How To Create A Simple Marketing Plan That Delivers Big Results

As a fitness professional, you are skilled at getting great results for your clients but not always trained in getting results for your business.  In this article you will discover the keys to create a simple marketing plan that will allow you to attract more clients and make more money.

Learning Objectives

1. Set clear marketing goals for your business
2. Develop a simple marketing plan based on daily and weekly actions
3. Identify the 3 marketing channels needed to acquire new clients
4. Establish a tracking system for marketing performance

Creating a marketing plan that attracts highly qualified leads to your business is the biggest challenge many fitness professionals face.  When you started your career as a personal trainer you didn’t know being a good marketer was required to make this a lasting career.

Quickly, you came to the realization that promoting your services and getting new clients was a necessity.

When the realization hits, you head to Google in hopes of finding a blog post, article or maybe even a course on how to get more clients.

Then you realize there’s a ton of random information and ideas of getting clients but very little structured advice that you can apply right now.

Here’s your solution...

Overcoming the Marketing Stigma

Many personal trainers and fitness professionals have a negative perception of marketing. You’ve probably told yourself “I’m not a good marketer” at some point in your career.

That ends today!  After applying the strategies in this article you’ll be able to craft a well thought out and simple marketing plan that will put clients on your schedule and money in your bank account.

Developing skills to attract new clients to your business doesn’t make you a bad trainer.

These skills, and yes...they are skills, will help you transform the lives of many more people.

What’s in a Marketing Plan

Your marketing plan has 5 components:

• Goals
• Lead Acquisition Methods
• Execution
• Follow Up
• Tracking

If you can tackle each of these 5 areas in your marketing plan you’ll be set up for success.

Setting Goals

When helping a client achieve a large goal, like losing 50 lbs., you break it down into milestones and process goals that will help reach the final outcome.

Marketing is no different.  Set your marketing goals based off your total client or revenue goals that you have for your business.

For example, if you want to add $5,000 per month to your total gross revenue you need to break down how many clients you need to get to achieve that goals.

To get those new clients a certain number of leads will need to be acquired.

Reverse engineering your goals into smaller milestones or outcomes will help you track your daily actions that eventually lead to success.

Lead Acquisition Methods

The outcome you want from marketing is more leads. To grow your business and add new clients, it’s imperative that you attract high quality leads. To attract these leads you need to share your marketing message and increase your presence across three different marketing channels.

The three marketing channels are:

• Offline
• Internal

Your marketing plan should revolve around actions completed daily or weekly to achieve your goals.

Having at least one activity in each channel running at all times will ensure that you are doing enough to proactively market your business.

Complete the exercise below to determine what marketing activities you should put in place for each channel.

Selecting Your Marketing Actions

The easiest plan to implement will be one that you enjoy and that reward you with more clients.  To stack the deck in your favor we will create a plan based on your marketing strengths.

Begin by taking a look at your business, team and personal skills to determine the assets available to you.

Assets are strengths, resources or skills that will make marketing easier and more fun for you.

Here’s a few examples of assets:

• Contacts
• Email List
• Public Speaking Abilities
• Conversational Skills
• Marketing Budget
• Writing Skills
• Social Following
• Community Presence
• Video Skills

After compiling a comprehensive list of your assets select the 5 strongest, most valuable assets for marketing.

Now it’s time to create your marketing arsenal.  Your arsenal will include the ways you leverage the three marketing channels (online, offline, and internal) to get new leads.

Here are some examples for each channel:

Internal

• Rewards System
• Testimonials
• Point of Sale
• Bring A Friend Promotions
• Referral Contests

Online

• Facebook Advertising
• SEO
• Organic Social Media
• Review Sites
• Email Marketing
• Podcasting
• Webinars
• Offline
• Joint Ventures
• Networking
• Public Speaking
• Direct mail
• Car Wrap
• Yard Signs
• Lead Boxes

There are hundreds of marketing methods you could put to work for you. The examples provided are typically the most effective and commonly used marketing methods.

To get these marketing methods that make up your arsenal to generate quality leads for your business you must take action on them.

Marketing Execution

The best marketing plan in the world won’t produce leads if you don’t act on it.   That’s the real secret to marketing success…

Completing the daily and weekly actions that produce the results you want.

Select the top marketing arsenal item for each channel and determine the action you need to take every day or each week to get results.

For example, if you choose that joint ventures are your preferred method for the offline channel it’s important that you reach out to set up new joint venture relationships and promotions.

Setting a goal for the number of new joint ventures you need to set up each month will dictate your daily action plan.  Let’s say you have a goal of 3 new joint venture partnerships each month.

To hit this goal you’ll need to set up at least one meeting with a new joint venture partner each week.  And to book that meeting you’ll need to reach out to 3 new joint venture partners each day.

Your daily and weekly actions are to perform those reach outs and schedule those meetings.

Follow this same process for your internal and online marketing channels to create your own marketing calendar.

Follow Up Relentlessly

When this plan is done right you’ll spend a lot of time and energy, maybe even money, getting new leads.  Don’t let them slip through the cracks!

Your work is just starting once you collect the lead’s information.  A proper follow up system will ensure that you maximize the number of leads you convert into clients.

Create a follow up schedule for all your leads using phone, text and email to get them to take the next step with you.  That next step could be to sign up for a trial or to schedule a consult.

Discipline yourself to follow up with every lead for at least 60 days before giving up on them.

Tracking Performance

Measuring and tracking your marketing performance will help you identify where to spend more of your time and energy as you grow your business.  There’s no use in putting more work into a marketing method that isn’t producing results.

You have limited time and it’s critical that you invest it wisely.  Understanding your marketing performance will allow you to spend more time on the highest return activities.

The first thing to track are the 4 Sales & Marketing Pillars:

• New Leads
• New Front End Offers (Trials, Challenge members, etc.)
• New Clients
• Retention

Reviewing these 4 numbers every week will help determine if you are on track to hit your goals and identify what’s working in your marketing.

Put It All Together

While this seems like a lot of information, it’s relatively simple to get started and see the growth you desire.

To recap:

1. Set your performance goals
2. Create and execute your marketing action plan
3. Relentlessly follow up with all leads for at least 60 days
4. Track your 4 Sales & Marketing Pillars

You’ll be surprised at the results that come by simply completing your marketing actions consistently.