Imagine if you had seven seconds to tell a convincing story. How would you grab the audience's attention? What would you prioritize? What would you want the listener to remember most?
Well, I'm here to tell you that you do have only seven seconds with potential customers. According to branding research, it takes only seven minutes for consumers to make an impression of your business. That's less than ten seconds for them to decide whether they like you or not.
Branding is all you have to sell yourself in that brief time. From copy to visual messaging and audio, fitness branding is all about how you communicate with potential clients. What story or message do you want to tell them about your fitness business and how?
In this fitness branding guide, I'll walk you along the eight key fitness marketing strategy steps to building a trusted brand.
Ready to step up your branding game?
Branding is all you have to sell yourself in that brief time. From copy to visual messaging and audio, fitness branding is all about how you communicate with potential clients. What story or message do you want to tell them about your fitness business and how?
In this fitness branding guide, I'll walk you along the eight key fitness marketing strategy steps to building a trusted brand.
Ready to step up your branding game?
Why Fitness Branding is Important
Once upon a time, an unknown person was scouring the internet for help with their fitness goals. They came across two fitness businesses – a gym and a personal training service.
The gym website had no visual branding and was very confusing to navigate. It felt thrown together and poorly thought through. The searcher left the website confused and untrusting about the legitimacy of the gym.
The gym website had no visual branding and was very confusing to navigate. It felt thrown together and poorly thought through. The searcher left the website confused and untrusting about the legitimacy of the gym.
On the other hand, the personal training website had clear visual communication including a brand color palette, cohesive fonts, graphics, and images. When the searcher read through the website pages, they also felt they could relate with and understand the language. It felt conversational and authentic, making them want to trust in the service.
This second website connected them to the business through visual branding, smart copywriting, and a clear brand identity and personality. The business used all of these elements and more to build a strong identity that customers can trust.
Now, this website visitor may decide to pay for a personal training session, share the website link, and more. Good fitness branding like this has many benefits including lead generation, customer retention, brand recognition, and more. Time to learn how you can reap these benefits for your fitness brand.
1. Identify Your Audience
To become a branding expert for your business, you need to know your target market. Who are your ideal customers? Who would you like to connect with? This can vary significantly depending on your business location, service offerings, and more.
To design target customer profiles, you need to get specific. Think about your ideal customers' behaviors, lifestyle, and demographic details, such as age and gender. For example, you might want to target busy mums over 25 trying to get a full workout into their day.
To design target customer profiles, you need to get specific. Think about your ideal customers' behaviors, lifestyle, and demographic details, such as age and gender. For example, you might want to target busy mums over 25 trying to get a full workout into their day.
Knowing more about your audience will help you tailor your services to them. It will also allow you to make informed branding choices like language and tone, personality, visual communication, etc.
Remember that you can have multiple customer segments. Split your target audience into smaller personas with different goals or lifestyles. This helps you better understand your audience and develop versatile messaging for different kinds of customers.
2. Find Your Mission
Next, it is important to understand yourself and what your brand is about. Define your core mission and values.
A strong mission statement tells clients what your passion is as a company and the values you bring to your clients. In other words, it's your company's reason for existing. Now that you know your client base, you can craft a mission and value statement that speaks to them and how you want to work with them.
A strong mission statement tells clients what your passion is as a company and the values you bring to your clients. In other words, it's your company's reason for existing. Now that you know your client base, you can craft a mission and value statement that speaks to them and how you want to work with them.
A strong mission statement will guide your decision-making in various business areas. It will feature significantly as you discover and build your brand identity and messaging. Determining your mission will help form future strategies for your personal training business. It will also help you reach people who care about the same ideas you do.
Your mission statement is like the foundation of all your business branding. Get it all laid down so you can build atop it.
3. Research the Competition
Your business name is one of the elements you cannot just up and change without significant upheaval. Although you can change it, it is a core branding element that matters for customer loyalty and recognition. Your brand name can tell people exactly what your fitness business is about. It is also an aspect that will echo throughout your branding – in visuals, copy, etc.
Plus, changing your name later on can confuse clients and affect brand recall.
This makes it essential to choose a name that resonates with you and your customers from the beginning. It is a key identity marker and should speak to your mission, audience, brand voice, and personality.
For a fitness business, you may also want to find a way to include a service keyword in your name. This will tell people exactly what your brand offers. For example, many personal training brands may include 'PT', 'Training', or 'Personal Trainer' in their name. It makes for quick recognition and understanding. Remember: just seven seconds!
4. Highlight Your Benefits
What can you offer to clients that nobody else can? When building a fitness brand, spotlighting the unique benefits of your fitness products or services can set you apart from the pack.
First, however, you need to know what the pack has. Learn more about fitness industry branding trends and marketing strategies. Do research into your competitors including their customer base, fitness services and products, content, and other marketing and branding elements.
The aim is not to design a brand that looks or sounds like anyone else's. It is to learn. Try to understand where your competitors stand in brand awareness, what strategies they use to attract clients, and what message their brand represents. This will help you find the characteristics that make you different.
