Fitness Market Research: Your Key to Powerful Marketing
You need to find out what it is that your clients or future clients want, need, and desire.
Thousands of personal trainers are skipping this critical marketing step – and losing business as a result. Are you one of them?
Research: if the word sounds like a snooze-fest to you, you’re not alone. As a fitness trainer, you probably chose your profession because you’re passionate about health, about action, about client contact – not because you want to spend hours analyzing trends and Googling into oblivion.
But when it comes to developing a marketing plan, fitness market research is your front-row ticket to success. It reveals the most pertinent needs of your clients. It uncovers the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. It allows you to pinpoint the exact strategies you need for superior marketing.
Knowledge is power. Here’s how to gain it.
1. Investigate your niche market.
If you want to get anywhere as a fitness professional, you need to narrow your scope beyond the general population. Your niche market is your bull’s-eye – the specialized spot to aim your marketing arrows.
Whether you’re training senior citizens, pregnant women, college athletes, body builders, or another group entirely, a focused target allows for focused research. And focused research brings the precise information you need.
Study the habits of your niche market.
It’s probably not a great idea to slink around town at night peering into your prospects’ windows – after all, jail time doesn’t help your reputation as a trainer – but understanding the routines, preferences, and behaviors of your niche market is vital. Without knowing how they live, you won’t know what they need. And without knowing what they need, you won’t know how to pitch the services they’re looking for.
Determine which strategies your prospects respond to.
It’d be a waste to run your ad in a newspaper if your niche market prefers the radio. And who wants to mail out 1000 promotional postcards if your prospects will dump them in the garbage after a half-second glance?
Survey current clients about how they found you. Tally up the responses and figure out which media is reeling in the most customers. When you run print ads, include bonus offers for people who bring the advertisement to their first session with you; the more ads you get back, the more effective you know that marketing avenue is.
By taking the time to research, you’ll pinpoint which marketing strategies give you the most bang for your buck – and which will guzzle your time and money without bringing results.
2. Assess your competition.
Even if you’ve prodded every nook and cranny of your niche market, you still need to stake out your competitors. Knowing who else is vying for your clients – and what methods they’re employing – allows you to stay one step ahead of the game.
Research your biggest rivals.
Track down other professional trainers – especially ones mining a similar niche as yours – and study their strategies. Do they have websites? Blogs? Free articles? Sign up for their newsletters and discover what they’re up to. Peek at their promotional offers and snatch ideas you can use for yourself. Pay attention to the hotshots dominating the industry, and determine why they’re so successful.
Knowing what other trainers in your niche are offering is crucial if you want to develop a marketing plan that stands a chance against theirs.
Find out what no one else is offering.
Along with studying what your competitors are bringing to the table, look at what they’re missing. Offering skills, techniques, or knowledge that’s high in demand but short in supply can set you miles ahead in the fitness industry. Research little-known strategies to pass onto your clients, such as the powerful method for eating, sleeping, and feeling better that I teach in my free Personal Trainer Boot Camp.
Discover your hidden competitors.
Think other fitness instructors are your only threat? Think again. Anything that can siphon business away from you qualifies as a competitor. Health clubs, YMCAs, recreation centers, and even colleges offering fitness courses have the potential to lure prospects out of your hands and into their own. Find out which local entities could be denting your client base.
While it’s not often practical – or even possible – to wage war against these competitors, preemptive research can win you back your clients. If your prospects are waffling between taking a weekly fitness class and hiring a personal trainer, find out exactly what that class is promising – and then offer something even better.
3. Research ways to promote your name online.
The internet is one of the most powerful weapons in your arsenal of marketing tools. Unfortunately, most fitness professionals are already aware of this – so your site is likely to be competing against thousands of others just to rank in the first 20 pages of search results. Maximize your site’s exposure by increasing your web know-how.
Conduct research using Google’s AdWord tools.
Want to know how many people are searching for “personal trainers in Detroit”? Curious how much cash your competitors fork over for advertising? Google offers keyword tools, traffic estimators, cost-per-click statistics, and other handy calculators to help you answer these questions – and more. By researching with AdWord tools, you can gain valuable insight into web trends and fashion your marketing plan accordingly.
Investigate SEO techniques.
Search engine optimization – colloquially known as SEO – is your answer to higher search engine rankings. Devote some time to studying SEO, including how to write keyword-rich web content, how to increase your rank with backlinks, and what “anchor text value” is all about. You don’t have to become a tech genius, but rest assured that every minute you spend studying SEO will pay off – literally.
If you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and do a little sleuthing, congratulations: you’ve just gained the edge over 95 percent of your competition – the thousands of personal trainers who jump helter-skelter into marketing schemes without studying up beforehand.
You’re on the road to success.
But don’t stop there. Read up on must-know tips and strategies at the Fitness Marketing hub page. Arm yourself with knowledge, and watch your business skyrocket.
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To Your Success,
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