As a fitness trainer, it can be difficult to get new clients if you aren’t well known in the fitness industry. One of the most effective ways to get new clients is spreading the news about your business through word of mouth. When you train your clients, and they achieve good and fast results, they’ll be more likely to spread the word and inform everyone they know about your business and expertise.
Word-of-mouth marketing creates a relationship of trust between you and your clients, and you can leverage it by asking your clients to tell their loved ones about any new promotions or programs you’re offering.
Here are the ways word-of-mouth marketing can help you grow your fitness business.
What Is Word-Of-Mouth Marketing?
Word-of-mouth marketing, also referred to as WOM marketing, is a marketing tactic that relies on the consumers to spread the news about a business and its facilities. Typically, when a client uses the product or services of a company, they’re likely to form an opinion about it. If they have positive experiences with the services or products, they’ll likely mention it to their friends, family, coworkers, or even acquaintances they see rarely.
This helps organizations gain more clients and expand their business. In modern times, companies use testimonials and reviews to reach those people that might not be directly associated with the client. As a result, the word spreads far and wide, and businesses get a higher influx of customers. In the fitness world, it’s especially important because people tend to be skeptical about choosing their personal trainers as their health and wellness rely on them.
In What Ways Does It Help You Grow Your Fitness Business?
Word of mouth marketing has numerous benefits when it comes to the fitness industry. That’s because the industry is crowded with trainers that offer subpar training and people need to utilize a lot of resources to find a credible trainer. Therefore, when they come across a trainer that’s trusted by their friends and family members, they’ll likely register for their services.
Here are some other benefits of word-of-mouth marketing for personal trainers.
Reach More Clients
The most obvious reward of good word-of-mouth marketing is the business acquires more clients. A single client has the power to grab the attention of several prospective clients, so they become interested in your fitness business. If the client is a trusted friend, colleague, or family member, the chances of new clients joining are quite high. On top of that, if your training center has good facilities, along with helpful staff, prospective clients will be more inclined to join your fitness center.
But that’s not all; using a genuine testimony of a single client is also a great way of reaching people not directly associated with the client. You don’t have to convince them to sign up for your business. Instead, all you have to do is convince them to take a look at their facilities and see how things work around your gym.
New Clients Develop Trust Easily
When you get clients through word-of-mouth marketing, the chances of them developing trust in your services are higher. That’s mainly because these clients have already seen progress made by their acquaintances and friends as a result of joining your gym. Most of the time, when people are skeptical of services especially related to fitness, they’ll see slower results.
That’s because they don’t put 100% percent effort into their workouts as they still have doubts regarding the services and results. But with word-of-mouth, clients are more eager to get started and see results, so they put in a lot of effort.
It’s A Never-Ending Chain
The best thing about getting clients through word-of-mouth marketing is that you don’t need to go out of you way to keep the chain going. All you need to do is maintain the standards f your services and maintain your facilities. The new clients that join your gym or training center will spread the word to newer clients once they see some results for themselves.
This chain will continue when the new set of clients sign up for your membership. As a result, you’ll save a lot of money on marketing, and over time, you’ll develop a good reputation in your community and the industry.
It’s Cost-Effective
It’s no secret that marketing for any business is quite expensive, but with fitness businesses, you need to run a lot of marketing campaigns just to get a few more clients. Word-of-mouth marketing doesn’t require you to spend thousands on marketing campaigns. This is why this form of marketing is quite cheaper.
All you have to do is ask your clients to spread the word or post testimonials of your clients n your website or social media. Both of these things cost next to nothing. So, in the long run, with WOM marketing, you save a lot of money which you can use to expand your range of services or add more facilities to your training center.
Higher Customer Retention
Customers acquired through word-of-mouth marketing are generally more loyal because they join your services after hearing good reviews directly from their acquaintances. This is why these customers are likely to stay with your business for longer periods and become loyal customers. Once that happens, these customers become the backbone of your business and a reliable source of income.
Not to mention they’ll be useful in bringing in more clients as well. In addition to that, once you maintain a dedicated clientele following, it’ll be easier for you to establish a name for yourself in the fitness industry and grow your business.
