attract people in the Consideration stage to your website, you'll need to offer them something that's of value to them at this stage of their buyer journey.
People who are considering a personal trainer are looking for reasons to hire a personal trainer.
So we might use comparison charts, webinars, checklists and client stories to persuade these website visitors that they should hire a PT. At this stage of the Buyer Journey the client needs to understand how hiring a PT will save them time, money or stress.
Step 2: Making an Offer
Going back to the marathon runner niche, let's say you write a blog about a success story with a client:
“How [NAME] Knocked 16 Minutes Off of His Marathon PB”
… The call to action in that blog post may be to sign up to a free webinar about improving your marathon training. Webinars help to connect you directly with clients so that they can see how your service would benefit them.
If an interested party clicked on this link and read your success story, you might then offer them a comparison chart that explains how hiring your services saves time, money and prevents injuries.
You can also direct cold traffic, people who have never heard of your business, straight to a free offer like a webinar sign up, a case study, comparison chart or free trial page using ads.
This is the role of our Cost of a Fitness Website download on our Managed Website page in the footer of our website.
PT's who download that are almost definitely weighing up their options and the free guide offers to shorten the time it takes to do that.
Value.
Going back to the marathon runner niche, let's say you write a blog about a success story with a client:
“How [NAME] Knocked 16 Minutes Off of His Marathon PB”
… The call to action in that blog post may be to sign up to a free webinar about improving your marathon training. Webinars help to connect you directly with clients so that they can see how your service would benefit them.
If an interested party clicked on this link and read your success story, you might then offer them a comparison chart that explains how hiring your services saves time, money and prevents injuries.
You can also direct cold traffic, people who have never heard of your business, straight to a free offer like a webinar sign up, a case study, comparison chart or free trial page using ads.
This is the role of our Cost of a Fitness Website download on our Managed Website page in the footer of our website.
PT's who download that are almost definitely weighing up their options and the free guide offers to shorten the time it takes to do that.
Value.
Step 3: Organising Leads
Should a website visitor take up your Consideration offer, you’d move them in to a value stream, usually an email autoresponder series.
The purpose of this email autoresponder series is to get people to move in to the Decision stage. The stage where they’re ultimately going to choose whether or not to work with you. Your email content will be filled with client success stories and other valuable resources that say “I can solve your problem”.
The best email autoresponder series I've seen for personal trainers is the one Jon Goodman talks about on his Viralnomics page: The Best Short Autoresponse Sequence for Sales.
If they become a client, great. If not, you continue to re-target them on Facebook and via email with more value.
Should a website visitor take up your Consideration offer, you’d move them in to a value stream, usually an email autoresponder series.
The purpose of this email autoresponder series is to get people to move in to the Decision stage. The stage where they’re ultimately going to choose whether or not to work with you. Your email content will be filled with client success stories and other valuable resources that say “I can solve your problem”.
The best email autoresponder series I've seen for personal trainers is the one Jon Goodman talks about on his Viralnomics page: The Best Short Autoresponse Sequence for Sales.
If they become a client, great. If not, you continue to re-target them on Facebook and via email with more value.
Funnel #3: Decision
The last step in the Buyer Journey. The Decision Stage. This is when website visitors, fans, subscribers and leads are finally ready to take action.
They’re Aware they have a problem, they’ve Considered solutions and are now ready to make a decision.
So your goal at this stage of the Buyer Journey is to invite those leads to work with you. Some will be good to go. Others won’t.
Much like the Consideration Stage, leads will come from many different places and via many combinations of your funnel. It's never as simple as step 1, step 2....
Sometimes a lead may have found you on a search engine like Google, then liked your Facebook page. Maybe they followed you for a while and read a few of your posts and one post in particular was the post the made them take action and head straight to your contact form.
You can’t track that. Not without some expensive gadgets anyway. So it’s not safe to assume that leads will only start working with you because of the final email in an autoresponder series.
Instead, we’re going to focus on getting traffic, making an offer and organising leads no matter where potential clients join your funnel.
