Do you have a hard time generating personal trainer leads? Many professionals and businesses have been there. In this case, you have us to solve it. Lead generation is a tough task that most people don’t expect to be a challenge once they start a business. Or when they decide to aim for independence in their professions.
The usual lead generation strategies people know about are the common social media marketing and email marketing. However, with digital resources and tools being introduced every day, leads can be generated (and must be) by implementing several alternatives.
SEO, paid ads, directories, networking, and many more.
Some of the few you must be implementing or have considered the traditional SEO for your website or the networking method of assisting to events and other places.
Here, we want to focus on more than the basics. Thus, stay tuned to know how this guide can help you generate more personal trainer leads that are qualified leads.
Improve Your Perception
Client retention is dependent on client training. It’s the perception that matters when it comes to generating leads.
You can make yourself appear in demand by filling out your schedule with fake names (even when it sounds a bit shady), bookings, and phone numbers.
It is much easier to generate leads with a full piece of paper than on one that is empty.
This is something most personal trainers do to boost their first weeks and months. Compared to trainers that start without none, you will notice how many calls and requests you get for having a few names on your list.
With time, this method will bring real names and phone numbers. Thus, you won’t have to continue filling these spaces.
Again, we know it can be a bit shady, but if you trust in your skills and are able to provide the top services people need, why not use them?
Use Pay-per-Click (PPC)
PPC advertising is one of the top lead generation strategies today.
PPC allows you to reach qualified leads who are interested in your business through paid advertising. These paid ads are displayed at the top search results and are tagged by the word “ad.”
These bring valuable leads to your site that are ready and willing to convert. In fact, about 70% of high-intent searches result in someone clicking on a PPC ad. The most qualified leads will be interested in hiring a personal coach.
You must first conduct keyword research before you can get started with PPC. Your ad will appear in relevant search results if it contains keywords.
You must select the right keywords to help you reach potential clients who are interested in personal trainers.
Focus on long-tail keywords if you want to get the most out of your ad and lead generation campaign. These keywords contain at least three words. Long-tail keywords can produce better results because they are more likely to be searched for by those who need your services.
If someone searches for “personal trainers in Miami,” they will be searching for personal trainers in the city, and Google will send them to those websites in the location.
After you have chosen your keywords, you will bid for your ad placement. Your maximum bid is the price you are willing to pay for each click on your ad.
Your ad will be placed based on the maximum bid and your quality score.
Once you have been placed, you can launch your campaign to start earning personal training leads.
PPC Ads can help you get qualified leads without any effort, and it is quite cost-effective since you only pay when someone clicks on the ads.
Conversion is often guaranteed for leads who search with long-tail keywords. They are searching for the right company. Keep this in mind.
Consider Content Marketing
Content Marketing can be a very valuable tool to help your personal training business attract more leads since it helps you provide one thing leads want the most: Value.
Your content will attract people to your site. Searches are a constant activity for users looking for information. They will visit your website to find the information they are looking for.
If they are satisfied with the information on your website, they will be interested in learning more about your personal trainer business.
They will get to know you and your business at this point. They may not be ready to convert immediately, but they will recall your business once they are ready.
Your helpful information will make them choose you over other businesses when they are ready to convert. These leads will believe that you can answer their questions and are an expert in the field.
You can offer your audience many content options. Blogs, videos, infographics, and e-books are the most popular content types.
To keep your audience engaged and interested, you will need to produce a range of content.
Focus on the topics that are relevant to your industry when creating it. Personal trainers can discuss topics like workouts, healthy eating habits, and healthy meal planning.
To ensure you are driving the right leads to your site, it is important to remain focused on relevant industry topics.
Posting content regularly is also important. You can increase your content’s effectiveness and reach more people who are looking for personal training topics.
You can reach people searching for information on healthy eating and exercise by sharing your content frequently.
The best part about this strategy is that you often get high-quality leads.
Create an Online Community Just for Locals
To get your personal training business noticed by locals, create an online community that is specifically targeted at them. Invite your family, friends, and acquaintances who live near you to join.
A community event can be a great idea. A boot camp at your local park or a class on Sundays will allow you to show off your skills and spark interest from people in the area.
Emails and newsletters are great tools to send out invites to the community. Facebook also offers an ‘Events’ option. Invite your friends to the event and ask them to share it with others.
