Email marketing is a powerful way to stay in touch with potential personal training clients who are on your mailing list. Once they subscribed, you can reach out to them directly, unlike via social media campaigns. On social media, you’re subject to their algorithm to have your content seen by your list, but on email, you’re in control
How do you start building your subscriber list so your future email marketing campaigns can be successful? Like all marketing strategies in fitness, it starts with providing value. Learn step by step how you can become a pro in launching email marketing campaigns.
Step 1. Create a Lead Magnet
There are a couple of ways to grow your email list, but lead magnets are great because they give you a chance to help someone before they’ve even learnt about your services.
A lead magnet is a free digital product that someone downloads in exchange for their email address. This ethical bribe should be high quality and useful to the person who has claimed it.
READ: LEAD MAGNET IDEAS FOR PERSONAL TRAINERS
When considering the standard of your free guide, aim for such quality that the person downloading it would have been happy to pay money for it. Even if that person never buys any other personal training services from you, the lead magnet should be valuable enough to be a genuine help to them.
When designing a lead magnet, consider the wants and needs of your ideal clients. Perhaps they frequently ask you about overcoming problems which are quite similar or have goals which are alike. If nothing comes to mind, you could use a poll on social media, or a survey form to collect information about the sort of content they would find useful.
A lead magnet is a free digital product that someone downloads in exchange for their email address. This ethical bribe should be high quality and useful to the person who has claimed it.
READ: LEAD MAGNET IDEAS FOR PERSONAL TRAINERS
When considering the standard of your free guide, aim for such quality that the person downloading it would have been happy to pay money for it. Even if that person never buys any other personal training services from you, the lead magnet should be valuable enough to be a genuine help to them.
When designing a lead magnet, consider the wants and needs of your ideal clients. Perhaps they frequently ask you about overcoming problems which are quite similar or have goals which are alike. If nothing comes to mind, you could use a poll on social media, or a survey form to collect information about the sort of content they would find useful.
Popular lead magnets include e-books and free guides about specific topics within muscle building, fat loss, and lifestyle habits. They could include stretching or pain management checklists for the right audience. They may be guides to achieving the first pull up or push up. But what works for one personal trainer might not work for your followers so start by researching what your tribe wants.
Step 2. Subscribe to a Software
Your email marketing software will send out emails to the people who have opted into your lead magnet. You don’t just email them from your own email address. So you need to have an account set up with one of the providers.
There are several providers you could consider, including:
When you’re starting out, pick one that feels straightforward. You’re not tied in and if you want to change later, you can export your list easily so you won’t lose any important client data. Most software providers have free and paid level memberships available, and while you’re focusing on growing your list, free will be fine.
There are several providers you could consider, including:
When you’re starting out, pick one that feels straightforward. You’re not tied in and if you want to change later, you can export your list easily so you won’t lose any important client data. Most software providers have free and paid level memberships available, and while you’re focusing on growing your list, free will be fine.
If you are a geek, you can always check what Capterra reviews are telling us about email marketing software. You can filter results based on pricing structure, features and other important factors and when you have a few you'd consider, you can add them to a comparison chart like the one above for a more visual idea which might suit your needs best.
Step 3. Create a List
People can be added automatically to your mailing list or you can add them manually. How to create a list will differ depending on the software used, but as an example, in Campaign Manager, it’s a simple 4 step process:
1. Click “Lists & Subscribers”.
2. Click on "Create a new list" button on the top right.
1. Click “Lists & Subscribers”.
2. Click on "Create a new list" button on the top right.
3. Name Your List e.g. "Fat Loss Lead Magnet" or similar
4. Choose List Type - Single opt-in or confirmed opt-in
5. Click "Create list"
Single Opt-In
This option means that your subscribers will be added to the list immediately and they don't need to confirm they indeed want to subscribe via a confirmation email.
Confirmed Opt-In
Some software may call this option double opt-in. We recommend all to use this one for two reasons:
- You'll be GDPR compliant
- Your list will have quality leads who really want to hear from you
Once your funnel is live, anyone downloading the lead magnet at any time will get added to that list and will receive the emails as you send them out.
Step 4. Add the Subscribe Form to Your Site
Most email software will give you a few options subscribing options:
Landing page
This is a single page which contains information about the lead magnet, a box to enter their name and email which is linked to your email software, and perhaps an image of what your client will get once it’s downloaded.
Usually, there’s an option to add a thank you page once the details have been entered. You could even link to a video of you thanking them which is one of the ways you might start building a relationship with this prospect.
- a landing page,
- a subscribe form you can embed to your website pages
- a pop-op option.
Landing page
This is a single page which contains information about the lead magnet, a box to enter their name and email which is linked to your email software, and perhaps an image of what your client will get once it’s downloaded.
Usually, there’s an option to add a thank you page once the details have been entered. You could even link to a video of you thanking them which is one of the ways you might start building a relationship with this prospect.
Landing pages come with a URL (https://...) that you can add to your branded website buttons, which means no ugly embed codes appear within your website.
Embed form
You will be able to use this option if your web designer platform only supports code integration for email marketing software or you prefer just adding the form to a separate page. Once you designed the form within your email marketing software, you can generate the code and embed it onto the desired page where you'll collect subscriber data.
Pop-Up
Most comprehensive email marketing software provide this option but we usually warn our managed website clients to use it after serious consideration because it's still considered one of the most annoying marketing techniques.
However, if you choose wisely where you implement a pop-up, which means it aligns with your website visitor's need on a particular fitness website page, it might even increase the success of your lead magnet.
Like the "50 Marketing Hacks" lead magnet that has probably already popped up by the time you got here in reading this article. All it takes is a good website control management app and a 5-10s delay so only those who are keen to learn more will be targeted.
Step 5. Generate Get Traffic to Your Lead Magnet
Once you’ve designed your lead magnet and set up your landing page now you’re ready to promote it. If you’ve integrated the landing page into your website, you’ll be directing traffic there. If you don’t have a website, you can direct traffic directly to your landing page hosted by your email marketing software.
You can promote your lead magnet by mentioning it in social media. You can add a link to your Instagram bio and direct people to it. You could promote it on Facebook - but keep links in the comments or Facebook kills the reach of the post. Ideally, you’ll be writing about related content and marketing via your blog where you might link to your lead magnet.
A lead magnet can be one of the most powerful tools to drive leads into your business, so taking the time to research what your audience wants is time well spent. Take care to make it really high quality, perhaps outsourcing the design to make it really polished. A good lead magnet can potentially bring in business for years.
You can promote your lead magnet by mentioning it in social media. You can add a link to your Instagram bio and direct people to it. You could promote it on Facebook - but keep links in the comments or Facebook kills the reach of the post. Ideally, you’ll be writing about related content and marketing via your blog where you might link to your lead magnet.
A lead magnet can be one of the most powerful tools to drive leads into your business, so taking the time to research what your audience wants is time well spent. Take care to make it really high quality, perhaps outsourcing the design to make it really polished. A good lead magnet can potentially bring in business for years.