how to create your fitness business marketing...

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HOW TO CREATE YOUR FITNESS BUSINESS MARKETING PLAN

Contents The Fit Pro's Guide To Creating Your Best Marketing Plan Ever ......................................................................... 4

Goal Setting ................................................................................................................................................................... 5

Lead Acquisition Methods ......................................................................................................................................... 7

Plan & Execute .............................................................................................................................................................. 9

Follow Up ..................................................................................................................................................................... 10

Tracking ........................................................................................................................................................................ 13

Your Biggest Benefit... ............................................................................................................................................. 14

Developing Your Marketing Strategy ....................................................................................................................... 16

Focused Marketing: Finding Your Ideal Client ....................................................................................................... 23

Creating Your Ideal Client ........................................................................................................................................ 24

Knowing is half the battle… .................................................................................................................................... 25

How do you use it? ................................................................................................................................................... 26

A Focused Growth Plan ........................................................................................................................................... 26

Create a Marketing Message in 6 Steps ................................................................................................................. 28

Step 1: Identify Your Ideal Client ........................................................................................................................... 28

Step 2: Identify Your Ideal Client’s Biggest Problem ....................................................................................... 29

Step 3: Features, Benefits and Stand Out Stats............................................................................................... 29

Step 4: Know Why Your Client Buys .................................................................................................................... 30

Step 5: Research Your Competition ..................................................................................................................... 30

Step 6: Create Your Differentiators ...................................................................................................................... 31

Your Positioning Statement Formula .................................................................................................................. 31

The Triple A Marketing Method For Fitness Businesses .................................................................................... 32

Evaluate your Assets ............................................................................................................................................... 32

Develop Your Arsenal ............................................................................................................................................... 33

Your Action Plan ........................................................................................................................................................ 34


Evaluate, Examine and Optimize .......................................................................................................................... 35

Summary ..................................................................................................................................................................... 36

Should You Offer A Trial? ............................................................................................................................................. 37

Building A Strong Business: How to create an effective marketing plan by focusing on your Core Offer............................................................................................................................................................................................. 41

Strengthen Your Core (Offer) ................................................................................................................................. 41

The Power of Focus .................................................................................................................................................. 43

When Should You Add Programs? ....................................................................................................................... 44

The Challenges ........................................................................................................................................................... 46

A Stronger Marketing Plan (and Business) ........................................................................................................ 46

Put It To Action… ....................................................................................................................................................... 47


Chapter 1: The Fit Pro's Guide To Creating Your Best Marketing Plan Ever

Sometimes the best plans are simple. But, is that true for marketing as well?

If you follow many of the top marketing experts out there or read about marketing you may think

that the only way to add clients to your business is a complex marketing funnel that requires you

to learn how to build sites, write crazy long email campaigns and be an analytics nerd (for all the

analytics nerds we love you!).

Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, you can grow your fitness business quickly with

lots of different tactics, many of which aren’t online.

Before we get into the “how to” you need to understand what goes into a marketing plan.

A marketing plan is different than your strategy. Your strategy dictates your plan and includes

your Core Offer (what you’re selling), your Prospect Profiles (who you are marketing to) and

your Local Market Positioning (why your target market should choose you).


Without determining your strategy you can’t create the most effective plan. The strategy helps you stay pointed in the right direction and allows you to make decisions on what methods to use and the messaging to use in them.

Your marketing plan is composed of the following:

• Goals • Lead Acquisition Methods • Execution • Follow Up • Tracking

Those five areas make up 80% of your marketing actions. The rest of your actions will be determined by your plan and your goals.

Goal Setting

Setting goals can be arbitrary if you don’t know what to measure in the first place. Often times you set outcome based goals, which are usually the most important to you and your business.

However, identifying and setting goals for a few key leading indicators will improve your success rate with your marketing. Leading indicators are things that will predict a future result.

They tell you “when X happens then Y should happen.” For example when we get 20 leads we usually have 5 clients sign up in the next month.

These leading indicators help you evaluate your future progress and make sure that you aren’t just focused on the end result which you can’t control if you’re not doing enough work on the front end.

There are 4 metrics in sales and marketing to start tracking. We call them the 4 Sales and Marketing Pillars :


1. Leads 2. New Front End Offer Clients 3. New Core Offer Clients 4. Retention

These 4 metrics will help you identify any bottlenecks in your marketing plan and where to spend more time and energy if you want to really ramp things up.

Here are some examples:

Revenue Goals: If you want to add $10,000 to your current monthly revenue you need to take $10,000 divide by your average client value.

New Revenue Goal / Average Client Monthly Value = Total New Clients Needed

This doesn’t account for any lost revenue so if you know you total client number and your retention number you can figure out the extra you will have to make up…

(Total Client Number X (1-Retention Rate)) X Average Client Monthly Value = Lost Revenue

You can do this for any period of time to set your goals. We teach our coaching clients to do this quarterly.

You can now reverse engineer your marketing goals to be able to hit the TOTAL NEW CLIENTS NEEDED number to reach your goal of adding in $10,000/mo of revenue.