They’re Aware they have a problem, they’ve Considered solutions and are now ready to make a decision.
So your goal at this stage of the Buyer Journey is to invite those leads to work with you. Some will be good to go. Others won’t.
Much like the Consideration Stage, leads will come from many different places and via many combinations of your funnel. It's never as simple as step 1, step 2....
Sometimes a lead may have found you on a search engine like Google, then liked your Facebook page. Maybe they followed you for a while and read a few of your posts and one post in particular was the post the made them take action and head straight to your contact form.
You can’t track that. Not without some expensive gadgets anyway. So it’s not safe to assume that leads will only start working with you because of the final email in an autoresponder series.
Instead, we’re going to focus on getting traffic, making an offer and organising leads no matter where potential clients join your funnel.
Step 1: Getting Traffic
Like the Consideration stage, traffic for the Decision stage will come from multiple sources.
The first and “warmest” traffic will come from your re-targeting campaign via ads and email. These leads will already have watched a webinar, read a case study, requested a free trial or downloaded a Consideration stage lead magnet from you. You've instructed Facebook to create a custom audience for people who visited those pages.
The second source of traffic will come from colder leads that drift in from your social networks like Facebook posts, Instagram photos and Twitter status’.
They may not have gone through your Awareness and Consideration funnels but they’re ready to take action for other reasons nonetheless.
Step 2: Making an Offer
The types of offers that attract people in the Decision making stage are comparison charts, purchasing guides, free trials and other low barrier ways to get started.
For example, if a website visitor in the Decision stage saw your offer of a 7 Day Bootcamp Free Trial, that offer would undoubtedly help that website visitor take the next step with you.
Step 3: Organising Leads
Finally, the last step in the Decision funnel is organising leads. This is probably one of the most important steps in the whole buyer journey and it’s one I see personal trainers get wrong time and time again.
In an increasingly automated world, PT’s seem to be looking for ways to get clients to sign up to their services without having to deal with them personally. By adding payment buttons to website or getting new website visitors to fill in a PARQ before they even speak with you.
Don’t.
It’s called PERSONAL training. Every lead in the Decision stage should have personalised contact with a company representative to on-board them as a new client. Trying to automate this could cost you a lot of money.
Whether your lead becomes a client via a sales page, a phone call or the contact form on your website, they’ll almost always want to speak to a real person. Because everyone thinks their situation is unique and nobody wants to hand their money to a machine.
When clients are in the Decision stage of the Buyer Journey and they're ready to get in touch, the transition from lead to client will be so much easier because you've already been establishing rapport via your other funnels for some time.
Summing Up
While these three funnels look complex, this is just how people think and how they naturally move through your marketing assets. The purpose of this article is to help you give purpose to all of those marketing assets so you waste less time and make more money.
Again, it’s important to remember that people don’t naturally start in your Awareness funnel and move gracefully through each funnel until they choose to work with you.
You’ll notice some people become clients because they Googled you. They were ready to buy and you were on page one of Google with the right offer.
Others may find you on Facebook and follow you in your Facebook group for sometime.
Hell, I had a client take a whole 10 months to commit to my Personal Trainer Website Design service. Because that’s how long it took her to move through her Buyer Journey.
And that's fine by me because, like personal training, I work with clients over a long period of time. We become friends and create a relationship. I want my clients to work with me because they chose to, not because I pressure sold them my services.
Again, it’s important to remember that people don’t naturally start in your Awareness funnel and move gracefully through each funnel until they choose to work with you.
You’ll notice some people become clients because they Googled you. They were ready to buy and you were on page one of Google with the right offer.
Others may find you on Facebook and follow you in your Facebook group for sometime.
Hell, I had a client take a whole 10 months to commit to my Personal Trainer Website Design service. Because that’s how long it took her to move through her Buyer Journey.
And that's fine by me because, like personal training, I work with clients over a long period of time. We become friends and create a relationship. I want my clients to work with me because they chose to, not because I pressure sold them my services.
