You may have the best heart, the best program, or be the best local trainer or health coach, but if you haven’t figured out ways to market your health & coaching business consistently, effectively, then no one knows about you.
There are dozens of ways for you to market your health & fitness coaching business here. Some are direct and others indirect. Indirectly marketing means you’re not just sharing your freebie. That still feels a little like someone you’ve never met stalking you for a date. You have no reason or motivation to get a freebie (let alone, to those of you who are posting on social media your programs and hoping that people register from social media – that strategy unfortunately would go on the “20 ways to kill your organic marketing” list.
Indirectly marketing your freebie means you’re sharing it but leading with some other generous offer first. Did you know? We no longer require 7 touches before someone will know, like, and trust you – potentially even enough to give you an email, let alone buy from you – it takes about 21 today!
Yes, 21 times(many say 28) in front of someone. And they are not seeing every post you painstakingly made on social media. People have lives. They don’t wait for your next post, email, or video. So create, yes. Then share, send, and resend when they didn’t open. Be purposeful, have a plan and it’s then that these will get your wheels creative juices going!
You can return to this over and over! It’s not a checklist suggesting you need them all, but you do need number 1, then you need to give it wheels as many of the additional simple ways to market your health & fitness coaching business will.
#1 Way to Market Your Health and Fitness Coaching Biz: Create a Freebie
If you don’t have one you love, that works consistently, focus on this until you do. Where do you post it? Not just hidden on your website. In your blogs, podcasts, interviews, and on social posts in an organic not spammy way. Be sure that you don’t make this mistake: make a freebie, and then leave it. Or this mistake: make a freebie and then make another and another. Stick with your freebie. Promote it, and drive traffic to it (in ways I’ll share below as well as paid traffic depending on your budget).
Watch your conversions every week. How many people actually opt in for it? If you create anything… that no one wants.. you’ve wasted time. So be sure you base what you make on what your customer wants. Keep tweaking until you know that the conversion rate (number of people who land on your freebie thank you page after being presented with your freebie) is high before you go and create another one.
Not many things on this list will market your health and fitness coaching business the way a freebie will. It’s going to be true for a long time.
Pop Ups
Add a pop up on your website to the freebie.
Examples of pop ups include: announcing something special, are you leaving/before you go, and did you forget? I’m including 3 images of pop-ups in the notes here that may give you ideas. And yes, they can be annoying. But they do work.
Create content that lives forever:
Start a Blog
Write an Article or post for someone else as a way to market your health and fitness coaching business.
Every time you post a new blog (relevant), video, or podcast, insert a ‘native’ CTA for the freebie and then create a slice of that content and share it on at least 5 platforms with a graphic. Haven’t been doing this and have tons of content (a book? Blog or podcast?)? You can go back and do this for every one of them! Continue to share them once created over and over again. This is really an indirect share of your freebie.
You’ve got gold, now you just need to harvest it! The gold here is that as long as the content is still relevant, you can and should drive traffic to it regularly.
Examples of These Simple Ways to Market your health & fitness coaching business in Action:
I have a knee strengthening video on YouTube. It has millions of views. In it there are 5 or 6 exercises. I can and should share ONE of them in a short video post and tell them that to get the rest of the exercises they can watch the full-length video here…xxxx.
I can also share a study about omega 3 and inflammation in knees (I have in my arsenal) and suggest if they want other ways to exercise for relief… they watch the video.
So while I’m sharing a free social post to another free full length video… in order to finally give them an option to “opt in” and subscribe to my email list with another “freebie” – it often takes that kind of chain reaction to prove the trust factor to a new prospect. (85% of consumers make a slower decision than the 15% of us who may jump in)
Got tons of blogs? Create a book using them. Each blog can be a chapter. In every chapter link to or send to the free resources in your freebie. The book itself can be your freebie. Using a free book with shipping or a free pdf version with a small fee. (Often called a “trip wire” based on the theory that buyers of a small item are usually the best buyers for something more).
Be a Guest.
Every time you’re a guest on someone’s stage, podcast, or summit, share your freebie, with a juicy description. It’s not a pdf, it’s a solution to a big problem your audience has.
Ask for a Referral current members to give you a paid client. Ask ONE person for one referral. Don’t send some kind of a broadcast to a group of people expecting someone to step up. What happens when you do that in a room? Everyone believes someone else will but feels no obligation or inspiration to do so.
Tell them how to do it in a specific way and reward them both.
Share success stories/ testimonials. When you do this, how you get your testimonials matters. It’s not an accident. There are questions you absolutely want to ask and those that you don’t.
Want help collecting testimonials?
Sponsor an event.
Events are always looking for business partners who then get their name on the t-shirt, or the advertisement, or get to talk at the event. Explore how much it would be and the visibility you would have.