If you need 50 new clients to hit that goal in the next quarter you likely need to be able to get 100 Front End Offer Clients and 200 Leads.


To be as accurate as possible it’s helpful to know your conversion percentages from Lead to New Core Offer Client, Lead to New FEO Client, and New FEO Client to New Core Offer Client.

Now you can set up your marketing calendar and plan to be able to get to 200 leads or whatever number your business needs to hit your goals.

Don’t be overwhelmed with all the math and tracking. If you’ve been tracking these numbers you can do the math pretty easily. If you haven’t give yourself a conservative estimate and start tracking now so you can dial it in in the future.

Lead Acquisition Methods

Now that you have goals it’s time to start figuring out where to get the lead to hit them.

This is another area where process goals and leading indicators come in handy. Marketing activities should be tracked and performance recorded. Focus your energy on doing the simple stuff really well each day and the leads will come.

Also don’t confuse the activities that get you leads with promotions. Running a promotion is a great way to get leads but you still have to market that promotion.


The easiest way to get started is define your 3 marketing channels. I recommend having an online, offline and internal channel in the works at all times.


Online

• Social Media • Paid Ads • Email Marketing • SEO • Yelp

Offline

• Joint Ventures • Networking • Direct Mail • Workshops/Public Speaking • Charity Events • Public Relations/Media • Business of The Month

Internal

• Point of Sale Referrals • Bring A Friend • Referral Rewards Programs • Referral Contests • Family/Group Programs


Having at least one activity in each channel active at all times will ensure that you are doing enough to proactively market your business.

Don’t hold back if you have more than 3 marketing channels though! Three is your minimum.

There are hundreds of lead generation methods that you can use in your business. Start by sticking to your strengths. Use your marketing strategy to guide your decisions.

Think about how your target market wants to be communicated with, where you can get your message in front of them and the best ways to get them to take the next step with your business.

Plan & Execute

The best plan in the world is worthless unless you execute it! The easiest way to execute your marketing plan is to create a marketing calendar.

In your marketing calendar you need to include daily and weekly activities to attract new leads. Then mix in some themed marketing around holidays or larger promotions.

Great marketers will use their calendar to build interest and get exposure for one of their promotions. You’ll see the biggest return when you can use your daily and marketing activities to promote your upcoming challenge or big marketing event.


This allows you to not only streamline your efforts (making it easier on you) but to really reinforce your message with your target market.

If you don’t have an active promotion going right now your goal is for your marketing to all have a call to action. The call to action is inviting someone to take the next step with you which could be your Success Session (consult) or signing up for your Front End Offer.

Finding a purpose for each marketing activity that you do will help you become more effective as well.

When you write, post on social media, network or ask for referrals you have a singular purpose for each of those activities. Instead of doing them and hoping for SOME result go into them by setting the expectation of getting ONE result.

A blog post can lead to a Success Session request, a FB ad leads to an email opt in, a networking event leads to a joint venture connection, a speaking event leads to 5 new consults, etc.

Simply having a purpose for each marketing activity will make you more effective!

Follow Up


Most fit pros stop their marketing efforts after they get a leads info. Or they only get the “gimme” leads that are from referrals, word of mouth or that reach out to request a consult.

When you get more effective at marketing and really want to grow your business you’ll start attracting more leads that aren’t quite ready to buy yet. They may request a little info, join your newsletter list or show up for a workshop. Them not being ready to join right now DOES NOT mean that they will never be ready. It also doesn’t mean they are bad leads, tire kickers or lazy.

It simply means you haven’t quite shown them the value in what you provide yet and that what you offer will help them solve a problem they have.

Putting a simple follow up process in place will benefit your marketing greatly. You’re spending valuable time, energy, and even money on leads. You might as well make the most of each on you get.

Mix in email, phone calls, and texts to your follow up process.

While a lot of the follow up can be automated don’t rely on it solely. Pick up the phone and call or text leads as you get them. Quick story…


Recently I was trying to find a moving company to move into our new house. I’m a prime customer for these companies. I’m busy and willing to pay to have someone deal with this stuff so I don’t have to. And I have some disposable income to pay for it.

I filled out forms or quote requests on at least 5 sites. I read some reviews ahead of time as well. Of the 5 or so companies that I requested a quote from only 1, that’s right ONLY ONE, replied back with a personal email and then called me.

The others sent a generic form to me with a low ball quote.

The owner that called me set up a time to come to my house, meet with my wife and do an assessment of our house to give us the most accurate quote possible.

Needless to say I didn’t even entertain the other companies despite the fact that their quotes were anywhere from 20-33% less than this company. I hired the guy on the spot.

For a service that’s worth quite a bit to his company he took the extra step to build value with me and won the deal. Are you doing the same for your clients? I’m guessing they spend just about as much with you over the course of their time with your business as I will with this moving company.

You may need to do a little more than call and set up a consult to stand out. This moving company can do that because their competition is only sending out automated quotes. Your competition is likely doing free consults or trials. So what value can you offer in your follow up.?


Document a simple 3-4 step follow up process and add it to your marketing. You’ll thank me later.

