Category Archives: Marketing

Content marketing for fitness professionals – how to get customers to come to you

Marketing, , , , , , ,

Content marketing is a hot topic at the moment. But if you are looking for a cost effective method of promoting your business then it is worth looking into. It differs from traditional marketing techniques in one important way. The customer is in control.

Most of what we marketing people have been doing for years is a form of interruption marketing. We send out stuff that we want people to watch, or to open and read and then follow our call to action. Letters. Emails. TV adverts. Bill board adverts. Magazine adverts. They “interrupt” you from what you are doing and try and make you do something else.

TV is a form interruption marketing. 20 years ago when there were only 4 TV channels you had to sit through the adverts (or at least go away and make a cup of tea). Now many people use Sky+ or TiVo. They record programmes, or pause them live, to watch them later. And the beauty of this is that you can zip through the adverts. And most people do. And let’s be honest. How many of us dive for the mute button when the Go Compare Opera singer comes on? I have to restrain myself from sticking my foot through the TV screen.

For these and other reasons interruption marketing is no longer as successful as it once was.

The modern internet world allowed a whole new approach to develop – inbound marketing – and it is based upon the premise that people search for information and content.

In some markets 90% of all buying decisions start with an on-line search using Google or another search engine. Arguments in pubs and bars and between co-workers are quite often settled with a Google search

content marketing for fitness professionals

This is the key to inbound or content marketing. People want answers to the questions they have. They want answers in the content they can find on the internet. If you provide the answers then your customers will find you.

Imagine someone in Liverpool wants to buy a really good barbeque chicken. They are not going to type the word “chicken” into Google. They would get billions of results. Neither will they type “barbecue chicken” because it would still create too many results. “Best barbecue chicken”  is still no good if the best is in New York. “Best barbecue chicken in Liverpool” – might narrow it down to a few local outlets.

In this new world we need to be there when people come looking. And that means your website or blog becomes your inbound marketing hub.

To get people to find you when they come looking,  you need to provide accessible and useful content that will pop up on Google. The centre piece of your inbound marketing hub is a series of relevant articles (i.e. a blog) about your niche.

Going back to the chicken example. If you had a blog which answered the question, “who provides the best barbecue chicken in Liverpool”,  then this would show up in Google and low and behold you would have a visitor to your website who is now a potential customer.

Obviously you need to make sure that your site is fully optimised for search engines – but again this is not as hard as it seems. Neither is it as expensive as you would think, especially with great software like WordPress.

What are the top 25 questions that your clients ask you, about their fitness regimes and their fitness goals? What do they ask you about different exercises, classes and equipment? What questions do they have about food and nutrition?

You know the answers to those questions. Indeed you could probably recite them in your sleep. There you have, already, 25 topics for articles that could be up on your website and optimised so that when people search for answers to those questions – you are the one providing them.

People aren’t going to type just “Personal Trainers” into a search engine just as they aren’t going to type in just “chicken”. They might type, “Best personal trainers in Liverpool?”

If they did would your website show up on the front page of Google?

Over to you: Would you like to learn more about content marketing for fitness professionals? Have you already had some success setting up your own blog and are using inbound marketing. I’d like to hear your stories. Please leave a comment.

Other marketing blogs:

3 Fitness Marketing Tips inspired by a Dragon from the Den

3 Fitness Marketing Tips inspired by a Dragon

Marketing, , , , , , ,

Last year I spent a couple of weeks traveling the UK doing a roadshow for my day job. Our guest presenter was well known Dragon’s Den star Duncan Bannatyne. Through his contribution to the seminars, and over a few drinks and dinners, it was fascinating to hear his stories about how he built up, first a care home chain, and now an empire of health and fitness clubs. Given my alter ego as a fitness and Yoga instructor, and my keen interest in the fitness industry, his insights into marketing, communications and business development were relevant for both my guises.

fitness marketing tips inspired by a dragon

Here are some of the fitness marketing tips I came away with which I think will interest to my fitness friends.

1) PR your business within the local community

This is not just about advertising in local newspapers, it’s developing PR relationships with those newspapers. Getting onto local radio. Sponsoring events in local schools and clubs. And above all embracing social media to create a network of links across Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin to draw visitors to your website.

For more on PR see my earlier blog on PR for fitness professionals.

