Many of us are uncomfortable using video to speak directly to our personal training clients and prospects. I know I am, but it’s such a quick and easy way to break down barriers and build a relationship with people that it’s one we could benefit from overcoming.
Social media has made uploading video easier than ever, with both Instagram and Facebook both offering story options. Even better, these stories stay live for only 24 hours, so the platforms give them priority in deciding what your audience sees.
If you’re able to go live on the platform, they even push people towards your content and give them notifications. This sort of exposure is hard to get from written content without putting some money behind boosting your posts, so it is worth mastering this medium - especially since so few personal trainers are willing to use it to its full potential at the moment.
1. The Video Is Still About the Story
Just like great written content communicates an emotional story for the reader to empathise with, a good video is also about the story. For a personal trainer, your client might want to see how you put together their online training programme so a video made on loom about why you’ve chosen one exercise over another can be a really powerful tool in getting them to trust your process.
It can also be used to demonstrate how to safely execute a movement in the gym - so you’re educating your clients about where they should feel the movement most. If you focus too much on the sale, it can be off-putting to your viewers. Video can communicate emotions quickly and effectively which makes it a powerful tool in growing your business.
It can also be used to demonstrate how to safely execute a movement in the gym - so you’re educating your clients about where they should feel the movement most. If you focus too much on the sale, it can be off-putting to your viewers. Video can communicate emotions quickly and effectively which makes it a powerful tool in growing your business.
You can record video from your smart phone - you don’t need a fancy camera, tripod or lighting. Camera quality on smart phones is incredible so before you begin, get familiar with your camera: how to switch from photo to video, how to start and stop recording, have a short tester video to make sure your recording is picking up your audio.
2. The First 5 to 10 Seconds
The first 5 to 10 seconds will be vital in communicating with your clients what the video will be about. Be sure to communicate expectations from the outset and don’t take too long to get to the point. If you can spark curiosity in your viewer in the first 10 seconds, you’ll be more likely to keep them hooked for the rest of the video.
Communicating the value of the video - what you’re offering, what they can expect etc. will convey to your audience why they should keep watching. Videos have a high bounce rate when they fail to capture attention in the first few seconds so try to bring your energy and focus to that opening 10 seconds.
If you can go hands free while recording and free up both your hands it helps you to speak more naturally to the camera. Being able to gesticulate a little bit can help you to feel more natural and relaxed.
3. Let Your Personality Come Through
Video is a fantastic medium for allowing your prospective clients to see what you’re really like. Although you might feel uncomfortable about being on camera, try to relax and allow your sense of humour to come through in the video.
If you’re not a naturally funny person, you don’t have to try to force humour. But allowing your own personality to shine will be a brilliant way for your clients to know what they’re getting when they buy into you - people invest in personal trainers, not training.
If you’re not a naturally funny person, you don’t have to try to force humour. But allowing your own personality to shine will be a brilliant way for your clients to know what they’re getting when they buy into you - people invest in personal trainers, not training.
Remember that there’s no expectation to be perfect. Using stories that only last 24 hours can be a low-risk way to get used to video, as they are quite casual and no one expects them to be highly polished.
You can even record every single day for practice, and then not upload anything for a week or so until you’re used to what you look and sound like on camera. No one needs to know how many takes you’ve had to practice!
4. Optimising For SEO
If you’re hosting your video on your own domain you can tag it to optimise for SEO. If you also allow it to be embedded, it increases the likelihood of other people finding your personal training website through the video and seeing what other services you have to offer.
Take your time on the SEO as this is the part which allows Google to properly decipher the content and return it to people looking for that sort of content. It’s also what determines how your video gets indexed on the web, so taking some time to describe thoroughly it can lead to a really successful video.
Use relevant keywords, and write descriptions and unique titles. The rule of thumb is that if there’s a box for it, it will help your Google ranking, so try not to leave these blank.
Take your time on the SEO as this is the part which allows Google to properly decipher the content and return it to people looking for that sort of content. It’s also what determines how your video gets indexed on the web, so taking some time to describe thoroughly it can lead to a really successful video.
Use relevant keywords, and write descriptions and unique titles. The rule of thumb is that if there’s a box for it, it will help your Google ranking, so try not to leave these blank.
5. Educate and Entertain Your Clients
Both educational content and entertainment content will be relevant for your personal training clients. If all you ever do is educate, you become dry or preachy. If all you ever do is joke around and can’t be serious, they might see you as a clown and may feel reluctant to invest some money in your services.
Education might be well done in the form of a live video where you pick a topic and speak for up to 10 minutes about that. You could invite questions from clients or people who are interested and interacting on your content and answer then live.
Videos can also create social proof for your audience. If you have a willing client that is happy to be interviewed about their personal training experience with you it can be a powerful marketing tool.
Education might be well done in the form of a live video where you pick a topic and speak for up to 10 minutes about that. You could invite questions from clients or people who are interested and interacting on your content and answer then live.
Videos can also create social proof for your audience. If you have a willing client that is happy to be interviewed about their personal training experience with you it can be a powerful marketing tool.
You could chat live via Zoom which gives the option to record the video with the consent of your partner. This could then be edited down using free software such as iMovie to be saved to your site. Not to mention that when needed, you can use a video chat or conference software like Zoom to hold virtual personal training sessions and create a service around them, like our client, Aidan D'Arcy.
Bonus Tip: Repurposing Your Content
Video is hugely powerful because it can act as a ‘pillar’ of content that you can repurpose.
That Zoom video you recorded with your client can be uploaded to YouTube, Facebook or any other platform you use. Here are a few ideas:
While video is a bigger time investment initially, you can use the content from that video for other platforms and reuse it over and over again.
That Zoom video you recorded with your client can be uploaded to YouTube, Facebook or any other platform you use. Here are a few ideas:
- The video can be stripped of it’s audio and made into a podcast shared on multiple platforms automatically (Spotify, pocket casts, Apple podcasts etc) with Anchor.
- You can take the main points that you talk about and write them into an extended article that you keep on your blog - or pay for this transcription service via Rev.com (there’s free transcription with Otter.ai but it is less accurate).
- You can summarise it and use it for content with your email audience. Maybe even giving them early bird access in order to incentivise them to join the list.
- You can take single sentences out of it to make into Instagram stories (using free software like Canva) or tweets to promote the video.
While video is a bigger time investment initially, you can use the content from that video for other platforms and reuse it over and over again.