Tracking

Marketing can be a lot of work. If you’re going invest that time, energy and money into your business (and you MUST) then you need to know if it’s working.

That means tracking and measuring. You need to be tracking the basics in your business.

Our coaching clients are all required to fill out a tracking sheet for their leads and complete a marketing calendar so that as coaches we can see what’s working and what needs to be adjusted.

Without tracking you’re simply guessing. Tracking helps you:

• Figure out what’s working • Know where to invest your time and money if you have a limited amount • Determine if you’re on track to hit your goals

Start by tracking your 4 Sales and Marketing Pillars. Don’t worry about tracking specific activities until you are tracking these.

Once you’ve got the basics down you can start to add tracking things like conversion percentages, revenue added, lead channel performance, etc.


Your Biggest Benefit...

There are lots of benefits to having a great marketing plan. One of the biggest is that it allows you to strategically optimize and prioritize your marketing.

You’ll know what works, what doesn’t. You can evaluate what is worth doing more of, what’s worth trying to improve and what to quit doing.

It means the end of being frustrated because you didn’t hit your new revenue goals. You can stop being frustrated that your marketing isn’t working and start focusing on finding ways to make it work.

It’s the difference in your clients have a training and nutrition plan to hit their fitness goals or

doing random workouts and not following a nutrition protocol. Their chances of success go up

greatly when they have a plan to follow.

You don’t leave your clients success to chance so why would you leave your business growth to

chance?

Getting started with your plan is easy. Set your goals, find your 3 lead channels, put together

your marketing calendar, and start tracking.

The plan doesn’t have to be perfect when you start. You’ll learn how to improve it as you go.


Chapter 2: Developing Your Marketing Strategy

“I don’t have enough clients…” It’s the #1 problem most trainers mention when I speak with them. (There are usually a few others below the surface!) So, how do you fix it? Getting clients means you need more leads, which means that you need to improve your marketing strategy. In our Fitness Business Alignment System™ your marketing strategy is composed of 3 key parts:

• Defining Your Core Offer™…The What • Identifying Your Ideal Client™...The Who • Local Marketing Positioning™....The Why

The first step is identifying what you're best at delivering (The What). This is usually the service you can build your business around and it focuses on the results you're helping clients get with your program. It might seem a little backwards to try and figure out what you’re offering when planning your marketing strategy. But, it’s incredibly important to know where you want your leads and prospects to end up so you know how to attract them. Always start with ‘The What’ or ‘Defining Your Core Offer™’ as we call it in the Fitness Business Alignment System (FBAS). This holds true even if you that feel as though you have an established program or service. Take a


good look at what you're offering and make sure it’s the best one for you to build your business around. Once you know what you are marketing you can start to work on ‘The Who’. This is all about creating a character and their story. In FBAS talk it’s ‘Creating Your Ideal Client™’. Stop for a second! Don’t get in too big of a hurry to simply identify your target market… …that’s a mistake that most people make when going through this process. You need to dig in deep and understand everything there is to know about your Ideal Client. I’m talking about their characteristics, habits, wants, needs, struggles and even info about their fictitious family. Go into as much detail as possible and then go a little deeper with it.

• Be so detailed you could give this guy a face! • Be so detailed you could give this guy a face! • You ought to know your Ideal Client like you know your best friend 🙂

The next step is to create a story for them and start giving your Ideal Client an identity. They're kind of like your business imaginary friend… This actual person might not exist but it should represent the person that you could envision walking into your business tomorrow and being your Ideal Client. This exercise seems a bit silly at first but it’s worth it in the long run! Once you know everything there is to know about your Ideal Client you’ll know exactly how to attract them and where to find them. See how this is all coming together now?


Finally, you need to answer one question… Why should your Ideal Client choose you over your competition? When you can answer this really well you’ll have no issue bringing in clients, because you’ll be able to clearly and simply communicate the answer to ‘why you?’. The answer is the advantages that you have in your marketplace and the things that make you the best fit for your Ideal Client. To get things started think about what you do better than everyone else and what proof you have to back it up. Do you get a specific result? Do you have lots of testimonials or a success rate? Do you have a unique way to deliver your service? There are endless possibilities. Your differentiators don't have to be unique individually, but when you put them all together it should make your business stand out to your Ideal Client. It helps to research your competition, understand how they are marketing their services and identify what your Ideal Clients are really looking for when they make a purchase. A lot of times what your clients want isn’t the actual result, it’s a feeling they get from achieving it. I want you to go back and read that sentence again…it’s powerful. Make your business stand out by clearly connecting the powerful feelings your clients will get when they achieve their desired result with what you are offering them. Seriously! If all you take away this post is that one lesson you’ll be better for it.


Now that you’ve started nailing down the big picture strategy let’s look at why most marketing plans fail.

