If I were to list the top five fitness business boosting strategies that consistently deliver leads, prospects and clients, have stood the test of time, and are low cost and relatively easy to deploy – the one that would take the top spot is email marketing for fitness trainers.
This past weekend at the Fit Body Boot Camp world Conference I talked about how having an email list for your fitness business is like having clients and money on tap.
It’s true.
No other marketing system is as reliable, as effective, and as consistent at delivering new clients into your fitness business.
However, having an email lists is just the start.
I’ve come across some personal trainers who thought that going out there and buying email lists from those sites that advertise 100,000 email lists for $99 was a good idea. Reality sucked for them when they realized they couldn’t upload that massive list anywhere to start marketing to them.
And even if they were to find a place to host all those email addresses, odds are those addresses are random scraped emails from websites on the net and not targeted local emails of people living in your community.
So I guess we should start off there… list building.
The number one rule for successful email marketing for personal trainers is to build a list of people who know, like, and trust you.
The number two rule of email marketing for fitness trainers is to make sure that list consists of QUALIFIED people who are actually interested in fitness and fat loss and not just random people from the community.
I explain how to find qualified leads and prospects in your community in the video below…
Here’s a short list of some really crafty ways to quickly build an email list for yourself.
1. Put out 30-40 lead boxes in local businesses that cater to folks who would make great clients for you. Make a compelling offer on the lead box and collect name, email, and phone number on the leads forms.
I know of several trainers who are getting 50-200 leads per month using lead boxes alone.
2. Craft squeeze pages that offer killer free reports and ebooks in exchange for an email address. Then drive traffic to your squeeze page using Facebook ads, Google PPC and BING pay per click ads (btw, Bing ads are dirt cheap these days), and have local businesses who you strategically partner with mail out the link to your squeeze page to their list.
3. Run lead generation ads in local newspapers and publications that offer a free fat loss report, recipe book, or diet tips ebook that send traffic to your website or squeeze page.
4. Use InfoUSA.com (and InfoCanada.ca if you live in Canadia) to get mailing addresses of local residents who fit your demographics and mail out lead generation postcards to them that point them to a free fitness or fat loss report in exchange for an email address.
5. Put a “lead magnet” (an opt-in) on your website (like the one below), drive traffic to it by building up your search engine optimization with an SEO for personal trainers program and start getting more email addresses from people visiting your website.
Like I said, building a list is just step one of email marketing for a training business.
Once you build a list you gotta do three specific things…
1. Keep the list building going – never stop.
2. Build a relationship with your email list by giving them great content, tips, and information on a regular and CONSISTENT basis so they’ll know, like and trust you and see you as a person of authority on fitness and fat loss.
3. Make periodic irresistible and low barrier offers to your list so that you can move them from the stands onto the field – that’s code for from your list and into your program).
See the biggest mistake most trainers make when they start a fitness email marketing campaign is over pitching without value building. Like my pal Frank Kern says: Build your good will bank account before building your actual bank account. Just makes sense. 
You’re probably wondering how often to write to your email list and what you should write to them about, right?
Let’s cover the the scary things first…
These days you don’t have to sit down and try to think up a bunch of content to write several times a day. You’re busy enough already, you don’t need more “stuff” on your plate.
Now the goal each week should be to put out three pieces of high value content each week. NEVER ever be that trainers that trolls the web and swipes others people’s content from their site or blog and use it as though it was yours. That is a very bad thing to do. Very bad.
Keep your content unique and original and RELEVANT to what the folks on your email list want… which is most likely going to be fitness and fat loss tips, motivation, success stories, and recipes.
Now if you use FitPro Newsletter which is an automated software system that does email marketing for fitness trainers then you already have your one big email for the week done. That’s because each week FitPro Newsletter sends out a killer content rich e-newsletter (which you can tweak, edit, or replace) to your email list on your behalf.
So we have one email a week covered.
The other email you send out each week should be a case study (which is really a sales message that’s totally under the radar and comes across as really educational, motivational and inspirational.
Case study emails showcase a client who’s gotten some great results by working with you. And what you’re doing is sharing their story with your email and then making them a soft offer at the end of the email.
I teach you the whole process on how to craft client case study emails in this fitness email marketing post.
And finally your third email broadcast of the week…
This is something I stole from Josh Carter who stole from Jonas Deffes – so a big thank you to both of those guys.
People like having ready-to-go and done-for-you things… basically stuff that will make their lives simpler and easier.
So once a week send out a healthy recipe to your email subscribers. Now the fastest and easiest way to do that is to go into your FitPro Newsletter account, go into the archived newsletters and cut a paste a recipe to use.
It’s that simple. Your clients and prospects will totally appreciate you for giving away so much value and content.
That’s the power of being a value adder.
PLUS, by being consistent and always staying in front of your email list you are going to build a deeper, more meaningful relationship with them so that when it’s time for you to ask them for money, they will totally trust you and try out whatever promotion you put in front of them.
Here’s a great example for you.
Sara Bohlinger, a new Fit Body Boot Camp owner has an awesome relationship with her email list.
Just yesterday she sent out one promotional email to her list and within the first six hours alone she brought in $10,000 in revenue.
Here’s the text message she sent me once she hit $10K
That’s the power of email marketing for fitness trainers done right.
The most common question I get from trainers once I explain why it’s critical to build a list, and to be consistent, build a good rapport with them, and add value to their lives is “how do I craft email promotions that move people from my email list into my fitness center?”
The formula is this…
A low barrier offer with a high perceived value.
What I men by this is that while the folks on your email list may like you and see you as the authority on fitness and fat loss. They may still be skeptical about joining a long term program or a program that costs several hundred dollars each month.
But if you present a killer low barrier offer to them – low price, short period, and high value then they’ll try your promotional offer and during that time you can impress them, give them an awesome experience, and sell them on an ongoing higher priced program.
Now if you don’t want to, or don’t have the time to create low barrier promotional emails that gets you new clients like Sara did above, then use FitPro Newsletter, it’s the #1 system for email marketing for personal trainers becuase it comes with nearly a dozen done-for-you email promotions that you can cut, past, and deploy.
I hope this post gave you a better understanding of how to use email marketing in your fitness business.
If you have any questions, leave them down below for me. And if you got value from this post feel free to “like” or leave a comment down below.