You can build trust with people who don’t yet know you and encourage them to give you a try.
Geotagging and Geofencing Can Be Integrated
Geo-tagging allows you to enable location-specific push notifications via social media and mobile devices.
If a website reader has this feature enabled, they will be able to receive promotions from your business for being in their local area.
Geo-fencing allows you to send push notifications to any user that is within a certain geographical area/fence of your business. It sends notifications only to users within a 5-10 mile radius from your personal training business.
This is the most precise way to get localized information.
Social media platforms now allow business owners to set a geo-targeted radius in order to send messages to potential customers, so using this strategy won’t be difficult.
Partner with Local Brands & Network
You can get the word out faster if you’re just starting your personal trainer business or just moved to a new location where you don’t know anyone.
Networking with brands at meet-and-greet events or local trade shows is a great way to create partnerships. If they are valuable to your clients, you could promote their blog posts, social media posts, or newsletters on your website.
You can reap a host of benefits by sharing valuable, actionable content:
- Visibility for your brand.
- Your SEO (search engine optimization) efforts will improve, and outbound links can aid in your ranking.
- You curate searchable content, and you create a dedicated readership.
- Make sure you keep up with the latest industry trends.
- Your shareable content makes your website SEO stronger.
Another great way to get started is networking in this lead generation strategy.
You can reach a wider audience by using local sporting events. This can be done by reaching out to the media team at the event, offering your personal training services such as warm-up coaching during a race, or simply mentioning them within your local marketing materials.
Networking and partnerships increase brand recall. If your local stores related to your niche know you and believe you are the best in the area, they may recommend your personal trainer services to potential customers.
Your social media pages can be used for training and boosting this strategy as well.
Today, people are more likely to get their news via Facebook and Twitter than they are from a news broadcast.
Designate your personal trainer or fitness director to manage the page. Have a meeting with your staff to discuss the name of the page and how clients should approach you about sharing their successes.
Each trainer should invite former and current clients to “like” the page. Your training department page will now be visible to all members and friends of the club. You will soon have hundreds of potential clients for personal training.
Offering contests on the page can also help you generate leads. You could ask your followers to answer a trivia question and have a winner from there.
Get creative with it and enjoy the journey.
Talking About Social Media…
Social media marketing can help you get personal trainer clients to your gym or for them to request your direct services in case you are yet to become a business and are just operating alone.
Essentially, they can benefit from your valuable information and decide to hire you as a personal trainer.
You have many social media options to reach potential leads. These include Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as Pinterest and LinkedIn.
About 81% of Americans have an online social media account. This is an excellent way to reach people and give them valuable information. You must be where they are spending their time.
Social media allows you to place paid ads to reach new leads. Target specific people that you believe would be interested in your services.
These ads fit seamlessly into their newsfeed. Your ad will only be identified as an advertisement if it is tagged with the word “Sponsored.”
The platform that you use will determine the type of ad. Many social media platforms allow you to post video and photo ads. Some other platforms allow you to run carousel-style photo ads.
These ads are typically paid-per-click, which is similar to the PPC ads we mentioned before. Only people who click on your ads appear in their news feed will make you pay for the ad.
If you want to increase brand awareness and exposure, there is an option to place ads to gain impressions.
Once you have secured new leads, you can nurture them with your social media profiles. You can engage them with valuable content and get them to hire a personal trainer.
Turn Prospects and Clients with A Lead Magnet
Before jumping in how and why you should use this, what is a lead magnet?
A lead magnet can be described as a document that is designed to attract interest and engage prospects. It also serves to start a conversation that could turn information seekers into paying customers.
Even if you have never created a lead magnet, there’s a good chance that you have without noticing it. For example, if you decided to create a calendar for your visitors and prospects, that’s already a lead magnet.
Lead magnets are usually exchanged by the users’ or leads information, which will allow you to nurture them later on.
Basically, you get their info for the lead magnet you’re offering.
You can easily create a lead magnet to help your personal training brand connect with the clients you desire by following just a few steps.
- Identify Your Niche.
In the past, personal trainers were in high demand, had a steady business, and could train anyone, including athletes, senior citizens, obese adults, and overweight adults.
This remains, but what changed is how people decide to find their trainers or, more specifically, the answers they need.