2) Seek business development opportunities from change

When Margaret Thatcher changed legislation for the care of the elderly in the 1980s, Bannatyne cashed in on this opportunity by building a chain of care homes. Whilst we are not seeing legislative change in the fitness industry it is still evolving daily. New programmes like ViPR create opportunities for new adopters. And just look at the success of Zumba and how that has taken fitness out of the club chains and back into the community. Some instructors have tapped into the huge demand for Zumba and seen their earnings rocket.

The most exciting change is in marketing itself and this makes it easier to be successful. The Internet has ushered in a new era of “content based marketing” (know as inbound marketing by academics). Until recently we have been more used to “interruption marketing” (known as outbound marketing).

That’s adverts on TV, unsolicited calls, junk mail; i.e. stuff that companies bombard us with to try and get us to buy their products and experiences. With content marketing the customer is in control because they are the ones searching the web for information. Whether it is the price of clothes, the cost of a car, or information about a new fitness programme, they are searching for specifics. If you have a website or blog that provides content that meets that specific desire for information you can succeed at this new marketing style.

3 fitness marketing tips

As a fitness professional do you have your own website and blog? Maybe you think you haven’t got time or the writing skills to think of enough things to say. Well just create a list of all the questions your clients ask about exercise, diet, classes and lifestyle. Then provide the answers. There you immediately have the content you need. Get it online, ensure that the search engines can find it and customers will start to come.

Of course it isn’t quite that easy, but with a little planning this is an exciting way forward.

3) Relentlessly network for new ideas and opportunities

Network either online or face to face. Our industry colleagues, and again those in the local community, all face similar challenges but all will have different views and solutions as to how to solve them. Again through social media we have access to a world wide club of like minded people, and a library of ideas, and business tools.

But the most important lesson a entrepreneurial Dragon can impart is to “get on and do it”. Yes there is information out there. You could read websites and white papers on how to use content marketing forever. The best thing to do to expand your business is to do more marketing straight away.

Over to you: Have you been successfully marketing your business via a blog or content based website? What are your fitness marketing tips? Please leave a comment and post a link. Would you like to read more on this subject on this blog? Please let me know.

Press Release Tips for Fitness Professionals

Marketing, , , , , , ,

The world of the media may seem like a scary place, especially with celebrity scandals, phone hacking, and high profile publicists mauling each other for column inches. It certainly doesn’t seem very relevant to personal trainers and fitness businesses. But away from the hyperbole of the National Media, local newspapers and radio stations are much less daunting. Most importantly they can be a useful method for raising your profile in your own area.

Press Release Tips for Fitness Professionals

Journalists and editors are constantly looking for interesting stories, especially something a little bit different or out of the ordinary. You will have already defined the unique services you offer, and may be advertising these via your website, blog, Facebook, Twitter or other media. Putting together a series of press releases highlighting these unique and interesting services can raise awareness and drive customers to your door.

The key is finding the hook that will draw the journalist’s interest. They may see many press releases every day, and ignore announcements about Bootcamps or Zumba classes. But one which also offers a Nutrition Planning Service may catch their attention. A release about generic personal training might be ignored but one focussing on new mothers regaining their figures following childbirth might stand out. Try putting together three or four stories that you can release over a month or two.

“Press release tips that help fitness professionals increase their local media profiles.”

Writing a press release is like any form of communication it needs to draw the reader’s attention and motivate them into a course of action; namely a journalist contacting you to discuss the story. Try using the following structure. Headline; Body Copy; Contact Details and Notes for editors.

For the release you need a powerful headline which sums up the entire story. “Local man and wife fitness team bring bootcamp and dietary planning to Worthington Park”, for example already provides a mass of information.

It’s outdoors in a park. A husband and wife team so it’s accessible to both sexes. Sounds like hard work but there’s dietary advice as well.

You should write the body copy of the release in a relaxed and informal style. It can come across almost as if you were saying it out loud. Provide some background about the service you offer then go into the specifics. You can deliver one or two pieces of information in the form of a quote which the journalist may well include in their article. “Fitness expert and local DJ David said, ‘Our bootcamps will improve your fitness and provided you take the dietary advice as well you will see changes in your shape'”.

