This blog is the first in a series about marketing, which is an area that most fitness professionals struggle with. Each blog will be about a specific aspect of marketing, from branding, email marketing, different social media apps, SEO, and paid advertisements.
So, you are either new to PT business, or have been a PT for a while and are looking to learn more about marketing your business in the hope of bringing in new clients, well the good news is this blog will be relevant to both. I am going to break this blog down into:
· Corporate branding
· Personal branding
Corporate branding:
This is the type of branding you will recognise from companies such as Nike, where everything they do falls under their brand umbrella, including things like logo, font, colours chosen, graphics, mottos, etc. This type of branding is often used by large companies to gain brand recognition. The branding will normally represent the beliefs behind the company, as well as what type of company it is, for example companies in the clinical field will often use green or light blue along with white (think of a pharmacy). Companies will budget a large amount of money into their branding in order to make it as recognisable as possible. The branding should also be appealing to the market the company is targeting, for a large amount of fitness branding tends to be the “go hard or go home” type, while other fitness companies may use a softer approach to appeal to the clientele whom may prefer a more holistic approach to health and fitness.
This type of branding is exceptionally useful to a personal training business, as not only does the trainer want their brand to be recognisable, but they also want it to appeal to their targeted client base. What this type of branding also allows, is for growth of the company. If for example, if the trainer has in person coaching, online coaching, bootcamps and classes, or decides to open their own gym one day, and potentially even create a chain of gyms with PTs working for them, having a business name such as “Joe Blog’s PT” does not fall in line with this larger business plan with multiple businesses under one banner, so having a company name such “Dominate Fitness” or such, means that all different businesses can fall under the same branding. If you think about the largest private healthcare company in the UK, Nuffield Health, they have multiple businesses and charities falling under their umbrella. Nuffield have their healthcare wing, which includes such things as hospitals and online GP services, they also have their consumer wing, which is their gyms and health clubs, but they also have a corporate wing, which involves running gyms inside office buildings. By PT’s recognising this method and branding their company with a larger picture in mind, it more easily allows for potential growth in the future. Using this model is very specific as everything from the PT’s uniform (if allows in where they work), social media, logo, motto, colour scheme, etc, must represent their brand and what their brand stands for and be easily recognisable.
A large amount of thought must go into this type of branding, and more commonly PTs are outsourcing their branding to marketing companies. These companies will have staff that have degrees and experience in marketing will also have graphic designers on staff, and they will likely be better at coming up with branding that meets all the above parameters than the PT will themselves. This is not a dig at any PT by any means, it is just these companies earn money by using their marketing expertise, and this can also be expanded by paying a marketing company to run parts or that full side of your business and will again likely be more successful than the PT will be on their own. However, the large downside of outsourcing like this is cost. I would argue it would be beneficial to pay one of these companies to create your branding, it can be hugely costly to have them run your marketing regularly. For example, a company I used to work for paid a marketing company £8,000 a month and this did not even cover running the day to day social media pages such as Instagram, that cost went into SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and such.
Personal Branding
This form of branding revolves around the human touch and basically, you the PT as a person, and the idea that “people buy from people”. This branding is exceptionally popular now and can be seen by looking at any social media “influencer” that you follow. If we use Joe Wicks for example, his entire brand is based on himself, much like the Kardashians and thousands of other people who we all watch on a near daily basis, from posts and reels, to YouTube videos and TikTok’s. This form of branding works by the viewer/customer building rapport and a form of relationship with the person they are watching as they find the person relatable in some way, or want to be who, or where that person is. On social media, these influencers make their money on clicks, likes, ad revenue and sponsorships and a lot of people do this as their career, however as PT’s, we can also use this form of marketing to form and grow our business, and you will see a large amount of success trainers use this method of branding.
As a PT, most of the time you will be competing against PTs with the same qualifications as you, especially when you first start out, and unless you have a specific market niche, will likely be trying to get the same clients as the other PTs in your gym or area. So, why would a client buy your PT service instead of one of the many other PTs in your gym or area, a large percentage of that decision will be made emotionally, that the client feels connected to you, that you are their type of person or represent the person that they would like to be like. This is one of the ways influencers grow their social media presence, by posting regularly content that their target market will emotionally attach too, while also offering some form of value. If you watch any influencers, all of them will either talk to the camera directly or do voice overs (talking to the camera directly tends to work better), as it allows your market to get to know you directly, which is why you see a lot of successful trainers doing this as well as things such as “day in the life”, “come train with me” or “what do I eat in a day” vlogs as this again allows for your market to get to know you better, and if the potential client attaches to your content and you as a person, then they will more than likely buy your product.
Which method should I use?
This is an important question, and one that depends entirely on as you as a trainer and person. Are you planning on being a trainer that specialises in something like injury rehab, have a more clinical approach, hate talking to a camera and don’t feel that your personality is suited to putting yourself out there as an “influencer”, and that your market base is follows the previous examples, then perhaps your branding style should be more of a corporate style. If you are wanting to be the friendly trainer, who takes their clients uphill walks and is more the boy/girl next door type, who can also talk to anyone (even a camera), then perhaps personal branding is more suited to you.
However, I would suggest that as a PT who wants to be successful, why limit yourself to one or the other? If you look at large companies like the previously mentioned Nike, they use ambassadors to offer that personal branding approach, and these ambassadors will either be a high-end athlete whom people admire and want to be like, or an everyday person showing you that if they can do it, so can you. I know I purchase from specific brands because they are sponsored by an athlete I follow and respect. It is partly the same reason that companies, and even PTs use testimony videos, as these people giving the testimony are real people just like you. Large companies such as Nike, that for years have relied on corporate style branding, have paid millions out to expand more into the personal branding approach, as they realise that this what is required in this modern world, where near everyone is on social media watching real people more than they are watching movies or tv shows now.
In the world of PT marketing, it is good to establish your brand, one which has the potential to be larger than yourself and uses corporate branding methods such as logos, colour schemes, slogans, etc, which represent your brand and are eye catching and easy to remember. However, it is also true that the largest marketplace is on social media (or at least people that watch social media), and to be successful you must market the same way that the most successful people on social media do. It does not matter if they are a TikToKer, Streamer or Youtuber, their entire content is designed to bring more people to their channel, and once you have watched their video, it is up to their personality to make you subscribe to their channel and watch them regularly.
If you wish to be successful at marketing, and therefore building a client base, you must do what has been proven to work, so I would recommend creating a strong brand, and then getting used to talking to a camera.
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