People often turn to the Internet to find the answers they need when they decide to lose weight, get in shape, compete in a race or enter a bodybuilding contest.
Your chances of being found by someone searching for a “weight loss coach” or similar keywords are greatly increased if you specialize in that area.
If you choose a specific niche, this will allow you to focus on the previous lead generation strategies: PPC, content marketing, and anything related to keywords, like optimizing your website with SEO.
Of course, with the lead magnet in mind before anything else.
- Do Your Research.
You’ll be one step closer to creating a lead-generating lead magnet that converts if you take the time to understand your niche or target audience.
You can start digging deeper to learn more about your niche and their interests, as well as what they are looking for online.
These are some questions that you can ask to help you create a topic for your lead magnet.
- What are the best places to find your ideal clients online?
- What are their health and fitness concerns?
If you can’t find yourself creating your lead magnet since research is being hard, you can utilize some tools:
- Use Google Keyword Planner: This tool is free and allows you to view the trends and search volume for keywords people use to search online.
- To help you create your lead magnet, type in the search terms that you believe your target audience uses on search engines.
- Buzzsumo can help you find trendy topics and keywords.
- Developing Your Lead Magnet Idea.
Once you are clear about topics, niches, and all of the above, you can start designing the magnet. If you need some ideas, you have some below:
- A list-style resource.
- A series of questions and answers.
- A one-week diet plan and training program.
- A video to solve a problem.
- Create a list of quick tips.
These examples should inspire you to create your lead magnet.
Repurposed content could be used as a lead magnet, such as a podcast episode or blog post, case study series, email series, resource page, etc.
You could also repurpose existing content and make it a lead magnet
- Designing Your Lead Magnet.
Personal trainers and owners of fitness businesses are not graphic designers. How will you get your lead magnet designed then?
First, you can consider YouTube since it offers tutorials and video editing software. These tools are relatively easy to use and free. However, you will need to spend some time learning to use them.
Secondly, you can hire someone to create your lead magnet. If you don’t have a steady flow of personal trainer clients or income, you may want to reduce costs.
It might be worthwhile to hire someone to design your lead magnet to bring in leads. Fiverr.com offers a cost-effective way to find talented graphic designers at rates starting as low as $5 per job.
- Start Collecting Leads by Going Live.
After you have created your lead magnet, connect it to your website using an opt-in form. This will allow you to collect email addresses.
This can be done with free WordPress plugins or paid lead generation tools such as Lead Page. These tools, whether paid or free, automate the process.
Your free lead magnet will be sent to the email address submitted by someone who subscribes to your list.
You’ll need more than simply posting your lead magnet on the website. You need to make people aware of your lead magnet even if you don’t have an extensive email list or social media following.
Use the Power of Email Marketing
Email is over 40 times more effective in helping businesses acquire new customers than either Facebook, Twitter, or any social media platform. However, it’s a good idea to have an email marketing plan before you start with it.
Also, use an email marketing tool that allows you to personalize your messages so that you can tailor each message to suit the needs of the prospect or client.
Overall, the idea we can give you about email marketing is to send valuable content to those who have signed for it.
We suggest you take the time to design the emails and guarantee they are not overwhelming. Also, using MailChimp or similar platforms will save you lots of time.
Solve a Problem and Get Sales (or Deals) Thanks to It
It’s important to keep your target audience in mind. For example, think about someone who is trying to lose about 20kg because they are tired of being overweight.
When you are presented with this, start designing a solution that answers the following questions:
- What are the obstacles that stand in the way of a more toned and less fat body?
- What do they need to do to achieve the goal?
- Can they go fast, or need to be a slow process?
Keep in mind that answering these questions will require some curiosity. You need to ask your prospects what their struggles are so far and how they feel.
The idea behind this part is to ensure you are caring about them. Are you, for example, providing a solution for a specific problem? If you are, sales or more like deals with new trainees are closer than you think.
Now, if you have a hard time figuring out the solution for, in this case, the previous example, consider these:
- Private sessions, where they aren’t judged by their weight and can increase their abilities over time
- Interactive training sessions with more than walking or lifting weight.
- Classes about their nutrition.
- Assistance in developing a nutrition strategy that is unique to their schedules and needs.
- Information about how to beat cravings and what snacks.
