Top 3 Offline Personal Trainer Marketing Ideas You Can Implement Right Now
Posted by Steve Hochman on Mon. Nov. 11th, 2013
One of the things that makes me mad as hell is hearing a trainer complain that they have tried EVERYTHING and still can’t seem to land any clients.
“The economy sucks!”
“Everyone is doing P90x!”
“No one wants Personal Training (bootcamps, small group training, insert excuse here….”
The fact of the matter is, in the world of fitness, there is almost ALWAYS a sustainable market for what you do, unless you live 100 miles from nowhere in a town with a population of 10. Not everyone has tried every type of program and if you have any kind of personality at all, there are surely clients out there waiting to jump into your program and give you money! What you have to do is put your offer in front of their face.
While there are a ton of online methods to generate business these days, one type of personal trainer marketing that sometimes gets overlooked is the offline personal training marketing ideas that you can get up and running with right now! Here are 3 offline personal training marketing ideas to help get you off your butt and in front of clients ASAP!
1. Fliers - SO MANY people take fliers for granted. They are used to being handed one and then just throwing them away and assume everyone else does the same thing. Well, MANY will, but considering how cheaply you can print out a few hundred and put them directly in the hands of potential clients, it is still an incredibly valuable tool! Put together a simple but attractive flier with your offer on it, then hit neighborhoods! Knock, tell them who you are, hand them a flier and simply say “ If you are interested, I would love for you to check out our services, if not, I would love if you could pass this along to someone else who may be looking for a total transformation.” BOOM, here come the clients. It works.
2. Offering free personal training sessions - Nope, you don’t make any money when you offer free sessions, but you MAY make a bunch later on by doing them. Getting someone to TRY BEFORE THEY BUY is a great way to introduce you and what you do to a bunch of people. You can hit people in just about any location, a mall, grocery store, where every and hand them a card that is valued at X (could be a dollar amount, could be a number of free sessions or just one, whatever!) If they come to see you, chances are they are a good prospect and if you treat them well, they could be a client and more importantly, an ongoing referral source. Once you get people talking about you and having experienced what you do, it is much more likely they will use you and/or refer you. Personal trainer marketing by offering try before you buy is smart and is likely to make you loved AND get you clients. Do it.
3. Offering training to corporate employees - Of the 3 personal trainer marketing strategies offered here, I believe this one is the best. It is underutilized and if you speak to the right person, it can literally be a GOLD MINE of opportunity and has more than doubled the income of many a savvy trainer. Simple contact local businesses, the bigger the better and ask to speak to someone regarding offering discounted personal training to their employees. (better to show up in person and just ask for 5 minutes of their time, thus the OFFLINE approach 😉 Simply put, you tell them you are willing to do a free seminar for their employees and offer discounted training services for them. You can even ask if they have a CO-OP program where the business may actually pay for some, half or even ALL of the fees you would charge.
Many companies offer some type of stipend available for health and fitness related activities in lieu of some health benefits so this could be an amazing WIN-WIN for you, the company, and the employee! (well, that’s a win-win-win, but you get the idea!) Oftentimes, the company will offer space on site you can use to train employees or you can schedule sessions off site and outside of company time. The main thing to remember is, don’t stop at one. Some will say no, sure, but it only takes 1 company to say yes and before long, you are ROLLING. You can afford to discount your pricing a bit because the company will be putting you in front of clients to train, thus your overall marketing budget will be low or even NOTHING.
These are just three offline personal trainer marketing strategies that you can literally begin implementing right now! Unless you have so many clients that you have to turn some down, make use of the ideas above and get to work!
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