Fitness Marketing Tactics That Get Overlooked.

The personal training industry has definitely seen its share of changes over the past few years. One of the biggest changes is the introduction to major fitness marketing.

Marketing is so important to any business. If customers do not have any idea of whom you are or what you do, how are you ever going to be able to generate any sales? Your customers need to know the basic information about your business to even begin having an interest in the products/services you provide.

Now, there are a few effective ways to go about this, and if you are able to embrace these techniques successfully, you will be an unstoppable fitness marketing machine.

One thing as a fitness professional that you first need to do is differentiate between advertising and fitness marketing.

Many business owners feel that the most effective way to market their business is to advertise in all of the local outlets. It is definitely a good idea to advertise; however, advertising definitely costs a lot of money.

It is hard as a fitness marketer to have tons of money to dump into an advertising budget. It is not always the best idea either because most potential customers will not pick the trainer they want to use out of an ad in the paper.

They want to meet you and make sure you are right for them. That's where the fitness marketing comes in. Market yourself. Write a newsletter, do free introductory workshops, have free workout consultations.

Fitness marketing is everything you do to get and keep clients, and get their referrals on a consistant basis.

Build yourself to be known as the local fitness expert.

Another way to be a successful fitness marketer is to consider specializing. You might be asking, "Why would I want to limit the kinds of clients I work with, that means less potential for big profits?".

Though it may sound like a bad idea, it is actually a very effective way to draw in a stream of customers who are all looking for similar things.

If you chose to train only women or only men, you would have an easier time finding where to market.

Say you chose to provide rehab services to athletes, you would not go try and advertise just anywhere would you? This list of ways to specialize is endless.

The better at fitness marketing you are, the more results you will get. You can then be known as the "local fitness expert who specializes in..." As we all know, the internet dominates any other information channel.

People use the internet for everything. The day of the standard phonebook is over - dead.

So why not take advantage as a fitness marketing expert? The easiest way is to create a website. That way, when potential customers are using Google, they will be able to search for you.

Make a site that will inform the public on the services you offer. This is another opportunity to market yourself. Use the website as a tool to show what kind of trainer you could be to the customers. Set-up an online newsletter, much like the one you were going to distribute locally.

The only difference is that this will probably cost you substantially less and you can get subscribers from anywhere. If you were bold enough, you could start up an online personal training site. That way, you could branch out and train all over the world, literally!

To be successful at fitness marketing you must think outside of the box. Switch up what you normally do. In addition to one- on-one training, add group sessions or try and start up a boot camp.

This way you can market yourself to larger groups in less time. Make it easier for yourself to collect payments.

Instead of hunting down your clients and stressing that they pay you, try and set up a system that will automatically draft the fund out of your clients account (ex. Electronic Funds Transfer).

Instead of selling single sessions to each client, set up plans where they can pay for 6 months to a whole year at time.