Personal trainer? Master your digital presence

Micky Weis

15 years of experience in online marketing. Former CMO at, among others, Firtal Web A/S. Blogger about marketing and the things I’ve experienced along the way. Follow me on LinkedIn for daily updates.

Kopieret

Since this post was originally published, I’ve received an overwhelming number of inquiries from personal trainers.
That’s why I always make sure to update this guide whenever I learn something new about the industry. I’m still working with Peter on his new initiatives.

This is how the post started: Some time ago, I created a free form where people could submit their business if they felt it needed a marketing overhaul. I would then choose one business and provide at least five improvement suggestions.

It didn’t take long before many personal trainers and coaches signed up. So instead of choosing just one, I decided to create a comprehensive guide that I believe 99% of the submitted cases and websites could benefit from.

I’m personally passionate about training, which also makes it easier to write about. Plus, I’ve helped a good friend, Peter Bendtsen, achieve remarkable results — particularly in the marketing department.

In fact, I’ve managed Peter’s marketing for the past five years, and today he runs a healthy business based on the work I’ve done for him over the years.

Admittedly: Even though I’m very passionate about training, I’m not an expert in personal training. All these tips are purely based on my experience with online marketing.

That said, you don’t need to apply all the tips — just a few can already help. But if you use all of them, you could reach a whole new level.

Get yourself a website

There’s no excuse not to have a solid website. You can find a theme on Themeforest and set it up in WordPress. That’s how I’ve built countless websites from scratch — and there are plenty of video tutorials for this.

Some themes you could choose:

• Personal Trainer theme 1
• Gym Sport Responsive
• Personal trainer theme 2
• Total (this is the theme I use on my own site and it has tons of options)

In short — your website should reflect your work. If your site looks untrustworthy, it can take just five seconds for someone to write you off as untrustworthy too.

Logo design

Oh lord, I’ve spent a lot of money on custom logo designs — from Upwork to 99designs. Let me be clear:

In the beginning, you don’t need a logo! Your brand is far more important. People don’t care if you spent $10,000 or $20 on a logo.

If you do want a nice logo, please don’t try to design it yourself in Photoshop and crop it manually. It’s crucial to have your logo in the correct formats so it fits print materials, banners, etc.

The logo on my site was made in Photoshop just by picking a special font — and that’s it.

99 Designs is the answer to your prayers.

All you have to do is create a project, name your price, and provide detailed guidelines for how you want your logo to look — and voila, you’ll receive many options to choose from, or you can ask the designers to tweak the results.

It’s a brilliant concept — and afterward, you receive all files in the correct formats so you can use them everywhere.

Understand Google

Most people still don’t get it. Most websites receive 50–70% of their traffic from Google. Google is still the strongest sales channel — even for personal trainers. Why?

Because people Google all their problems — especially in the fitness world. Most industries don’t have the luxury that the fitness industry has: supplements, diets, training programs, and lifestyle topics generate millions of Google searches globally.

Once you rank well on Google within these areas, you can get thousands of visitors per month. If just 2–10% convert into clients, that’s a solid business — and hey, we’re only just getting started!

Also read: The ultimate guide to starting a blog/website

Here’s what an organic growth curve from Google can look like if you have a strong blog:

Screenshot from Sarahposin.com

Sarah gets over 20 times more traffic than I do. She’s talented — but she’s not that much better at SEO. It’s a matter of volume.

It’s just a little sexier to write about training, fitness, and clothing than about online marketing — let’s face it.

Social media

The most important thing about social media is not to scatter your efforts. The classic mistake many large companies make is either trying to be on too many platforms or choosing the wrong ones.

Since we’re based in Denmark, we can focus on just a few social platforms (our small population tends to use the same ones).

I’d recommend Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat — in that order.

Start with one platform and build a solid follower base — unless you have time to grow them all.

Facebook marketing

How should you use Facebook? Good question. I’ve written several guides about Facebook marketing.

The key is to build a good, solid follower base.

Unfortunately, organic reach on Facebook doesn’t deliver much anymore. With more and more advertisers, it now costs money to market yourself — like it or not.

When advertising, I recommend using Facebook Power Editor and setting up precise target audiences — you know your customers best.

Once you gain momentum, you can do giveaways and more to boost engagement.

Video content is another strong type of content for Facebook’s newsfeed — more on that below.

Notice the growth curve when this strategy is implemented.