- Accountability to ensure they can finance the journey.
This is the key point. Remember that most people in your target market share the same problems.
When creating marketing materials, keep these problems in mind and what you can do to solve them (that’s the value proposition).
With time, you will notice how successful your lead generation marketing is and, if you own a business, your sales team will be handling many leads.
The Local Lead Generation Process for Your Personal Training Business
All right! So, everything is about building properties and generating leads. But how does the process actually take place? Are there other steps I need to know?
The steps I mention below are what students from our local lead generation program follow to generate leads for businesses like yourself. So I’ll help you see what we do. And how if you join our program, you can simply generate leads for your own business (unless you want to start a side hustle and build a laptop lifestyle business).
Essentially, our lead generation can be divided into four steps:
The first is prospecting. You need to take the time to do market research on a niche (industry) and determine how many phone-driven businesses are there.
Keep in mind that this is local research as you need to know how many companies need leads. For example, you may search for “plumbing services Youngstown OH.”
You will find dozens or even hundreds of businesses trying to get themselves in front of the customers by ranking on Map Listings, organic results, and even Ad.
The second step, building. When you find a niche (plumbing, tree services, a software company, real estate…), you will need to start building your digital properties. You don’t need to be an expert in HTML or coding. It can be easy with the right tools.
The third step is now taking time to rank your lead gen website. With the site done, you need to work on SEO strategies and start dominating those Google search results. If you’re new to SEO, it stands for Search Engine Optimization.
To keep it simple, it consists of the entire process of growing a company’s visibility on search engines like Google and generating organic traffic. And remember this, local lead generation is part of the strategies.
Moving on to step four, once you rank the site, you will start getting your ROI and profits. You only need to rent it out to a local business interested in the leads the site generates. You can offer a couple of free leads to their move on with the actual pay per lead.
To review steps 1-4 above, I described it to a normal student who is building a lead gen business to help local service providers generate more calls. But replace the student with you as the business owner. And replace sending the leads to a business to simply siphoning the leads to your personal business.
By the way, fun fact, about 20% of our students in our local lead gen program are actually business owners who went through the program. And they use the skillsets we teach to generate leads for their own business.
An Example of Lead Generation: Home Advisor
You must be thinking, “if lead generation sounds so good so far, how come I haven’t seen any company?” That’s the thing; there are many out there. You just don’t know they are dedicated to it.
HomeAdvisor is one of the best examples you can find on the Internet as it is a top lead generation company that has spent millions building its brand but also earned even more zeros for this same reason.
They started small as everyone else but invested in building their brand awareness to make people who are looking for home services go to their website and find what they need. They are over 75% of people’s first choice when they need those services.
If you don’t get HomeAdvisor that much or need a refresh, users need to submit their information to request a service and get a professional or expert who can provide it.
HomeAdvisor’s job is to share your information, which makes you a lead, with local companies so they can contact you and offer the service you’re requesting. For sharing this lead information, HomeAdvisor gets paid by the companies. This happens for every single lead they send to multiple businesses.
Business owners who don’t have marketing skills or don’t even know how to have any online presence will always rely on those pages to list their services. They will save time and effort, but companies like HomeAdvisor can make them spend lots of money as leads aren’t exclusive (one lead is sent to multiple companies after all).
Using Facebook Ads aka Paid Ad Platforms: Do They Generate Leads?
They DO generate leads. If not, no one would use them.
However, you need to remember two facts:
- Paid ads or platforms can be expensive.
- They don’t generate “natural” leads.
Whenever someone sees or clicks in one of those ads, over 80% of them did it by accident or are trying to close/report it.
Why? Because they aren’t looking for those services. At least not at the moment.
What those ads do instead is interrupt their time on the platforms. Users aren’t there to find companies or businesses unless they are searching for a specific company’s user, and for that, there’s a search bar. This is why it is hard to convert them to actual customers who will show interest in the companies’ services. Also, you’re limited by a budget.
When using lead generation, everything is organic. You aren’t forcing others to pay attention to your business but rather being there when they need you. This is why Google’s organic traffic will always beat paid ads, and the reason companies continue investing in it, which is a lot cheaper as well.
What Is Local SEO?
Don’t worry… I didn’t get it at first either. Following the short explanation, local SEO focuses on scaling businesses’ visibility on search engines. However, this is only for those who serve their communities face-to-face.