• No one noticed it • It didn’t connect with the right people • People tried it but didn’t keep using it • People like it but didn’t tell anyone about it

Fairly straightforward… Knowing at which point your marketing failed can help you understand how to make your next plan even better. In fact, very few plans knock it out of the park on the first try. I like to use the cycle of “test, track, optimize, repeat” to refine marketing strategies. Let’s start looking at why someone may not notice your marketing. The direct answer is that it didn’t stand out enough to them. People are bombarded with thousands of marketing messages throughout the day. Nearly everywhere you go you’re getting pelted with marketing. So, how do you make it stand out? That’s where knowing The What, Who and Why come in handy! When you’ve documented those you know the end point for your marketing, you know who to talk to and where to find them, and you can create message that stands out to them. To get your marketing noticed you need to:

• Put it in the right places

• Connect with the right people

• Stand out with the right message

• Some may argue it’s all about timing, but I would counter that if you know your Ideal

Client well enough and have strong enough differentiators you can create the right time.


How do you overcome the problem of your message or marketing not connecting with the right people? Simple, go back to The Who and make sure you’ve been specific enough. Do you know everything there is to know about your Ideal Client? If so, you should be able to start working on messages that will connect with them and you’ll know exactly where to find the right people so it stands out. There are always people looking for what you have to offer. I’ll trust that you have a great service, if you have doubts then that should be priority #1. So, why do people try and not buy? There could be hundreds of reasons but usually it all comes down to the fact that they didn’t see enough value in what you offered to stay around. You didn’t WOW them enough or they weren’t the right type of client for you. This can be where things get tricky. It’s easy to pass the blame to someone else and say they weren’t a good fit. But, I want you to take an honest look at the service you’re delivering to make sure it’s extraordinary and that you're really delivering on your promises. You don’t need to convert all the people that try you out, but you can’t afford to lose those those that fit your Ideal Client profile. The best fitness businesses grow by making sure they keep those people around and turn them into raving fans. You do that by holding up your end of the deal and coming through on all the things you promised in your marketing message. Think about it…


When was the last time you didn’t continue being a customer of someone that met (or better exceeded) your expectations based on their promises. Don't set expectations you can't meet. Finally we have to figure out what to do about those people that try your programs, buy into it, but they just aren’t referring their friends. This can be the toughest nut to crack! The first step is knowing your client’s comfort level with sharing their story. Your best referring clients are one’s that have not only achieved a result but those that are proud enough to tell their friends. You can set the stage for this by raving about your client accomplishments and showering them with praise when they hit a goal. Do this in as many ways as possible including highlights or features on your site, YouTube video testimonials, and even giving them special shirts or gear to wear. Why? Because it gives them the chance to share their story (and promote your business) via lots of different channels. Fitness is a tough sell for you as the fitness pro, so imagine how tough it is for your clients to sell their friends. You're overcoming lots of obstacles when asking for referrals… The client has to be comfortable telling their story The client has to be comfortable recommending their friend get help to reach their fitness goal. The client has to worry about being ‘preachy’ or ‘judgmental’ to their friends.


They may not want to share their secret to success with friends. The list goes on and on! Figure out what those obstacles and objections are for your clients and then you can start working on making it easier for them to refer. When you truly have an extraordinary service that meets your Ideal Client’s needs better than any other in your local market your clients will talk about you! They might not directly refer their friends, but they will rave about your business, the workout, their results, their ‘gym’ friends/family, the fun they have, your special events, etc. Find ways to make sure your clients are talking about your business with everyone they know. The first step is providing an extraordinary experience, which is why we always start with ‘The What’!


Chapter 3: Focused Marketing: Finding Your Ideal Client If you have a marketing plan but don’t have a clear focus on your target you’re leaving your growth to chance. And in an industry that’s getting more competitive you can’t afford to leave anything to chance.

Just being great at what you do isn’t enough anymore. Your clients don’t care about your certifications, your fancy assessment techniques or the advanced program design methods you use. They ONLY care about getting the results they want!

You need to use your marketing to tell a story. That story is all about how you can help your target market and Ideal Client get the results they want. I’ve covered the stages of a buyer's journey in a previous post. It’s important that you keep that buyers journey in mind when you are crafting this story.

You’ll want to make sure that your marketing is set up to move someone through those stages and that starts with having a deep understanding of your Ideal Client.

But, before we talk about finding your ideal client and discovering how to market to them we need to understand the difference between your target market and your ideal client.

It’s important to know both, because you aren’t going to only attract your ideal client into your business. Your goal is to build the foundation of your business around them, but you’ll also have clients that are less than ideal for your business but still interested in getting the results you are offering and clients that are top of the pyramid, think of your perfect clients.

http://frnation.com/your-buyers-journey/


Perfect clients are few and far between, and we often refer to them as brand lovers internally here at FR.

While you may think you have a dialed in core offer, it’s easy to miss a few critical steps that could refine it further to give you the focus you need and awareness of the programs you’re building your business around.

Too many trainers out there are offering 3-5 different services to clients trying to attract them all and by doing that they are struggling.

When you get your Core Offer right you’ll know the results you’re best at delivering, the programs you love running, how you best get those results, and what program will be best for building your business around. That will help you narrow your focus to a target market. An age range, result type, etc.

But we need more focus than that if you want to create a laser focused marketing plan!

