How To Use How-To Content To Engage Your Personal Training Clients?

Creating “how-to” content for your personal trainer website is a simple and quick strategy to build authority with and engage your audience. It’s also a way to provide them with some valuable pieces of information that they can take away and apply to their own lives. This keeps your audience engaged with your website (and social media, and email marketing) because they already know you, like you and trust you as an authority on matters of health and fitness. An engaged audience is more likely to buy personal training services from you.

Why Use How To Content?

How-to content is educational, and people that are searching for “how-to” do something are actively pursuing solutions to problems they have identified. That means they are aware they have a problem, and they’re proactive in that very moment about figuring out how they need to fix it. That makes it a fantastic place to add a meaningful call to action as your reader is actively searching for a solution to an immediate pain point.

Using “How To” Headlines

How to headlines are instructive, sometimes emotional, and lead to a greater level of engagement because they are frequently shared. This allows you to reach a broader audience and bring people who are like your current audience into your world.

How to headlines don’t necessarily have to include the words “how-to”. Here are five example formulas of how you might use “how to” headlines.

•  Discover How To [Achieve The Desired Result] Without [Doing Something They Don’t Want To Do But Think They Might Have To Do]
  For example: Discover How To Achieve Washboard Abs Without Doing A Single Sit-Up
  

• [Number] Ways To [Do Something] To [Get Desired Outcome]
  For example: 3 Ways To Work Your Glutes To Get A Peachy, Perky Butt
  

• What Is The Best [Thing] That Will [Get The Desired Result]?
  For example: What’s The Best Pre Workout That Will Give Huge Pumps And Awesome Focus?
  

• Learn The Secret Of How [Authority Figure] [Does Something Amazing]
  For example: Learn The Secret Of How Arnold Really Trains On International Chest Day.
  

• How to get rid of [problem] once and for all.
  For example: How to get rid of shin splints once and for all. 

Putting the “how-to” element in the headline is likely to spark interest in your reader. This text is important in how the content is ranked for search engine optimisation, so including the words “how-to” can be useful, along with the keyword that best describes what you’re writing about.

How To Content as Lists and Questions

Listed content that includes a number performs well. Here are a few examples:

• 3 Ways To [Do Something Desirable In A Specific Timeframe]
  For example: 3 Ways To Add 30kg To Your Deadlift In 3 Months
  

• 5 Things You Must Know About [Interesting Topic]
  For example: 5 Things You Must Know About Improving Your Olympic Lifting Technique
  

• 7 Mistakes Almost Everyone Makes When [Something Your Audience Will Commonly Do]. 
  For example: 7 Mistakes Almost Everyone Makes When Going To Your First Spin Class
  

These “list-style” questions are flexible, and could just as easily apply to nutrition, or the problems faced by a specific population, such as postpartum women. 

Question content also performs well, because this is probably how your audience will search on Google. Consider wording your headline in the same way someone searching for an answer to that question would type it into Google. If you’re not sure how, go to Google and start typing your search - and suggestions will appear. 

Questions also spark curiosity in your reader and encourage them to click your title to close the “open loop” you’ve created. Asking a question where your reader is sure of their answer are the ones where they are most likely to engage with your content and click into your main article.

You might choose to post a controversial headline that is geared towards getting a reaction from your reader. If you make someone question their own personal behaviour, beliefs they hold, or something that questions their identity, they will want to click through to read your content. But this can be polarising and should be used sparingly, as people are reading specifically to confirm or disprove what you’ve said. This can be overused though, and can seem a bit “clickbait”.

How To Present Your How-To Content

How-to content tends to be educational and includes one clear call to action at the end. If you’re writing the content on your personal trainer website, clearly presenting the steps that your reader needs to take in the form of a list is a helpful way to present the content.

If you’re a skilled designer, how-to content could lend itself to an infographic or flow diagram. If you don’t yet have the budget to delegate this task to a dedicated graphic designer, you could make a simple diagram yourself for free on Canva.

If you’re better on video, how-to content can be demonstrated as a walkthrough video explaining the steps. This is especially helpful if you are trying to explain technical instructions, like how to correctly perform a movement in the gym. Videos can be stored on YouTube as “unlisted videos”, or on Vimeo.

Structuring a how-to video is very similar to how you’d structure a written article, and could even be scripted beforehand.

• Describe one problem: outline the problem someone is searching for an answer to in a clear and succinct way.
  
• Make a promise: tell the viewer what they’re going to learn by the end of the video. You’re offering a promise of a better future, without this problem in it.
  
• Explain who you are: this is going to appear in the video but not in other written forms of content. People that see your video promoted on social media, for example, might not know who you are and what sort of clients you help. Seeding this into your video shows them that you help people like them achieve solutions to problems like this.
  
• Teach one solution: give someone one actionable thing they can do to help them to solve the issue they had in the first place. Keep it simple by offering only one solution.
  
• CTA: If you were posting on social media, your call to action might be to visit your personal trainer website for more helpful tips like this one. 
  

These how-to resources make up a valuable business asset inside your personal training business than can be sent to new clients, or kept in an archive.

Finishing Your How-To Content

Whether your how-to content is written on an article on your website, or scripted into a video, you’ll need to finish with a call to action. Your call to action can vary, and need not always be the same thing. Calls to action can be very direct, or softer. Here are some examples.

• Interested in personal training services? Book a call today.
  
• Drop me a message if you’d like more information about this topic.
• Download this free checklist to help with this problem.
• Leave a comment and let me know if this was useful.
• Share this post with someone that would find it helpful.
• Like this blog post if you read it all.

Conclusion

Your how-to content is a perfect opportunity to promote a specific call to action because the people who are actively searching for that topic are looking for a solution to a problem they’re aware of. At that moment, they would be considered a warm lead. Having clear, helpful advice that they can use positions you as an expert who is able to help them. Leading them to a specific outcome with your call to action is pivotal to turn that person into an active lead, or to fully engage your existing personal training clients and potentially get some referrals from them.