Giving away knowledge for free

This blog post took me over 10 hours to write, and it’s taken me years to gain the knowledge needed to create it. Good things take time, and learning and researching especially takes time — the same applies to personal trainers.

Peter Bendtsen has practically built a career on this principle.

If you’ve read Anthony Robbins’ books on success, you’ll know he believes there’s always value in giving. The one who gives the most gets the most. That’s true in every area of life — in my opinion.

Often, you’ll get more back when you give more. That’s why social media has value — it allows people with something to share to help those looking for it.

You might be thinking, “But what if I get taken advantage of?”

Sure, that can happen — but think about how amazing it is to help others. Whether it’s knowledge, love, or time. You have the ability — and thus the obligation — to share what you’ve learned so others can improve their lives.

And who knows — maybe they’ll need a personal trainer — or someone in their network will — and guess who they’ll mention?

Tip: I’ve helped 20–30 people/businesses completely for free — to learn, and because I believe it’s my duty. As a result, I’ve built a powerful network. Never underestimate the value of giving without expecting anything in return.

Video

As mentioned, video content is booming. We’ve gone from SMS (text) to images (Instagram) to video (Snapchat). That’s why video is currently favored on social media.

The growth of video online

There are endless video content opportunities for personal trainers.

Examples:

• Workout videos (how-to guides)
• Recipes (quick and easy)
• Storytelling (case studies and client reflections)
• Home workouts (put yourself in the users’ shoes)

How to market your videos

• Start your own YouTube channel and build a brand. The guy from SixpackShortcuts has done it — and he now has 3.9 million subscribers. Imagine how many training programs and PT sessions he sells — not to mention merchandise.
• Of course, it takes years to build a channel like that, but if your content is solid, you can build a great business.
• Become known for posting workout stories on Snapchat. Show people how you train. Snapchat is one of the fastest-growing platforms — and it doesn’t take 20 hours like editing polished videos does.
• Upload your videos directly to Facebook and Instagram. That works much better than linking from YouTube (since Facebook and YouTube are in direct competition).
• Create a membership section on your blog — either free with user login or charge 25–50 DKK/month for access to your newest videos. Fitness expert and model Greg Plitt found great success with this in the US before his passing.

E-mails are most important

One thing many businesses forget is that emails are still one of the most valuable tools for a blog or webshop. Most people think social media is enough, but you can still get a lot of value from your emails.

Marketers still get the most from email

That’s why you should take advantage of having readers through your blog and followers through social media.

There are many tools today that can help you collect more emails. We’ll go through a few of them here.

Mailchimp

You need solid email software, and I still think Mailchimp does it best. It’s free up to 2,500 users and doesn’t cost much per month after that. I use it myself on my blog. Their setup guide is super easy to follow, so just get started.

You can use it to send emails, create automated welcome emails, and much more!

Popups

You’ve probably noticed my popup on this site. Popups can be super annoying—we can all agree on that.

Make sure your popup stays to the side and is easy to close. Also, don’t be too aggressive. Keep it at a level where you wouldn’t get annoyed—because your users definitely will if you are.

For WordPress (which this blog is built on), there are plenty of plugins. I use Bloom, which is a quite nice plugin. For larger setups, I think the Danish solution Sleeknote is excellent, even though it’s on the pricier side.

With Bloom, you can also add sign-up boxes at the bottom of each post and much more.

E-books

If you want to go the extra mile, you can create PDF books, which are super popular. You can make them available via popups. There’s software for this—for example, Leadpages. You can also create a simple sign-up page like the one I’ve made below.

This page was made using Instapage.
I just hit 2,000 subscribers to my newsletter.

The only limit to how you get more emails is your imagination. At the core, it’s about having something to offer, and then making it easy for users to sign up for your newsletter.

The better your content is, and the more you offer, the simpler your sign-up form can be.

Blog blog blog blog

I started this post by emphasizing how important Google is for all webshops and blogs—actually, for all websites in general. That’s why you need to start blogging.

Before you begin, I recommend reading my extensive guide on content marketing. There’s a ton of valuable insights on how to fine-tune your blog.

Here are a few quick tips and tricks you can implement today, especially if you’re a personal trainer.

What should I write about?

Earlier in this post, I touched on what kind of video topics you can focus on.

There are a ton of questions you, as a personal trainer, can answer. It’s an area where people actively seek answers to all kinds of things.

