Now is the time to start working on your fitness marketing plan for 2015. If you wait until January to set new marketing goals and map out a plan, you’ll start the year already behind.
Yes, I know that the holidays are almost here and time is going to be especially hard to come by, but it only takes a small block of focused time to decide what your goals are for your fitness business, which steps will get you there and how your marketing will play into that.
Taking your business to the next level should always translate into increasing your revenue. I’m not talking about looking better, I’m talking about performing better.
By making these decisions now, you give yourself time to put together everything you need and nail the details down a bit more. You also set yourself up to hit the ground running in 2015.
Your goal should always be to take your business to the next level. In order to do that, you’re going to need to take your marketing to the next level as well. That doesn’t necessarily mean spending more time and money on marketing, although it might. It often means trying new marketing strategies, going after a specific market, adding new services or programs or improving marketing strategies that you already have in place.
Here are some ideas to get you going and get your mind focused on what I mean by taking your fitness marketing to the next level so that you can take your income to the next level.
Taking Your Email Marketing to the Next Level
If you’ve built your email list to a respectable size, but you’re only sending content to your subscribers every now and then, you need to map out a schedule of sending value-rich content on a regular basis – at least once a week. Then you need to come up with a fairly well-outlined schedule of the content you’ll send. 9 out of 10 emails should be valuable, usable content that helps your subscribers to know, like and trust you and to see you as an expert. 1 out of 10 emails should sell something whether it’s a transformation program, a low-barrier offer, a new info product or what have you.
If your email list is anemic, if the only people on it are your existing clients, if all you’re doing to build your email list is putting a little sign-up widget on your website, then you need to focus on growing your subscriber list and making sure that it’s packed with people who are truly interested in what you offer.
Learn how to turn Facebook into a huge funnel for your email list. Come up with free info products that you can use to entice people to sign up for your emails. Ask your existing clients to give you five or ten email addresses of people they think can use the information you share. Put sign-up sheets for a free nutrition plan or free body fat testing in local businesses where your prospects hang out or shop.
Taking Your Social Media Marketing to the Next Level
Social media can either be a wasteland (if you’re not doing more than the bare minimum with it) or a huge time sucker with a low return (if you’re trying to do too much). It’s all about the 80/20 rule of fitness marketing.
If you’re wasting a lot of time Tweeting, cross-posting to Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram and everything else, taking your social media marketing to the next level might mean focusing on the one or two platforms that really have potential for you and dumping the rest. Personally, I find that Facebook and Google+ are usually the most effective and efficient.
Focus on one or two platforms and then post relevant, inspiring, motivating, sharable content daily. Put plenty of social proof up on Facebook and tag your clients so that their friends see the posts as well. Interact with those friends. Write a weekly blog post that offers content of real value and set it up so that it posts to your Facebook and Google+ for you. Make sure those blog posts have some kind of call to action, such as signing up for your email list, coming in for a free body fat test, signing up for a low barrier offer and so on.
If you’re already posting good content on social media, maybe it’s time to start doing some targeted ads. They’re cheap and effective when you do them correctly. For $5 or $10 a day, you can buy Facebook ads targeting specific gender and age groups in your area who don’t already know about you.
Once you get your mind focused on the different areas of fitness marketing and fine tune what’s working and wean out what isn’t, you’ll find that your business and income will increase. Remember it’s important to:
Tweak or dump what isn’t working.
Expand what is working.
Take what’s working to a new or wider audience.
Do yourself a huge favor and carve out an hour of your schedule to set some income goals for 2015, reverse engineer them down to weekly or even daily goals and then map out a marketing plan that will get you there.
Committed to Your Success,
Bedros