Creating Your Ideal Client

One of the very first exercises that we take someone through when they join our coaching program is to help them create a marketing strategy. That includes the Define Your Core Offer™, Creating Your Ideal Client™ and Local Market Positioning™ Tools in our coaching system.

It’s critical if you want to have success with your marketing over the long haul. Sure, you could run a few campaigns and see some success through luck, but I’d much rather have a plan that I know works instead of risking it on chance…

Wouldn’t you?


Remember as you go through this process that you’re not creating your Perfrect Client, you need to describe your Ideal Client. There’s one important thing to consider when going through this exercise….

...this is what your Ideal Client is like BEFORE they start working with you, not what keeps them in your programs.

Knowing is half the battle…

The GI Joes knew what was up :) If you grew up in the 80’s you probably get my reference, if not well that’s okay too.

You need to know your Ideal Client extremely well. We go as far as giving them a name and creating a profile for them complete with a picture.

It sounds a little creepy but that’s what it takes to stay focused with your marketing.

To create this Ideal Client as yourself the following questions:

1. Where do they live? 2. What are their characteristics/traits? 3. Where do they spend their free time? 4. Do they have a family? 5. What is their income? Employment? 6. What are their goals? 7. What’s important to them?

Those are just a few of the questions that we have you go through when you are creating your Ideal Client.


From there you start to build out their profile and create what looks like a bio or stat sheet for this person. Again, it’s complete with a fake name and picture.

The most specific you can get the better off you’ll be when you begin to implement your marketing plan.

How do you use it?

Using the Ideal Client profile can be a little tricky. Now that you have all this info what do you do with it?

Well, for starters it’s only 1 of the 3 key pieces of our marketing strategy. You still need to go through the process of Defining Your Core Offer™ and Local Market Positioning™ tools to have the complete picture.

Until you can get those done you can still make some progress! Now that you know who your Ideal Client is, what they are looking for and where they are spending extra time and money you can start seeking out marketing channels that will put your marketing materials in front of them more frequently. That could mean joint ventures or other businesses, social media channels, or media. You’ll also be able to craft a marketing message that will attract your Ideal Client because you’ll know how to speak to them and what’s important to them based on the goals they want to achieve.

Just those to two steps will make your marketing more effective.

A Focused Growth Plan


You’ve just discovered and incredibly focused marketing plan to grow your business. It’s funny how this focused plan will actually help you attract more of your target market as well. When you get your messaging down and it’s specific to your Ideal Client you’ll be able to cut through all the marketing noise out there and your message will stand out.

It’s like writing your marketing in bright, neon colors when everyone else is using gray, white and black for theirs.

Spending some time to work through these exercises will help you gain clarity and focus that will lead to faster business growth.


Chapter 6: Create a Marketing Message in 6 Steps

Do you know how to speak to your prospects in a way that attracts them?

Can you easily convey why YOUR BUSINESS is the right one for them?

There is an art to crafting a great marketing message for your business. At Fitness Revolution we’ve created a simple formula to help you out and wrapped it up into what we call your Local Marketing Positioning™.

The goal of your Local Market Positioning threefold:

1. Differentiate your business from the competition 2. Address important client buying criteria 3. Articulate key service characteristics

Let’s walk through creating your own Local Market Positioning and bring it all together by creating a Positioning Statement (your marketing message) for your business.

Step 1: Identify Your Ideal Client

Before you create a message you need to know who you are trying to attract. Many experts will talk about a target market or niche market, but I like to get much more specific so that I can speak directly to one person.

Narrowing your focus will help you really get inside the head of your prospects so that you can understand their wants, needs, fears and emotions.


Step 2: Identify Your Ideal Client’s Biggest Problem

Knowing your Ideal Client’s goals is key to creating a great Positioning Statement. It goes well beyond the surface level goals like losing weight as well. Think about the feelings that your Ideal Client wants to have by reaching their goals. Those feelings are going to provide you with a lot of powerful info when creating your Positioning Statement.

Once you know what your Ideal Client wants figure out what their biggest obstacles are to accomplishing their goals. This helps with the next step…

Step 3: Features, Benefits and Stand Out Stats

Now that you know who your Positioning Statement needs to attract it’s time to start piecing together the info you need to convey to them. This includes the key features of your program, the benefits it provides your clients and key stats that help you stand out from everyone else.

Features are the characteristics of your service. They could be the number of days per week your train someone, how you deliver your service (group vs private), the types of equipment or training that you do, etc.

They are what your product IS but not what truly sells your program to your prospects.

Benefits are what your service does for your clients. They help answer the question “What’s in it for me?”

Here’s a quick example…

Feature: 60 Minute Small Group Training Sessions 3x Per week


Benefits: Individualized help from a trainer to ensure you’re doing everything right and you don’t have to worry about injuring yourself or making quick progress. Great results in just 180 minutes per week so you aren’t spending all your free time in the gym.

Finally, make a list of all the stats, awards or recognition that you’ve received as a business. This includes stand out results from clients, “Best of” awards from your community or any other recognition that helps you stand out from everyone else.