Analyze using Buzzsumo

Those of you who have followed me for a while know how much I love analysis—especially when it comes to content.

Buzzsumo is a tool that analyzes how content performs on other blogs and how many shares it gets—for example, on Facebook.

Let’s use personal training again. I know that Bodybuilding.com is one of the big blogs, with thousands of articles.

I plugged Bodybuilding.com into Buzzsumo, and look what I got—
Voilà! Some of the most shared posts.

The whole idea of “spying” isn’t about copying others’ content. You must not do that—and you shouldn’t. Instead, see it as inspiration so you can develop your own blog and create engaging content.

It can also give you insight into how to structure your posts and which social media platforms to prioritize. Notice whether the posts use video, text, or something else.

You probably have some competitors in your field. Otherwise, check out major forums where you can do the same thing.

Check Amazon’s books (my secret tip)

This tip isn’t well known in Denmark but is widely used by online marketers abroad.

Amazon lets you preview parts of a book before buying, including the table of contents.

Search for a book in your niche and check out the table of contents. You’ll quickly find tons of topics/headings that you can use.

I searched for Bodybuilding and chose one of the bestsellers—and here’s what I got.

Do this for 5–10 books in your niche, and you’ll have content ideas for a year. That’s not to say it’s not hard work. Being a sharp blogger always is—but that’s also what helps you build a solid business.

Ask your users

When you’ve built a big following like some personal trainers have, you can benefit from simply asking them a question.

You can use social media or tools that display a small popup on your site to gather feedback. I’ve had great results with Hotjar, which shows a small popup where people can ask a question.

This could also lead to a blog post like “10 quick Q&As,” helping you create content that’s both easy to write and popular among your audience.

I could write much more about how to market your content, but I’ve already created a guide for that—read it here.

Analysis / know your audience

Almost all of my work involves data analysis. At Firtal, we have a motto:

Without data you’re just another person with an opinion

Basically, it means that we base 99% of our decisions on data. An argument alone doesn’t mean much unless it’s backed by data.

We use a wide range of tools. When working with many webshops and having people like Jesper Buch and Christian Stadil as co-owners, it’s essential to have your numbers in order—they demand it.

But you don’t need all the fancy tools we use. You can still take your data analysis to the next level—and the top trainers and bloggers in the US definitely do.

Let’s look at two key tools to get you started…

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is probably the platform where I spend the most time. It’s a free tool offered by Google.

You can analyze everything once you’ve implemented the tracking code.

As a personal trainer, I would analyze:

• Demographics – who’s engaging with your content?
• Time on site – how long do people stay?
• Traffic sources – where is your traffic coming from?
• Landing pages – what are your most popular posts?

Google Analytics is a very in-depth tool, so don’t get discouraged. It takes a long time to get truly fluent in it, but just start by identifying 4–5 metrics to measure. That’s all you really need at the beginning.

Cyfe

Cyfe is a type of dashboard that pulls in data from multiple sources like Google Analytics, Facebook, Instagram, and many more.

The idea with Cyfe is to create one dashboard that only shows the metrics you care about—so you’re not overwhelmed by the data from every individual tool.

Facebook Insights

No matter which social media platform you use, it’s incredibly important to analyze how your content is performing. Facebook Insights is Facebook’s built-in analytics tool and can give you a lot of valuable info. Here are a few examples:

Who are your “fans”?

Very relevant—make sure your fans match your target audience. Imagine if they were all from India and over 70?

What time of day are they online?

Key to knowing when to post—and when not to. No point in posting if no one’s online.

Which posts perform best?

Crucial to know which content types work best. Also important when deciding what to put ad money behind. As you can see clearly on this page, videos perform best—so why not create more?

There are similar tools for most social platforms. As mentioned in the social media section, stick to just a few platforms—especially if your audience is only in Denmark.

And obviously, since I first wrote this post, Instagram has gained even more ground. That’s why I’ve also created a guide on how to get more engagement on Instagram.

The key is that the world is always changing. Focus on what you can do, make sure to test new things often, and don’t be too proud to be the first to try something new. That’s how we set up a Facebook page for Peter before anyone else.

Conclusion

As you can probably tell, there are tons of ways to market yourself as a personal trainer. There might even be more!

Are you a personal trainer, and did you get something out of this post? Got more ideas? Drop your comment below and help me—and others—get even smarter.

Thanks for reading!