You might think I’m a genius at marketing a fitness business because of all the fitness trainers I’ve helped get to massive success over the years. Truth is, if you spent more than an hour with me you’d see that I’m as average as they come.
However, I am good… really good at building a fitness business and crafting fitness marketing campaigns that deliver clients because years ago I committed to the 10,000 hour rule.
In a nutshell the ten thousand hour rule is this… You become a high level expert at a topic if you study, observe, and practice it for 10,000 hours. That’s the equivalent of working a 40 hour a week job for just over five years. Back in 2001 I decided to do that… only I working on this stuff closer to 60 hours per week. I guess you can say I’m a bit of an over achiever.
See, the kick butt fitness marketing ideas I come up with are not because of some great innate mental ability or a genius (like my mom thinks I am), but instead because of hard work and a pretty systematic approach as to how to do things better, find out what is working in other industries, tweaking, testing and improving. I have been doing this a pretty good while now so I tend to have a little more of a feel for what may work and what won’t, but if you are just starting out, you may not be there yet…and not being there can be EXPENSIVE.
Trial and error works, but it comes at a price, and if you want to get rocking and rolling as quickly as possible and for as little money as possible, you had better have a bit of an outline as to how to think up powerful fitness marketing tactics that get clients without breaking the bank.
Here are a few things that I do currently to help jumpstart the creative juices and add to my massive list of super effective fitness marketing ideas:
· Model what has worked for others-It has often been said the easiest and most effective way to be successful is simply to find someone who is successful and model what they have done. There is no question that when I was starting out, I borrowed a few tricks from other industries and business types, and if you have implemented anything I have taught, you have done the same. If it has worked before, it will work again! Don’t bother doing the same old stuff your competitor is doing… odds are it’s not working for them. You’re better off looking at other businesses around you who are successful and reverse engineer what they are doing.
Now that you’ve modeled it, TWEAK it-Once you have a few tools in your toolbox you have gleaned from others, feel free to tweak them a bit to make them your own. Sometimes, just by changing the way something is written, or the image that is used, or the details of an offer you can take something that is successful and make it BREAK THE BANK successful! Don’t be afraid to make some tweaks here or there to the fitness marketing ideas you have discovered as it could lead to your greatest success…AND it is a hell of a lot of fun when you inject your ideas and they work!
· Study the marketing of other industries-One thing that newbies in the world of fitness marketing often do is only study what is going on within their industry. By only looking at what people are doing within your industry, you may be missing out on some killer ideas that are working in other industries or businesses right under your nose and that can translate to the world of fitness marketing as well. Ask some of your friends who work in other industries what is happening in the world of marketing in their arena. If you look at what is working for them, you can likely find a way to incorporate it into your fitness marketing plan as well.
· Don’t be afraid to be TRENDY– A trend means there is INTEREST…and where there is interest, there are clients. Another popular saying about success goes something like “Success is simple, just find a hungry crowd and sell them food.” The point is simple, if you uncover what a group of people want, and you offer it to them, they will buy. So, if your business can adapt quickly and you can take advantage of some fitness trends, it is bound to put some extra dollars in your pocket. For example, youtube is killing it right now for SEO. In fact I’ve been able to get youtube videos up onto the first page of google for competitive keywords in about a week. That’s pretty sweet! Until youtube stops working, you should use it as part of your regular fitness marketing plan for lead generation
· MASTERMIND-If you haven’t read THINK AND GROW RICH by Napoleon Hill then smack yourself in the kisser and go grab it! This book has been the source of knowledge for SO MANY successful people that it boggles the mind. One of the key points in this book is the Mastermind Principle. The point being, by gathering together a group of individuals who are all brainstorming on how to solve one issue or problem, the results that are produced are FAR GREATER than what any one mind could come up with.
By gathering those around you who have similar interests, you can come up with all kinds of new and innovative fitness marketing ideas! The cool thing is, with the internet, you can have a mastermind with others in the fitness industry even if they live halfway around the world! Throw out a subject, say INCREASING YEARLY CONTRACT REVENUE and then all of you can throw ideas on the table and hone them until you have an incredibly effective fitness marketing plan on how to help you increase your yearly contract revenue. I have found time and again that pretty much ANY problem you put down for your mastermind group discussion will get solved, often with incredible results.
In fact this weekend I’m in San Diego teaching a mastermind with a bunch of really driven and success minded fitness pros. The rate at which problems are solved and solutions are gotten is mind blowing!
So, those are just a few of the way in which I develop fitness marketing ideas and strategies. The main thing is, ALWAYS be on the lookout for new and cool ways you can innovate and push your fitness business to the next level. You never know when a new idea will hit you in the face…could be while you are out on the street, watching the latest sitcom, or even while you are zonked out and dreaming at night. If you want to keep moving forward, then you will need an endless supply of marketing ideas.
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