Examples:

• Best of TOWN 5 years in a row • Our typical client loses 10 lbs in their first 60 days • #1 in 5 Star Reviews on Yelp • First Boot Camp in TOWN • Finalist for FR Trainer of the Year 2015

Step 4: Know Why Your Client Buys

Buying criteria are critical to your positioning statement. Understanding what your client needs to know before making a purchase can help you address those things quickly and easily.

These may or may not connect directly to the benefits or feature of your program. When identifying your Ideal Client’s buying criteria think about what matters to them.

The best way to get this info is to interview your clients, but remember to ask them what info they needed prior to becoming a client. The reason they stay with you is different from the reason they decided to start working with you.

You can also ask your prospects a simple question “What’s most important to you?”

Step 5: Research Your Competition


You don’t need to let your competition dictate how you run your business, but a great business owner is aware of their competition.

Go out and determine your top 3-5 competitors, the price range they sell their services and their positioning in the market. This information will help you see where you stand out and how to position your business against theirs to attract better clients.

Step 6: Create Your Differentiators

Now that you’ve taken an assessment of your business it’s time to put a list of your differentiators together. The sweet spot here is 3-5 differentiators.

Each individual differentiator may not be unique to your business, but together the list should clearly make you stand out from your competition and resonate with your Ideal Client.

Your Positioning Statement Formula

“For (Ideal Client/Target Market) that (Needs/Wants Goal) (Business Name) is a (Category/Solution) that (Biggest Benefit) by (Unique Differentiator) .”

Example:

For busy men that want to turn back the clock and rediscover their athleticism Fitness Revolution is a personal training program that allows them to feel 10 years younger in 180 minutes a week or less by providing them an individualized workout program and nutrition plan that fits their lifestyle.


Chapter 7: The Triple A Marketing Method For Fitness Businesses

When you started your personal training career you didn’t know that you would have to be a good marketer to survive. But, you quickly find out that you have to promote your services and get new clients if you want to be able to pay the bills.

Luckily, there’s a method for uncovering your hidden marketing strengths. And, yes, you have marketing strengths :)

It’s called the AAA (Triple A) method. It’s about Assets, Arsenal and Action.

This exercise will help you evaluate your strengths as a marketer, even if you don’t think you have any!

Evaluate your Assets

Look at your business, your team and yourself to determine what assets you have to use in your marketing.

Here are some ideas:

Unique ability to network

• A valuable network in your community • Enjoy public speaking • Copywriting skills • Money to spend on marketing • Technology skills (building web pages) • FB following


• Email List

Take an inventory of all the assets available to you and include your team members if you have them.

Once you have your list, prioritize the top 3-5 strengths that you plan leverage to enhance your marketing.

Develop Your Arsenal

Now that you have your Assets documented and prioritized you can develop your Arsenal. Your arsenal will be the marketing weapons you use to go out and attack your market. That sounds a little aggressive, but in reality you’re out there competing for clients from all the other trainers in your area. You need good weapons!

Your arsenal should be made up of specific ways that you will move people along your marketing funnel. That could be FB ads if you have a budget, public speaking if you enjoy that, or even networking if you have a solid network.

You can break down your arsenal into 4 tiers that align with the marketing strategy of getting someone to Know, Like, Trust, Try, Buy, Repeat and Refer:

• Tier 1 (Know) • Tier 2 (Like) • Tier 3 (Trust) • Tier 4 (Try)


Tier 1 - FB Ads to a Free Workshop

Tier 2 - Deliver a high value workshop

Tier 3 - Provide a free meeting to connect (Success Session)


Tier 4 - Offer your FEO

In Tier 1 you want to use marketing that will appeal to your target market and speak to their specific needs and wants. It’s about bringing awareness to the problem they have or issues they need solved. It’s important that you gain the prospect’s attention here and it’s where using specific phrases and images that resonate with your target market.

In Tier 2 you want to use marketing that nurtures the relationship and helps the prospect discover some possible solutions for their problem and you mix in your specific marketing message to differentiate your business.

In Tier 3 you will move the conversation along a little bit and offer them a chance to sit down with you to create a plan for their success. This is about getting your target market to raise their hand and express interest. By setting yourself up as an expert and providing value they will begin to trust you.

In Tier 4 you want to provide them a low barrier to entry offer or FEO to introduce them to your solution to their problem. To make this effective you create a name for your FEO that specifically solves the biggest problem your target market has and overcomes their biggest objections.

Using this method for marketing you can add a ton of value and establish your expertise while speaking directly to your target market.

Every message you send out, every ad you run and the name of every FEO should align with your target market and help them either understand their problem better, make them aware of ways to improve or speak directly to their immediate needs.

Your arsenal should utilize the assets that you identified earlier. The above example is how I might approach it, but your arsenal might be completely different.

Your Action Plan


It’s time to get your marketing out there!

Don’t feel like you have to do everything. Use your Ideal Client profile to understand where you have the best chance to get your message in front those people and what types of marketing might appeal to them the most. Pick 3-5 things from your list of marketing arsenal weapons and focus on utilizing those.

