Inbound marketing is a way to attract personal training clients to your business by creating valuable content that speaks directly to them. It helps them to solve problems that they know they’ve got with their health and fitness when they are ready to make a change.
In other words, inbound marketing aims to set-up your funnels in a way that it will be your ideal clients who will look for you and find you when they need you.
Outbound marketing, like ads, cold calls and leaflet drops, can interrupt your audience with content that they aren’t interested in and doesn’t encourage them to start a conversation with you about your personal training services. Your potential clients are exposed to so much outbound marketing in a typical day on the internet that it can be off-putting, or easily hit the wrong tone.
Both strategies have their place in a well-rounded fitness marketing plan, but inbound marketing is certainly for those that want to get a reliable and continuous flow of incoming quality leads on the long-term.
Step 1. Choose Your Inbound Marketing Channels
Inbound marketing can use a number of platforms such as social media, your website, particularly your blog and people who have opted into your email list. Then there's Search Engine Optimisation which is more of a long-term inbound marketing strategy.
However, it’s not enough just to attract people to your website - it’s about continuing to offer them support and value even before they become a paying client. The better you understand the people you are set out to serve with your fitness services, the more value you'll be able to bring to them via your inbound channels.
Step 2. Understand Your Audience
You can’t reliably and consistently bring the right clients into your personal training business until you know who you are trying to attract. If you can become extremely clear about what problems they are facing daily, then you can develop solutions for those specific problems.
You will then be in a position to engage with this audience in a way which is clear and compelling. Don’t be frightened of excluding people from your marketing. Having a narrow focus of who you are trying to attract will not damage your business.
Inbound marketing uses this idea of an ideal client avatar to write, record and develop resources for that specific person at different stages of their buyer journey.
You will then be in a position to engage with this audience in a way which is clear and compelling. Don’t be frightened of excluding people from your marketing. Having a narrow focus of who you are trying to attract will not damage your business.
Inbound marketing uses this idea of an ideal client avatar to write, record and develop resources for that specific person at different stages of their buyer journey.
Your voice will be heard more clearly among the noise of outbound marketing if you speak to your potential clients this way.
If you aren’t sure who your ideal client is, don't panic! Most personal trainers feel this way at first, that's normal. Also, it may just mean that you need to spend more time training people before you can nail your ideal client avatar. If that's the case, just be patient. Once you have enough experience, you'll have an idea about the type of client you enjoy training and the one who gets incredible results because of the level of effort they put into their sessions and listening to your advice.
Step 3. Create Content
When you first start thinking about content creation and making your inbound marketing as useful as possible, start with the perspective of the person who is going to be consuming it.
The blogs you write, the social media content you post and even the way you want potential clients to navigate around your website - keep in mind the way you think prospective clients want to use these resources.
If you want to become effective in content marketing, you will need to write, record, make, schedule and share content which your ideal client will find useful.
You will need to write or talk in such a way that uses the same language to talk about the problem that they would. You communicate with your prospects to help solve their problems on the platforms that they hang out on.
The blogs you write, the social media content you post and even the way you want potential clients to navigate around your website - keep in mind the way you think prospective clients want to use these resources.
If you want to become effective in content marketing, you will need to write, record, make, schedule and share content which your ideal client will find useful.
You will need to write or talk in such a way that uses the same language to talk about the problem that they would. You communicate with your prospects to help solve their problems on the platforms that they hang out on.
Step 4. Promote Your Content
Ever heard of the 80/20 rule of content marketing? Basically it's recommended that you spend 4 times as much time promoting your content than you spent creating it. You could write the most amazing articles but if they don't reach your target market, the time you spent on them will be wasted. So remember this. If you write one blog a week, make sure you share it via every marketing channel you use.
However, be mindful of how you promote your content. The essence of inbound marketing is that prospects come to you on their own terms. You don’t want to be spamming Facebook groups for instance, with links to your content because firstly, that’s often in breach of the rules of the group, and secondly, it becomes outbound marketing.
A more organic method, in this case, would be to hang out in those groups and provide genuine support for people. You can use your personal profile, your own website and your own email list for the “selling” part, once your audience knows you, like your content and trust that you are the right person to help them.
Step 5. Offer the Solution
When you’re at the point where your prospect wants to know more about your services, whether that’s on the sales page of your website, in your direct messages on social media or booking a call with you to find out more - you may have more success with sales if you listen more than you talk.
Your prospect is likely less interested in the methods you use than the solutions and results you can give them. So making sure that you have a thorough understanding of their needs is most simply done by listening and not interrupting them while they talk.
Inbound marketing is about crafting meaningful solutions to genuine problems that your ideal client is struggling with. This is one way that you can become an expert authority on a topic, and stay at the front of a prospect’s mind when they are ready to ask for more support. This, of course, may mean that you interact with the same person multiple times before they hire you, and that takes time.
However, the people that do end up contacting you this way are often better leads, and ready to commit to your personal training services. These prospects are often clearer about the service you provide, who you help - and who you don’t. They are likely to have already made up their minds that you’re the right person to help them with their problems, which can make the sales process smooth and quick.
Your prospect is likely less interested in the methods you use than the solutions and results you can give them. So making sure that you have a thorough understanding of their needs is most simply done by listening and not interrupting them while they talk.
Inbound marketing is about crafting meaningful solutions to genuine problems that your ideal client is struggling with. This is one way that you can become an expert authority on a topic, and stay at the front of a prospect’s mind when they are ready to ask for more support. This, of course, may mean that you interact with the same person multiple times before they hire you, and that takes time.
However, the people that do end up contacting you this way are often better leads, and ready to commit to your personal training services. These prospects are often clearer about the service you provide, who you help - and who you don’t. They are likely to have already made up their minds that you’re the right person to help them with their problems, which can make the sales process smooth and quick.
