Building your brand is never straightforward, and when you’re in an industry that deals with people’s health, it’s more important than ever that you brand yourself correctly to gain trust and repeat custom. The fitness industry is booming, with the number of people becoming personal trainers in the UK hitting its peak last year when compared over an eight-year period (2011–2018) (Statista).
While the demand for personal trainers is evident, it also means increased competition, so it’s important that you know how to market yourself effectively to stand out from the crowd. After you have started your own personal training business, the next step is marketing yourself as a personal trainer, so you can attract more customers than your competitors.
The core focus of any personal trainer’s marketing plan should be to demonstrate how much value you place on health and fitness, but you’ll also need to think outside of the box. Perhaps you are creating your personal training brand to build up people’s self-esteem, or you want to help to introduce people to new, creative ways of training to make workouts less monotonous. Whatever the reason for building your brand, it’ll pay to reflect these in any personal trainer promo pieces you design.
This could be done by incorporating clever plays on words for your brand name or strategically choosing letterforms that reflect what you’re trying to do with your brand. For example, using outlines of weights or muscles in place of letters in your logo can be effective and nod to your creative instructing style. I will be discussing logos in more detail in the following section.
A logo is one of the most important marketing elements for any business. When done well, this can attract customers and boost your business significantly. But, how do you generate personal training logo ideas that’ll be received well? As mentioned above, getting creative with letterforms and images can make you more memorable to people considering personal training, and even those who haven’t yet considered it may be drawn to your services if your logo is interesting enough.
If this is your first time creating a logo, here are some tips that’ll help you get started:
Still unsure? Our guide to logo design for small businesses has plenty of other helpful tips that’ll help you to create a winning logo. You can also check out some customizable logo templates from logo design tools like BrandCrowd.
Once you’ve decided on your niche, and thought up your logo and slogan, you’re ready to start thinking about your personal training marketing plan. There are so many ways you can market your business, and how you do so will be entirely up to you, but considering the demographics of your target customer will pay dividends.
If your business niche is focused on helping older age groups, going with more traditional means of marketing may be best. This can include hanging promotional leaflets in local shop windows or on noticeboards where you think this demographic go to socialise or shop. Additionally, any community pools, gyms or halls that encourage fitness and physical activity would also be a good place to target with these materials. It might also be a good idea to post flyers through letterboxes in the local area.
If your target customer is younger, social media may be your best bet. There are so many mediums to advertise on, and while these are primarily free to do, you can also pay to boost sponsored posts onto people’s timelines.
Whatever marketing method you choose, you’ll need to need to ensure your personal trainer promo materials cover all FAQs you expect people will ask. This includes your pitch selling your services, your experience and qualifications, the prices and session times, as well as contact details.
If you really want to generate and hold people’s interest, it’ll pay to create and give out promotional products that’ll help to make your business more memorable. If you’re attending fairs to get your brand name out there, consider handing out notepads, pens or other useful items that have your personal trainer branding on them.
Once you get sign-ups, it might also be a good idea to design clothing like training T-shirts and fleeces or even towels, gym bags and water bottles that have been branded with your logo and slogan. Not only will this be an incentive for people to join your personal training services, but when people wear or use these out and about, you’ll unlock another way of advertising your business.
It’s not always easy building a brand from scratch, especially when you are in fierce competition with other similar start-ups. Give your personal training business a boost with my top four tips for branding and marketing your fitness services and watch your clientele grow.
Author bio: John Armstrong is Director and Co-Owner of branding specialist Custom Planet.