Then build your marketing calendar out with these in mind and focus on meeting the needs of your target market.

Once your marketing calendar is built out you can focus on taking action and getting leads.

Evaluate, Examine and Optimize

It’s important that your marketing message is consistent and appeals to your target market.

Here are some areas to evaluate:

• Name of your Core Offer • Name of your FEOs • Contests you run • Your website images and message • Your website URL • Blog posts • Email marketing messages • Testimonials • FB Business Page • Social media posts • Your opt in offers • Your network • Joint ventures • Your logo


All of these should align and speak directly to your target market and convey your unique marketing message..

Summary

Don’t get caught up in deploying random marketing campaigns any longer. Break down your marketing and make it simple by building off a solid foundation and deploying a focused marketing plan.

The energy you put into this will not only save you time in the future by helping to filter the marketing you need to be doing, but it will allow you to focus your marketing and it will produce better results.


Chapter 8: Should You Offer A Trial? There’s nothing new about offering a trial or test drive program for your personal training or group training programs at this point. Nearly everyone is doing something. At Fitness Revolution we even teach it as a part of your sales and marketing strategy. We call these programs Front End Offers (FEO). They are designed to be a low barrier to entry experience for potential clients that may be on the fence about joining your regular program (we call it your Core Offer).

Trouble is many business owners are relying on the Front End Offer to sell their programs them for them and thus have hurt their business.

Many FEOs actually provide more value than the Core Offer. To compensate for less than adequate marketing and low sales skills many trainers will throw the kitchen sink at prospective new clients to get them into an FEO.

Then it becomes incredibly difficult to get the client to commit to the Core Offer at a higher price point.

Traditionally FEOs have been free or low cost offers. Every so often a trainer would run a challenge or contest with a lot of bells and whistles as an FEO. Now it seems that everyone is running free or low cost offers and throwing in all the extras for all their FEOs, all of the time.

For the prospective client this is confusing! Why would they pay $200/mo or more for your regular program when they just paid $49 for a 21 day program will all the extras.


There are 3 solutions to the problem…

Lower the value of the FEO. Take away some of the bells and whistles while still providing a good experience. The purpose of your FEO isn’t to achieve the final result for the client, it’s to help them see how you will help them achieve the final result by giving them a taste of what you offer.

Increase the value of your Core Offer. If you want to continue to provide all the bells and whistles with your FEO then you have to really ramp up the perceived value of your Core Offer. You can do this by being great at selling the benefits of the Core Offer to the client or adding in some special incentives to join.

Change your pricing. You can raise your FEO or lower your Core Offer price points to overcome this as well. Raising your FEO prices will reduce the price jump someone will make but it doesn’t completely solve the issue you created in the first place. Lowering your Core Offer prices is a risky move that I typically wouldn’t suggest.

Your best bet would be to evaluate your FEO and determine the perceived value to your client and compare that to your perceived value of your Core Offer.

To do this create a list of all the features and benefits of your FEO and your Core Offer. Assign a dollar value to each of these items.

While this isn’t a perfect way to identify the perceived value it is a step in the right direction. Now you can compare the two programs to determine which you’ve made more valuable to your prospective clients.

For example if your FEO is 21 days and your list looks like this:

• 3 weeks of 3x per week training = $249 value • Nutrition Plan = $99 Value • Accountability calls = $99 Value • Assessment = $49 Value


That’s a perceived value of $496.

Your Core Offer may look like this:

• 3/week personal training for the month ($399 value)

That’s a perceived value of $399 and you’re likely asking the person to commit for 3 months or more.

Do you see the disconnect? Unfortunately this is the approach that many trainers take when trying to attract new clients to their business.

You could improve conversions from your FEO to your Core Offer if you simply removed some of the bonuses in the FEO and added them to the CO.

For example…

FEO

• 3 weeks of 2x per week training ($179) • Assessment ($49) • Weekly Nutrition Tips via email ($49)

Perceived value of $277

You could charge $49-$99 for this FEO.

Core Offer

• 3x per week training each month ($399)


• Weekly Accountability Check Ins ($99) • Jump Start Package of bands, foam roller, and cook book ($199) • 8 Week Nutrition Course delivered online ($199) • 1-1 Goal Setting meeting ($99)

Perceived value $995.

You could charge $399-499/mo for this Core Offer. Most of the work is front loaded to the first 8 weeks to add value to get someone to sign up and the rest can be delegated or automated as needed.

A slight shift in your presentation can make your FEO more valuable to your business. And then a few times per year pull out all the stops to run a big contest or challenge where you provide all the bells and whistles. Just price it accordingly :)

Should you offer a trial or FEO? Absolutely, just don’t let it devalue your Core Offer.


Chapter 9: Building A Strong Business: How to Create an Effective Marketing Plan by Focusing on Your Core Offer

It’s easy to think that offering a wide range of services and programs will help you attract more clients and make more money.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. And many times the opposite result is what you end up with when you offer too many types of training programs.

Having multiple programs makes marketing more challenging. You either end up diluting the marketing to try and speak to everyone or you have to stretch to market each of the programs individually.

