Personal Training Marketing Tools for Small Businesses

As an owner of a personal training studio or health club it's difficult to come up with ingenious ways to market your business without creating a lofty bill. Radio and television ads are very costly and do not always reach the health conscious audience. Marketing can be very hit or miss and must be learned on a trial-and-error basis.

Word-of-Mouth

If your business is in a small community there's nothing like the word-of-mouth. When I worked for a corporate company years ago I learned for every bad experience the ratio is 9:1. This meant one person with a bad experience would tell nine people about it. If it is a good experience he will only tell one person so it's very important to flip that ratio for your small business.

Suggestion: Ask a client to promote you by word-of-mouth. Ask him to tell everyone how he got in the best shape ever and where potential clients can receive the same results. There's nothing like a well developed physique to draw people towards your business.

Simple Internet Marketing

With the internet boom nearly everyone has used it as a viable way to market. Online advertisements are available for marketing but do not always produce the turn out you're aiming for. There is a free way to market yourself online though. If you guessed social networking you guessed right! Social networking such as Facebook and Twitter are free and can extend your business to people who normally would not see what your business has to offer. You can check out Plaxo for a business oriented networking site, also.

Suggestion: Create a Facebook page or Twitter account and suggest it to the people you actually know. Ask them to suggest your page to their friends. Doing it this way allows you get the word out without being a stone cold spammer.

It's also important to keep your page fresh with new posts and photos while staying on the subject of health,fitness and personal training. You can also draw more people to your page by tagging those on your friends list so your comments are on their page as wells as your's. It's also a good idea to ask fellow health bloggers to include their new posts on your page. If it brings you one prospect that's one more you didn't have.

Hard Copy Photos and Photo Albums

It's important to have hard proof of your handy work when a prospective client arrives at your studio. Although you may have photos available on the internet you'll want your prospect to have the burning memory of real life changes of other clients. The use of photos will offer that.

Suggestion: Although a photo album may seem "old school" there's nothing better than tangible proof of your finest work. As the saying goes "a photo is worth a thousand words." Photos allow would-be clients to see your work from start to finish. It not only gives you a realistic example of what your client wants to achieve but offers a realistic exercise goal to aim for.

Lastly, don't forget to get written release statement to use the photos.

Source: Experience