If you want to start your fitness business or become a certified personal trainer, check out W.I.T.S Education. W.I.T.S is a training institute that offers several courses in different areas relating to fitness training. Some of these courses include certified personal trainers, youth fitness instructor, senior fitness instructor, and fitness management.
Besides that, W.I.T.S is the only institute that is accredited by the NCCA and offers college credits to students enrolled in their courses. The courses have online classes along with hands-on in-person labs to give students the required practical skills. These training labs are located all over North America to facilitate the students. Check out their courses and enroll today!
The fitness market is denser than ever since people started taking a keen interest in their health. Many new gyms and fitness centers have popped up that offer a wide range of services. Once clients see good results, they are less likely to leave their current gym and join a new one. As a result, it’s harder than ever for personal trainers to get new clients and equally tougher to keep the older ones.
Fitness boot camps are a great way to show off your skills and make clients see the value in signing up for your services. These boot camps are easy to organize and are quite cost-effective as well. This blog will tell you all you need to know about fitness boot camps.
What Is A Fitness Bootcamp?
A fitness boot camp is a type of short fitness training class that mixes different forms of exercises to give targeted results to clients. A boot camp uses weight lifting exercises, stretching, interval training, and even strength training in the same workout to give faster results to the clients. These camps push the clients harder than regular workouts, and that’s why clients can see visible results quickly.
Fitness boot camps are a great way for personal trainers to find new clients and get their names out in the market. This combined with instant results, gives them leverage when getting new clients. Clients who see results are more likely to join the trainer’s program or gym than regular marketing tactics.
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Why Should You Consider It For Your Personal Training Business?
Here are some of the most common benefits your business can avail by running a boot camp.
Gets More People Interested In Your Services
Boot camps are designed in such a way to get people quickly interested in your services and offers. When you schedule a boot camp, it’s usually targeted towards a specific aspect of people’s fitness. For example, some boot camps are geared towards getting abs in 15 days, while others are for losing 10 pounds in 2 weeks.
Some boot camps teach people the basics of yoga, aerobics, or any other specific exercise. Looking at these offers will get people interested in your services more, and they might even look into other services you offer and sign up for a membership. In the end, you’ll likely end up with t a few more clients than you originally had.
A Good Marketing Tactic
People are more interested in services that offer value. So in comparison to simple marketing tactics, running a boot camp will get more clients interested. Boot camps generally require less signup money and offer faster results. Once you get people to sign up for your boot camp, it’ll be easier for you to extend more promotional offers and get them to sign up for your membership. For example, at the end of the boot camp, you can offer clients an additional discount if they sign up for your services. Or you could ask them to sign up for your online classes and work out from their home.
Quick Results For Clients
Because boot camps combine lots of different forms of exercise, clients see results faster. In addition to the different forms of exercise, trainers also give clients a specific diet plan because boot camps don’t last long and make it easier for the clients to stick to their diet plans. Something they might not do during regular workouts.
This combination of diet plus intense workouts leads to faster results, and clients can see their transformation at the end of the boot camp. Not only that, but trainers are usually much more involved in the training process and can easily guide people.
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It’s Cost-Effective
Most of the time, boot camps are held outdoors or in a fitness center without the need to have workout equipment and machinery. As a result, the trainer only needs to arrange for the space, some weights, and workout mats that everyone can use. Most of the cost can be recovered when enough people are signing up for the boot camp unless it’s a free one.
So, in the end, the actual cost of the boot camp is quite low, and the trainers can promote their work without using expensive marketing tactics. Besides that, the trainers also gain a few more clients, so that pays off in the long run as well.
No Lengthy Commitments
One of the most common reason trainers struggles to get new clients is because clients don’t like long-term commitments regarding fitness. We all know that fitness is a slow process, and it takes time for people to see results. Not to mention that progress for different people happen at different rates. However, clients don’t consider these things and want quick results.
That’s why boot camps are a great way for clients to get interested in your business. Once they see quick results, they’ll be compelled to sign up for the full services that you offer and invest in their long-term fitness.
Can Target Different Groups
Boot camps are generally held for a few weeks and are targeted towards a specific group of people with similar fitness goals and ages. This makes it easier for the trainers to develop exercise programs that can help achieve faster results. This also means that you can organize multiple fitness camps based on different demographics to get people from all walks of life interested in your business.