Once you have all that information, use it to determine your unique selling proposition (USPs) and customer niche. These will become the aspects of your business branding that you spotlight in your content, visual messaging, CTAs, etc.
First, however, you need to know what the pack has. Learn more about fitness industry branding trends and marketing strategies. Do research into your competitors including their customer base, fitness services and products, content, and other marketing and branding elements.
The aim is not to design a brand that looks or sounds like anyone else's. It is to learn. Try to understand where your competitors stand in brand awareness, what strategies they use to attract clients, and what message their brand represents. This will help you find the characteristics that make you different.
Once you have all that information, use it to determine your unique selling proposition (USPs) and customer niche. These will become the aspects of your business branding that you spotlight in your content, visual messaging, CTAs, etc.
5. Love Your Logo
Time to get designing. When exploring brands, people often look to logos and other visuals first. Your logo will appear on everything that connects to your brand, from your online presence including your website and social media profiles to print materials and billboards.
Develop a distinct colour palette. You can use colour psychology to choose colour shades that inspire certain responses (such as joy or motivation) from your readers.
You'll also need to determine typography, iconography, photography styles, and web design. Together, these visual elements can help you stand out from other fitness brands. When done right, people will start to recognise your brand after seeing it 5-6 times.
6. Find Your Voice
Your audience, mission, values, and niche all merge to make up your brand identity. A memorable brand identity focuses on developing a distinct voice the audience can connect with.
Think of the voice and persona you use with your clients. How do you carry yourself and nurture trust in your relationship with them? Your digital brand identity is also about cultivating a relationship with users.
Consider tone, language, intention, mood, and more for written, visual, and audio branding. These inform and are informed by your brand voice. For example, your voice can be one or a combination of the below:
A distinct personality is another way to help you stand out from competitors. Look at your target audience, mission statement, and voice. Put those pieces together.
Think of the voice and persona you use with your clients. How do you carry yourself and nurture trust in your relationship with them? Your digital brand identity is also about cultivating a relationship with users.
Consider tone, language, intention, mood, and more for written, visual, and audio branding. These inform and are informed by your brand voice. For example, your voice can be one or a combination of the below:
- Motivating
- Authoritative
- Friendly
- Informative
- Conversational
A distinct personality is another way to help you stand out from competitors. Look at your target audience, mission statement, and voice. Put those pieces together.
A fitness brand can have a personality that's cutting-edge, high energy, fun, exclusive — anything you want! It's best when it stems from your own personality so anything you broadcast via your brand will come as second nature.
Let's say you are an introvert but a really good researcher and writer. You may focus a big chunk of your brand marketing on putting out amazing content backed by evidence. Your mission could be to inform others with an authoritative, yet friendly voice.
Determining your brand personality will help you when deciding what information to share, how to share it and how best to describe your services. Make sure the personality is authentic while still aligning with your mission. You can still learn and practice other forms of communication, but build the brand on your strengths.
7. Invest in Your Visual Identity
Your visual design elements are an essential part of a strong brand identity. When exploring brands, people often look to logos and other visual elements first. Use your brand voice, personality, and target audience to support your visual fitness branding choices.
Also, take inspiration from your favorite brands for guidance.
To create your visual brand:
Making firm decisions about these design elements promotes consistency. You can build a cohesive brand that customers become familiar with and recognize immediately.
Also, take inspiration from your favorite brands for guidance.
To create your visual brand:
- Choose your fitness brand colors and determine a distinct color palette.
- Select fixed typography choices for headings, sub-headings, paragraphs, etc.
- Decide on basic photographic styles and other iconography and graphics.
- Design your brand logo and slogan.
Making firm decisions about these design elements promotes consistency. You can build a cohesive brand that customers become familiar with and recognize immediately.
8. Keep Broadcasting Consistently
The channels you choose are also vital to how people perceive your brand. All digital channels have a primary audience and purpose. A quirky, youthful brand would be better served making social media posts for Instagram or TikTok than for LinkedIn, for example. And a blog post can serve an entirely different purpose than a paid ad.
Different marketing channels such as your blog posts, pay-per-click ads, social media platforms, and more can help you reach different business goals. They also open you up to varying audiences and grow your online presence. And your choice to use a specific channel must be informed by your mission and brand personality.
Remember, an authentic fitness brand represents who you are. That means the brand should appear in everything your clients see or hear. Choose content marketing channels where you can connect with clients.
Also, make sure all your brand stays up to date, including your business cards, letterheads, website, advertising, signage, social media, etc.
Branding Tips That Stack Up Against the Competition
With these eight tips, you can create a fitness brand like no other. Remember, you want to stand out from the crowd while speaking to your target audience. Once you bring these pieces together, you can build a brand that builds your business!
We offer a fully Managed Website service and can help you identify where your brand stands and how to present it online the most suitable and efficient way. Feel free to get in touch!
We offer a fully Managed Website service and can help you identify where your brand stands and how to present it online the most suitable and efficient way. Feel free to get in touch!