What this looks like:
I sponsored an event for $12500. I was a keynote speaker, had a vendor booth, and gave a workout one morning before sessions. I paid for my sponsor multiple times over in the revenue from new clients and students that continue to be a part of programs today. So don’t dismiss these paid opportunities to be in front of a dream live audience. They may be a far better investment than paying for Facebook or Google ads to strangers. Getting on stage, if you know what to say and what not to is a great way to market your health & coaching business.
Brand It
Consider putting your own brand name and logo on a t-shirt. Then wear it every time you’re on camera. Strategically you want to make sure placement of the logo is clear and legible and probably higher up than you might ordinarily have it on a t-shirt. I was on with a colleague recently and watched a replay clip of us he shared. In it, he had on his branded shirt, and while I was in brand colors, he was a billboard in his shirt, as well as in the graphics framing the clip that was used for social media. Brilliant! I go to the gym or to run errands regularly wearing a visor. Why wouldn’t I get branded visors made? In fact, I have one. There are dozens of ways you can apply this.
Be a Vendor
Be a vendor with a booth at a health fair or women’s event/kids’ event (where would your customer be?) There’s a fee but if it’s your specific demographic it’s probably a lot better way to spend that money than spend the same on Facebook ads.
Host a program for your (or other) church
Present at Women’s Meetings
Contact women’s organizations in the late spring/early summer about doing a program for them next year. This is when many organizations wrap up for the summer, new officers are installed, and t
he new Vice President or Education chair has the task of deciding the programs for the next calendar year before fall. Sometimes organizations -specifically women’s philanthropic organizations – have multiple divisions in the same town/city. In the college town I lived for 30 years there were 20 unique subdivisions and I presented at more than half over the years.
Market Your Health & Fitness Business with Radio Exposure
Contact the local radio station about a month or day – sleep awareness month, osteoporosis day – and offer to provide tips and do a talk show or be interviewed with their host. When you’re booked, promote promote, promote. After you’re on, get the recording, send it out and promote, promote, promote.
Use that station’s logo on your site in an “as seen on.”
Be Seen on TV
Contact the local TV station and pitch a newsworthy story. Use statistics, and tie it to their largest audience. You’ll need to do research on the kind of stories they do, the kind of guests they host, as well as know key soundbites that you can give them. They’re busy. Make their job easy by providing the news, why it’s relevant, timely and why you’re the expert. Provide your contact info and 4 questions you can answer. Call, email, and keep asking to talk to the producer until you get an answer. Once you’re booked, do a good job and you’ll be asked back.
Double your Reach
Create a Buddy Pass**. If you already have clients joining your programs, whether your paid or your freebies, give them a buddy pass to share with a friend for 50% off. You’ll want to tie this to some kind of reward for the one who shares it. She wants to save! So… you can do this for a special product right off the bat, a buy 1, get the second 50% off and say instead of each option costing $50 the two can join for $75.
Make Gift Giving Easy
Mother’s Day, Christmas, Birthdays… are all perfect opportunities for gift certificates, or special promotions. But… don’t stop there. It’s not really special for you to say, “Spend your gift money here.” Instead sweeten the pot. Include a package they can wrap up: send an actual book (not a pdf), a journal, a set of bands, a t-shirt, sweat towel, small ball, etc. Make it something you’ll incorporate into your workouts or coaching.
Then include a $10 off or $50 off a next step program for the gift recipient too. So you’re not just getting a new client sale, you’re increasing the chance they’ll make a second purchase and planting that seed for them too.
**About buddy passes and gift giving ease: These are ways to market your health & fitness business… as long as you talk about them! And if your ideal target market is following you, invite them to share the news with their gift-buyer! Or Be sure you know WHO you’re talking to when you post or email… in the gift case you’d potentially be targeting a partner or daughter or son. You have to give that some thought.
Attend Training with Other Business Owners
The networking with other business owners that you do alone can be worth the cost of attending. This could be as small as attending your Chamber of Commerce business networking breakfast once a month. But it can today be virtual and if your business is virtual, even better. Yesterday in fact, on day one of a two-day training on business skills (yes, even after marketing fitness for 35 years I still invest in learning and getting coached myself).
In our small group, we had a chance to hear each other and everyone in my group needed what I have. When you have your radar open to every situation you’re in, there is a potential to meet others who need your services, it can happen organically. Even if not them, their wives, or moms or daughters or a corporate presentation could be waiting for you.
There you are! All the best in 2023!
Resources for building your business:
Marketing to Women Copywriting course: https://www.flippingfifty.com/copywriting-course
Flipping 50 Menopause Specialist: https://www.flippingfifty.com/specialist
Help Your Clients Sleep: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/sleeper