There are times when having multiple programs can benefit your business. We’ll work together to evaluate those cases and see if it’s a good fit for you.

Strengthen Your Core (Offer)

Your Core Offer is the economic driver of your business. It’s the ONE program that drives your success. It’s what you are marketing to attract your Ideal Client.

Notice it isn’t Core OFFERS.


There are a lot of personal trainers and fitness business owners out there that make a huge marketing mistake by not clearly defining their Core Offer. They are a jack of all trades, master of none.

You want to dominate your area with your Core Offer. It’s the ONE THING you’re known for around town and maybe even through our industry some day.

It’s focused and specific.

Your Core Offer is centered around:

• The results your clients want • The results you’re best at getting for your clients • The method you use for getting those results

Think of it as playing to your strengths.

Once you’ve got that dialed in you need to evaluate your Core Offer. Things like:

• Can you build a sustainable business with it? • Can you deliver it long term? • Do your circumstances (space, time, etc) all you to deliver it well?

When I was training clients I would have labelled my Core Offer as Fat Loss Specific Personal Training. More specifically 12 month programs with 3 day per week clients.

**Disclaimer: This doesn’t mean you only offer 12 months 3x per week programs!**

I ran this in a semi-private training format, 1 trainer to 4-6 clients, in 60 minutes sessions.

Having a strong Core Offer will allow you to focus your energy and improve your marketing.


Your goal is to grow your Core Offer. That leads to an increase in monthly revenue.

The Power of Focus

Ever used a magnifying glass to burn paper? Or maybe I’m the only pyro turned fitness pro :)

The magnifying glass focuses the energy of the sunlight into a small point that creates enough heat to start a fire.

Your marketing can have the same impact. Imagine focusing all your marketing activities on one goal. Everything you do to get new leads should be focused on growing one programs. If you follow my 3 channel approach to marketing this easy really easy to explain. You should have 3 active marketing channels in place at all times: Online, Offline and Internal.

These marketing channels all point to getting someone to take the next step with you, such as a Front End Offer. Then your Front End Offer is designed to move someone to your Core Offer.

Here’s a quick graphic that shows alignment for your marketing funnel:


When you align your marketing activities you’ll instantly start to sense an increase in your momentum. You’ll have more purpose with every activity. That purpose will motivate you do more marketing> The results you get will encourage you to continue with the process.

When Should You Add Programs?


You should add programs in two cases.

1. When you need to complement your Core Offer with supplemental programs 2. After you have mastered your first Core Offer and are prepared to scale your business and

begin building a second Core Offer There are times when your Core Offer leaves gaps in your offerings. For example if you run group training programs there’s a good chance that in off hours you aren’t able to fill a group session so that it’s profitable to run. In this case you may want to offer a personal training program to fill in those time slots. Your marketing and energy will go to building the group training programs. However, you can seize opportunities that come up to provide personal training to clients. Clients that need extra workouts or more attention could add personal training to their membership, you could fill these times with higher end clients that approach, or you could place clients in this program if your group training times don’t work for their schedules. The personal training program isn’t going to be the primary revenue driver for your business but it could add a good chunk of supplemental revenue. On the other hand if you’ve mastered your original Core Offer and have built a team, systems and structure to support the marketing and delivery of that program it may be time to add another Core Offer. If you have room in your schedule, room in your facility and the time to market this new program it can be a huge multiplier for your business. You’ll create a marketing strategy and plan to build this program within your business. The goal is to have it be a multiplier for you not to have it drain resources from your current Core Offer.


The Challenges

It’s difficult to stay focused on your Core Offer and master your marketing and delivery of that service.

The easy route is to offer a smorgasbord of programs and hope that people come to you looking for what you have to offer.

The easy route rarely leads to success.

If you’re just starting to build your business focusing on one Core Offer is your key to success. You can have the vision of having multiple programs in your business eventually, but the road to get there starts by mastering one at a time.

If you’re an experienced fitness business owner looking to take your revenues and business to the next level the time may be right to add an additional Core Offer to your business. Look at your resources and evaluate the opportunity.

A Stronger Marketing Plan (and Business)

The results of focusing on your Core Offer will be rewarding for you. The best companies in the world started by focusing on their core competencies. They built the foundation for their overall success by owning one market.

The rules for success are the same for you.

You’re marketing will be simpler, yet more effective. Your business will be stronger and more streamlined.


Put It To Action…

Now that you’ve completed this guide you have everything you need to get started on creating an incredible marketing plan for your fitness business.

You now can be confident that you know who you should be attracting to your business and how to attract them.

The secret for success lies in consistent application of these ideas, concepts and strategies.

Just like your clients need to stick to their training and nutrition plans consistently to get the results they want, if you have a desire to grow your business sticking to your marketing plan consistently will produce the best results for you and your business.

It works because it’s simple.

If you need a little more help to get this into action make sure you check out The Growth Accelerator Plan mini course where you’ll get access to video modules walking you through each of the steps required to create your marketing plan and a few tools and resources to make it easier to create and implement.

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