Statistics suggest 97% of people will Google a local business before using it. If you’re a personal trainer who sees clients face to face in a physical location, local marketing could be a critical element in getting leads into your business.
88% of online searches for a local personal training business result in an in-person visit or a phone call within 24 hours.
What Is Local Marketing?
Local marketing is a strategy which targets potential clients within a physical radius of your personal training business. If you’re based in one local gym, your local marketing strategy might choose to target people within 5, 10 or 20 miles of that central point.
This strategy is useful for personal trainers who have a face to face business model more than online personal training businesses because where you’re located will influence a potential client’s decision to train with you.
Like all marketing, the key element will be having a clear idea of your ideal client. You might want to consider some of the following information before putting together your marketing plan:
- Geographic information: where they are located in relation to your location. This will help you to determine the radius from the gym that you want to target.
- Demographic information: their age, sex, and level of expendable income that they can invest in personal training. This will help you to make decisions about how you write about their issues in your marketing.
- Psychographic information: these include their personality traits, their aspirations and the internal elements that they think and feel.
Best Local Marketing Strategies For Personal Trainers
Here are the main strategies persona trainers can use to promote their business in their local area, build their reputation and become the go-to personal trainer.
Optimise your personal trainer website for mobile use
With more than half of the searches online happening via mobile, and Google prioritising ranking based on mobile-friendly websites, checking that your site loads seamlessly on a mobile device could be a first step in attracting local customers to your personal training business. Google has a test console to help you check.
Localise your personal trainer website
You can do this by using the name of your town on your website, making sure to keep mentioning your location consistently on your website, on social media, and in any ads you run.
You can also add a location page to your website - which could be especially if you offer personal training services in more than one gym location. You could add a Google map to help people find you. Remember to publish your business name, address and phone number to improve your ranking on search engine results pages.
Localise your advertising
This is how you can target specific audiences in your locality that would be a good match for your personal training services. You do it by adding your location to the advert listing itself. It makes your advertising consistent with your website and social media too.
Both Facebook and Google have very comprehensive local targeting options but don't forget to mention your location in your ads. They'll give your audience something to immediately relate to.
Get listed on third party directories
These websites are effectively digital foot traffic for your personal trainer business, with the most important one being Google My Business. One of the most important factors in ranking well on Google includes consistency across the internet for these pages for your name, address and phone number.
Moz Local provides a free single-click method of checking your consistency online. These listings legitimise your business presence online and improves your SEO ranking. They also fuel word of mouth referrals which is probably a personal trainer’s greatest asset.
Create local content
As a personal trainer, you’re in a position to promote local businesses. Collaborations with local eateries that have macro-friendly menus, local stores that have offers on training clothes, or supplements that your clients may be interested in, even local gatherings and events. All these things will make you part of your local community and position you as a local expert.
Localise your social media channels
There are lots of methods on social media to add local information, including location tags which link to a map in your profile and on a post and adding hashtags for your town and gym location. Social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram give you the option to add a location to your profile. In doing so, search engines will be more inclined to show your business in local searches.
Be a part of your community.
How you support your own community events will be a foundational step if you’re looking for your own community to support you in return. You could consider a charity event with your clients to build a sense of community within your clients. You could play for - or sponsor - a local sports team. You might connect with local schools or businesses to offer workshops on staying active or healthy eating.
Print & radio advertising
Using the radio, or newspaper to connect with an audience who are not yet part of a gym and might not have considered a personal trainer could help establish your status as an expert. It would also expose you to a segment of your local community you would otherwise not have access to.
Implementing any one of these could be a significant boost to the leads coming into your personal training business. Using all of them as a marketing strategy could be a powerful, maybe even viral, way of generating new business.
Implementing any one of these could be a significant boost to the leads coming into your personal training business. Using all of them as a marketing strategy could be a powerful, maybe even viral, way of generating new business.
Use printed marketing materials
Business cards, postcards and flyers are all physical things that your potential clients can hold in their hands (and pass on to other people!).
They give you the opportunity to communicate your values to people who aren’t online and you can even offer exclusive promotions with these physical products (10% off your first training session when you bring this flyer into the gym!).
Sponsor other local businesses
Help people in your community to become familiar with your personal training brand by sponsoring teams, charities and events. This gets your business name and logo in front of potentially hundreds or thousands of new potential clients.
Hold a contest or giveaway
This method combines your online audience with an in-person element. You could use social media to host a giveaway (e.g. a new personal training client care package) that is collected in person at your gym location. You could even encourage tagging, sharing or online promotion with a chance to win some personal training sessions or programmes.
Know where your clients come from
When people sign on for personal training, ask them how they found out about you. That will give you an idea of where your advertising is working well, and where you might be putting in the effort (and money!) into your advertising without much return on your investment.
Investing in local marketing when your personal training business is face to face in a physical location will likely be key to attracting new clients into your business.
Investing in local marketing when your personal training business is face to face in a physical location will likely be key to attracting new clients into your business.