You can run a yoga boot camp or a special senior boot camp with instructors that specialize in senior fitness. This will not only get you more clients, but it’ll also expand the scope of your fitness business.
If you’re a personal trainer and want to expand your skillset, enroll at W.I.T.S. Education today! W.I.T.S is a fitness training institute that offers several courses related to fitness training. These courses include senior fitness instructor, youth fitness instructor, group exercise instructor, and even courses related to fitness management.
In addition to that, W.I.T.S Education is also the only institute that is accredited by the NCCA and offers college students course credits for finishing their training. Their courses have online classes along with hands-on in-person training labs that ensure the students have the relevant practical skills. Their labs are located all over North America, so what are you waiting for enroll today!
If you’re one of those people who consider fitness as a way of life as opposed to considering it just a hobby, then starting a fitness business can be beneficial to you. To run a fitness business, you need to be passionate about fitness itself. Throughout your journey, you’ll encounter countless hurdles and hardships that’ll require you to work for less money, work overtime, and be patient for the results.
If you’re truly passionate, you’ll pull through in the times of adversity, and if you aren’t, you won’t be able to make a name for yourself. Starting a fitness business isn’t as easy as starting businesses in other industries. With those businesses, you need to work hard for some time until you’ve established yourself enough. After that, the business runs smoothly. In the case of fitness, you need to constantly work harder and stay at the top of your game.
If your customers aren’t happy with your level of fitness and performance, they’ll leave for competitors. You’ll need to keep learning new trends through courses or training sessions such as the ones offered by W.I.T.S. Education. Only then will your business establish itself, and you can enjoy the fruit of your hard work and passion.
How To Become A Fitness Trainer?
If you’re passionate about opening a fitness business, surely, you’ll be at the top of your fitness. But just being fit and healthy isn’t enough to become a personal trainer, especially if you’ll be responsible for the health of others. The first thing you’ll have to do is get proper certification, that’ll solidify your case and will help you get your first few clients.
In order to get a certification, you’ll need to match their prerequisite requirements. Some require you to have a high school diploma, while others want a college degree or at least that you be enrolled in one. Second, you’ll also have to check the kind of certifications they offer. The fitness industry is huge, and hence there are several courses you can take. To become a personal trainer, you need to take courses that’ll cover all aspects of personal training and teach you different fitness routines.
The courses last from 3 to 6 months, depending on your level and the institute’s requirements. Some may even take longer if you’re a novice. After finishing the course, you can work with a well-known fitness center or gym to get professional experience. Customers like trainers who have industry experience. Only after doing that will you be able to find clients who would hire you.
How To Turn Your Fitness Passion Into A Business?
After you’ve established yourself as a personal trainer, you’re now ready to step into the business world. However, even qualified trainers struggle to take their business off the ground. What you’ll need is to create a brand image for yourself that’ll attract clients and help you scale. Here are a few things that’ll help you solidify your business and help it grow.
Find Your Desired Niche
Even though personal trainers are skilled in many different forms of exercise, it’s still a good idea to start with a niche. You can pick a niche based on what you like the most, but it’s a good practice to research the industry trends and figure out which areas have the biggest market capitalization options and the predicted market growth. For instance, senior fitness and medical fitness are emerging fields with lots of room for development and market capitalization.
Similarly, you can find niches that spark your interest while still being attractive from the business point of view. Besides picking a niche industry, it’s better to determine a demographic you’d like to work with. For example, if you want to train women only, or youth, or even senior citizens. That way, it’ll be easier for you to grow.
Give One-On-One Training
Don’t expect your business to take off at once just because you’re passionate and have the required qualifications. In the beginning, you’ll face many setbacks, so it’s better to start small. You can start your business by scheduling one-on-one training sessions. This is the best way to start getting clients. Clients like trainers who pay attention to them and make themselves available.
Once you’ve got a few clients under your belt, you can now start thinking about getting some more. The easiest way is to ask your customers to recommend you to their family or friends. Word-of-mouth is still the most popular form of marketing. You can even offer them exclusive family and friends discounts.