What does this mean?
Experts and professionals like painters, plumbers, and dentists (but not only them) offer their services to their local customers. Why? Because they can’t deliver them unless they are located in the same area of their customers.
To make sure those businesses get more leads, you need to rank them locally by claiming the business listing on Google to place them on Map Listings. Local SEO also involves online reviews, citation management, and how you manage your entire online presence in the local area.
If you are going to bet on lead gen, you need to adapt yourself to today’s world: The Internet.
Keep in mind that although traditional channels and methods like billboards, warm calls, and pamphlets still work, they aren’t part of your tools. Whenever someone needs a service, they go to Google and search for it.
“Dentist in Miami” or “plumbing services in Orlando,” etc. And you can keep coming up with services or professionals people need and look for. Thus, you need to make sure you’re using Google to get the companies in front of their clients.
Users will always click on the first search results (those near the top), and many of them will be either Ad links (people paid to place their websites there), Map Listing, and then you get websites. Almost all of them are your goal and where you should always aim to place yourself.
Can My Personal Training Business Utilize a Local Lead Generation Strategy?
If you want customers, you better know you need it. Following the previous explanation, lead gen is all about placing businesses in front of their customers, choosing them over their competitors.
Put it simply – it’s all about closing deals and having clients for those companies to make money. The main difference with the usual methods companies use for this is how lead generation approaches different channels to get them in the right place of the market to get customers.
Those channels are all focused on the Internet as most people are searching for products but also services across the net. The issue is that the Internet is way too broad, and businesses don’t know how to place themselves. They usually try, but they get one common result: losing money and time.
How Powerful Are Organic Personal Training Leads from Google?
For companies looking for customers, it’s everything. For you? Pretty much the same. When you build a business with digital properties, you get to make thousands of dollars a month.
This isn’t a “get started today and get rich tomorrow” thing, but it is HIGHLY scalable, and ROI + positive results are guaranteed. Learning a fairly decent and very needed set of skills to create your digital properties and start ranking them on Google is required.
I have invested in several online businesses over the years, and if there’s something uncertain, whether you will get your ROI or not, even more than the actual profit.
However, this business moved my earnings from five figures a year to a month in ONLY passive income while sitting comfortably at home.
On my laptop. Anywhere. Anytime.
You can look at one of the first sites I built back in 2016, and it continues making me over $1.000+ every month. The best part is that I don’t need to touch it or the rest I’ve built over the years, just like this digital property.
What Makes Lead Generation SO Alluring?
Here it goes: you can work from home.
The main issue with regular business opportunities is how much you need to invest in staff, equipment, or rent to have a place to sell your products or offer your services.
We all know the hassles of traditional businesses that involve regular expenses, which are extremely high. Can you afford it? I don’t think so, and even if you can, is it worth it? Now, it isn’t only about the money. You also need to put in a lot of work, and it isn’t only during the first couple of months or years. Usually, it is as long as you continue running it.
You can save yourself those headaches and bone-breaking tasks and expenses with lead gen since it is more about generating leads with digital channels—mainly websites.
Websites can be VERY cheap to build, and with many tools online, you get to do it in a couple of hours instead of days. Any virtual or digital business is scalable and won’t need constant maintenance.
So, let’s summarize this:
- You save money in regular expenses with traditional and most online businesses as what you need is yourself and digital properties (websites).
- You can bet on passive income.
- There’s no need to hire more people to get started.
- You can generate leads in multiple industries, which allows you to work on any niche you want.
How Can I Get Started in the Local Lead Generation Program?
Anyone can start and learn. That’s the beauty of this business model. I knew nothing about SEO, Map Listing, and everything I’ve mentioned so far. It is all about learning the skills, gaining experience, and deciding to take the step.
Remember that this business model will never get old as business owners are always looking for leads. They need to do business and scale their companies. Why not do the same while helping others and still making money?
You can start with this local lead generation course highly recommended for anyone wanting to grow in the business. It is a close training that will take you through each step and make sure you are able to get your ROI, profits and take control of your life.
You will be added to an incredible lead generation family ready to help you 24/7 when asking questions on the group. Anyone is welcome who’s willing to put in the work. Click here to watch the lead gen webinar.