Then include your contact details, mobile, website, Facebook and twitter. If you have any videos of yourself in action on YouTube provide links to these as well.

Finally prepare a notes section where you give more detail, such as your qualifications, the time of your sessions and the cost. Here you can invite the journalist to attend one of your classes. They may even send along a photographer as well.

Once you have drafted your releases, email them to your local newspapers (daily and weekly versions including any free papers) and radio stations. Google will reveal the contact details of most publications. Include your headline as the title of the email as well as on the release itself.

Sometimes the release may not generate any interest, or the publication may just copy and paste your words. Obviously the best result is for them to contact you to discuss the release. This is your opportunity to develop a relationship which could lead to more coverage later. You are the expert in your line of work so you could offer to supply more copy in future for feature articles, or just offer yourself as a spokesperson on fitness related issues. It could be the start of a very rewarding relationship – and maybe even a regular fitness column in the paper.

Thanks to the internet, even your local area is a clutter of information overload. But the media have a thirst for stories that stand out. Give them what they want and your fitness business will benefit from the investment of your time as more clients seek out your services.

Over to you: What do you think of these press release tips? What would your press release headline be? Please leave a comment and let me know.

A version of this article first appeared in FitPro Network Magazine

 

The Preposterous PR of Porn on a Plane – Ryanair PR Stunts

Marketing, , , , , , ,

Okay I’ve had enough of this. I have dealt with journalists for over 15 years. I know how to write a decent press release and to get a story out there either in-print or on-line. There is spin and there is super spin. There are true stories and there are tall stories. But the latest RyanAir PR stunts tale is so preposterous I can’t believe anyone picked it up let alone a national newspaper.

I don’t know whether I love or loath Michael O’Leary, the boss of Ryan Air. You often see photos of him looking like a manic gibbon with a smile so wide you could land a Boeing 737-800 in it. And such a photo accompanied this Daily Mail article claiming that Ryan Air will put Porn on Planes. Yes that’s right. Passengers will allegedly be able to rent porn films on their journey.

ryanair pr stunts

O’Learly acknowledges that it wouldn’t be fair to put porn on seat back TVs. No it would instead be available on discreet hand-held devices that the porn watching passenger could angle away from his fellow travellers to spare their blushes. Perhaps the device would come in a big plain brown paper bag to add to this discretion. I doubt it.

And anyway in true Ryan Air style the cabin crew would announce it’s availability in their customary style, “Today ladies and gentlemen we have some filthy dirty mucky films for you to hire. Just ring the cabin crew call bell and we’ll bring your own personal porn player to your seat. Only £10.99 per hour and an extra £2.99 for a packet of branded tissue wipes.”

This is of course complete twaddle. But the Mail reported it as fact.

Why are intelligent journalists taken in by this PR posturing? Do the Ryan Air press releases include a footnote informing readers that the word gullible is not actually contained within the Oxford English Dictionary along with a suggestion to go and check. Obviously not otherwise we would have seen a tabloid headline claiming it’s true along side a photo of a giggling Mr O’Leary giving the thumbs up.

They fell for the statement about Ryan Air introducing charges to use to use the toilet on board. They fell for the frequent releases about introducing stand-up seating. Or more sit down seating made available by taking the toilets out completely.

Anyone with five minutes to spare can find that the 737-800s that Ryan Air use are already at their largest capacity under the Boeing certification and various Aviation Authority evacuation rules.

So it would be easy to debunk the stories. But they report it as fact whilst Mr O’Leary sits in his office cackling insanely and having a right good laugh at those he has duped yet again, and revelling in his free publicity – good or bad.

Personally I won’t fly Ryan Air because I was once kidnapped by them. There was a meeting in Dublin I was going to but after a 4 hour delay on the flight there was no point travelling as I’d missed the meeting and it couldn’t be rearranged for later. I asked to get off the plane (the doors were still open) but they refused and I had to travel all the way to Dublin for no reason. And then come back again. As a result if I had a choice between flying direct to Paris with Ryan Air or via New Zealand with another airline, I’d take the kiwi route every time.

The near genius of O’Leary’s PR is that the public know that flying Ryan Air is a pretty miserable experience and that they will get fleeced for extra charges, so O’Leary’s PR stunts fit so well with people’s perceptions of the airline that they almost could be true.