I normally teach you how to get more clients, how to get more leads, and how to get noticed in your community. This isn’t one of those blogs.
Today I need to warn you.
There are four marketing strategies that personal trainers should absolutely avoid. If you’re wasting time on these four fitness marketing strategies, you’re better off putting your energy towards something else.
Craigslist
Craigslist used to work. Kijiji, Backpages, all those classified ad sites used to work at one time.
But these days, those sites are well monitored.
There’s a lot of spamming going on, and unless you are some amazing Craigslist posting genius that can post several times per hour without getting marked for spam, you won’t get any traffic from Craigslist.
Use your time, money, energy, and effort outside of your community. Not on Craigslist.
Flyers
Another thing you want to avoid is flyers.
Gone are the days of posting flyers on a phone pole or taping flyers to the windows of local businesses. That’s the fastest way to become a nuisance and repel clients.
Quite frankly, a lot of people are just going to take your flyer and throw it away, so you won’t get new leads.
It’s discouraging.
So forget about flyers. You’re better off sending targeted postcards to very specific addresses in your community. Just filter the list to show those homes that are most qualified to receive your postcards, which should come with compelling offers.
Mass Texting
Do. Not. Mass. Text.
Mass text messaging used to be really hip and cool. Actually, all of that lasted about two or three months…
At the end of the day, there’s nothing more annoying than talking to a friend on the phone, only to be interrupted by a text message for a sale or an offer from someone you don’t know, like, and trust.
So again, the fastest way to destroy your business and repel potential clients is to send out mass text messages when you’re not an invited guest. You’ll be perceived as a pest, and no one likes a pest.
Link Farms
Finally, avoid buying links from what are known as link farms—scandalous search engine optimization companies who offer to do search engine optimization for you for $200, $300, $400 a month.
Odds are, they’re probably buying incoming links.
That used to be a good way to build incoming links, or to build your website, or to get your website found on Google and all the big search engines. Not anymore.
Today, those sites can actually damage your reputation online and get your website pushed to the very bottom of Google.
So what should you do?
Well, you can upload quality instructional YouTube videos with keywords in the subject line, in the actual title of the video, in the tags of the video, and in the description. Keep them four to eight minutes in length.
Another thing that works really well is Google Places. It’s a fast, easy, and affordable way to get found on Google locally for local businesses, and it doesn’t require hiring any SEO people or using any link farms that could damage your website.
You avoid those four things and you’re well on your way to greater income and impact.
Committed to your success,
Bedros