Establish A Clientele
If you’ve been successful in getting clients through word of mouth, it’s not time to invest in a marketing campaign. You can try the traditional way by asking potential customers to sign up for free classes and training sessions, or you can post about your services online. Your marketing campaign strongly depends on your chosen demographic.
If you choose to work with young adults, it’s important to market on social media, but you’ve chosen to work with adults or seniors, you’ll need to apply methods that are relevant to that age group such as newspapers and TV ads. Through this marketing tactic, you’ll be able to find clients outside of the determined customer circle that’ll allow you to tap different areas of the market.
Establish Your Credentials
A good way to attract new clients is to display your credentials and let them speak on your behalf. Your credentials don’t need to be strictly related to your niche. For example, if you have experience in running marathons, you can train people for that as well. People from all age groups part take in marathons, and this will give you a good opportunity to expand your services.
Additionally, you can even display any specializations or certificates you already have to strengthen your claims. You can even display positive client testimonials that’ll give your business a more organic appeal that would surely attract more customers.
Get Extra Certifications
Once you get enough traction with your business, it’s time to work on the expansion. You need to start with yourself. If you’re a certified personal trainer, it’s better to get some additional specializations to add more credibility to your skills. You can take courses related to wellness or medical fitness to broaden your scope of services.
Not only that, but you can collaborate with other fitness centers and offer special courses that focus on different factors like personal training with medical fitness or group exercise training. One more you can do is hire a specialist from different fields. Like you can hire a yoga instructor or an instructor for Pilates.
Expand Your Niche
To grow your fitness business even further, you’ll need to start expanding your niche at the right time. Many people wait too long to expand and lose to their competitors or new businesses. There are two ways you can expand your business. First, you can expand to other niches like weight training, weight loss, maternity fitness. Second, you can find untapped markets within your niche.
If your niche is senior citizens, you can start offering nutritional advice or organizing marathons. If you can’t figure out where to expand, it’s always a good idea to study your competitors’ business practices and find out how they have managed to expand.
Find More Customers
With business expansion, your operational costs will increase as well. You’ll need additional clients to fund the business to keep your profits steady. Generally, your expanded list of services will attract clients on its own if you have made a name for itself. But that doesn’t mean those clients will be enough to keep the business afloat.
You’ll need to offer additional discounts or free trial training to get potential clients interested. You can also schedule visitations around your fitness center and show off your equipment and facilities. Impressive equipment and services are a solid way to bag more clients.
Give Online Lessons
Online lessons are the hottest trend in almost all industries; the same can be said for the fitness industry as well. Many fitness trainers are expanding their clientele by offering convenient and easy-to-access online workout sessions. The sessions can be of two types; pre-recorded video lectures that clients can access anytime they like and make their own schedule and workout plan to follow them.
The other type involves on-demand live training sessions where instructors can interact with clients one-on-one or give training to multiple people at the same time. This type is a bit more demanding, but it allows trainers to be more involved in their client’s fitness, and they can even monitor the progress more closely as opposed to just sharing recorded sessions.
Market Yourself On Social Media
If you’re going towards the route of online lessons, it’s important to market it just right. Social media is a great way to share your work and upload trial video lessons to get potential clients interested. Your social media page can act as your portfolio, and customers can look up your services, read client comments, and even see the latest discounts and pieces of training conveniently.
Not to mention that social media is the most popular method of getting young customers to try out your services; if your page has enough testimonials and a good brand image, people will most likely be interested in giving your services a shot.
Establish A Better Training Facility
With so many services being offered and a huge number of clients to be managed, your training facility must have enough capacity to give clients a relaxed atmosphere. While we know that gyms are commonly loud with people doing different kinds of workouts and the machines being constantly used. However, no one wants a crowded gym.
People want to be able to work out in peace and have a bit of personal space to feel comfortable. If your gym can’t offer that, then it’s time for an upgrade. That doesn’t necessarily mean s you need a new facility; a good remodeling job can add a lot of extra workspaces as well.
Learn Some Fitness Management
It’s easy to keep track of your business when it’s starting out. You won’t need a lot of people to manage it; a few software would do the trick. But the story is completely different once the business starts to grow rapidly. Because you’re the person that’s responsible for all the training your clients get, you’ll dint it hard to keep up with the work while managing the business.
With a fitness management certification, you’ll learn methods to effectively keep the business on track while cutting down your workload. You’ll also learn when to hire more staff or outsource some of your work to maintain a good flow.
Tips On Setting Yourself Apart
Here are a few additional tips on getting even more business after you’ve finished all the steps mentioned above.
Create A Unique Brand Image
In this day and age, setting yourself apart is the most important thing. Previously, businesses were focused on offering the same services as their competitors to maintain a steady supply of customers. But now, it’s all about being unique and different. Your logo, theme colors, interior, and marketing tactics should use the same themes and tone to appear homogenous. Make it a point to make your business be known through your brand image. If people see your adverts or social media posts, they’ll instantly know it’s from you because of your brand image.
Target Under-Served Areas And People
There are a lot of groups that are sort of barred from the fitness industry for being too difficult to work with. Such as people with chronic illnesses or disabilities. But with the developments in medical fitness, trainers can now work easily with these people and help them attain their fitness goals. You, too, can capitalize on this untapped market and grow your business.
Turn your passion into a viable business with W.I.T.S Education’s fitness management course. The course will you all the basics about managing a fitness business, including marketing tactics, how to get clients, and managing risk factors. W.I.T.S Education is a training institute offering multiple fitness-related courses such as youth fitness courses, senior fitness courses, and personal trainer courses.
Through W.I.T.S, you can get NCCA accreditation for the courses you complete. In addition, W.I.T.S is the only institute with state-of-the-art practical labs in different parts of North America where students get hands-on physical training. Besides that, the institute also has online classes for courses to give students an easy learning outlet. This allows students to find good employment opportunities at leading fitness centers. Take a look at the course or get in touch today!
If you wish to keep up with the fitness industry, you have to be aware of the latest trends in technology. Ever since COVID-19, people have become curious about their fitness routines and overall wellness.
The combination of fitness technology and digital fitness has been reshaping our industry for some time now. This is not just from the consumer (gym-goer) but also the supplier (gyms/ personal trainers). Gym-goers now are more interested in their workouts, eating habits, mindfulness, and quality.
Here we look at top three fitness technology trends that fitness trainers should incorporate in their programs.
Wearables All The Way!
The fitness sector’s top trend of 2020 that has made its way into 2021 has been wearables. Fitness freaks and gym-goers are more inclined towards these because of the detailed health information collected by these devices.
In addition, these devices give fitness explorers a chance to design their workouts so that they address certain concerns and meet their wisely identified fitness goals. There has been a large emphasis on at-home fitness where the users pair their virtual workouts with several devices such as smartwatches, fitness trackers, etc. When paired with artificial intelligence, the data collected from these fitness wearables opens up a world of possibilities for the industry.
If you have a passion for fitness, you can have the perfect opportunity to turn it into your dream career with W.I.T.S.
Virtual Fitness Is Indeed A Reality!
Virtual reality is not just a way to navigate the challenges presented by COVID-19 but is one of the best trends of the post-COVID world. Several mobile apps and social media platforms provide records of virtual workouts and remote coaching services.
Virtual fitness opens up a range of opportunities for fitness enthusiasts, such as planning training programs and encouraging people to stay fit at their pace at economical prices. It is without a doubt an exciting dimension in the fitness industry. This has helped people with their workouts immensely and allows them to work out for longer periods.
If you’re a fitness professional looking to improve your capabilities, at W.I.T.S, you get to experience high-quality health and fitness education workshops to improve your capabilities.
Smart Equipment
Wearables aren’t the only devices that can track your progress; say hello to smart fitness exercise machines that can provide clients a never experienced before work out.
Having this technology in your gym is a plus as it gives real-time feedback to the client, boosts their workout regime along with increasing a positive word about your gym or studio. It will give the clients a new reason to visit your studio.
These cloud-connected pieces of equipment enable the trainer to keep track of their client’s training progress and keep the staff updated about the maintenance of the machines. Become a certified exercise instructor with W.I.T.S.
W.I.T.S is the first fitness industry to get NCCA Accreditation in testing the written core knowledge and practical skill competencies. Turn your passion into your dream profession and start your health and fitness career today! Contact us.
