The 4 Pillars Of Effective Marketing
Identifying Your Ideal Client
There are hundreds of thousands of personal trainers around the world. And thousands more graduating from fitness colleges every single day!
With all this competition, what is it that will make you stand out from the pack?
The first thing that fitness professionals need to understand is that you are actually in a marketing and sales business. The more we can get our head around this concept and the more we can embrace this, regardless of what industry you are in, the greater level of success you will have in these areas.
Being in the fitness industry we’re faced with the opportunity and potential that so many people could actually be our target client (so many people out there need help), however, finding these people can prove challenging.
Where do you even start to find "everyone"?
Well, they are everywhere!
And this now becomes a marketers nightmare!
The Ideal Client
The most important first step is to understand exactly who your ideal client is. What that person looks like, sounds like and behaves like.
Note: If you don’t have this part clear then it can be very challenging to get your marketing message right.
The process, first of all, involves identifying a number of potential types of people that you can in fact service and help. If you don’t have this part clear right now, then don’t worry, as this process allows you to devise the best game plan!
Most importantly, this procedure allows you to be very clear on what these people’s greatest fears, concerns and frustrations are when it comes to achieving them with their health and fitness goals and more importantly, how you can solve them.
Once you’ve identified a number of potential target groups, you can go through the step’s to decide if you are heading in the right direction.
When identifying your ideal client, there are a few myth’s and fallacies that we first need to be clear on that can block people, as follows;
Myths and Concerns
Q: If I choose a target group or niche market, do I need to exclude all others?
A: Absolutely not! If you specialise in ‘young mum’s’ then it doesn’t mean you still can’t service a ‘busy executive’.
Q: I’m finding it challenging to only with select one niche as I want to help everybody.
A: That is all well and good, however, the purpose of selecting a niche enables you to target your marketing directly towards the person that needs to hear it.
Q: I don’t want to limit myself to just one area or type of person.
A: Don’t worry, not only will you carve an area of speciality, but you’ll also make yourself desirable to all types of people.
With hundreds of thousands of personal trainers operating around the world at any one time, you might be asking yourself; “How can I be different and set myself apart”?
Well, there are actually many possible ways to do that, but they fit into two main categories. To understand how this works, we need to look at an important business principle called “The Bathtub Diagram”.
Imagine that you’re looking at the cross-section of a bathtub, with the plughole at the bottom.
Every business lies somewhere on the curved line.
Here’s how it works;
The people who make the highest profit are those at the top left and the top right of the diagram. Those at the top left are the ones who do a small volume of business, but at a very high price with a large profit margin. Like, say, a designer clothes store. Those at the top right of the diagram do a large volume, with low prices and a small profit margin. Like Kmart or Target.
The problem for most people is that they are too afraid to claim either of these two extreme positions. Instead, they try to be “everything to everyone”, taking all business that comes along, and charging the least amount they can without going broke.
It’s these people in the middle who struggle. The reason for this is that when the economy goes bad, or “the plug is pulled” on the economy, these are the first ones to go down the drain.
So here’s the point: the further up the sides of the bathtub you are, the better you’ll do. You can do that in one of two ways:
Model One: Low Volume, High Price
You can compare this to any sort of luxury brand, like Porsche or Rolex. While they may not sell nearly as many units of what they produce as General Motors or Casio, their exceptionally high prices ensure pretty solid profit margins.
This is probably the easiest model to set up. The way you do it is by finding a niche that you can specialise in. There are thousands, if not millions of possible niches out there.
The reason those specialising works is that, given the choice, people would rather be trained by a specialist who knows exactly what they need, rather than a generalist who takes all-comers. People are prepared to pay more for that privilege.
Think about the difference between a GP and a medical specialist. The GP has to see 70 or 80 patients a day, while the specialist sees a lot fewer patients, and charges a lot more!
Model Two: High Volume, Low Price
With this business model, you are receiving less income and less profit per individual session, but you are doing a massive number of sessions. Naturally, you are limited to the 168 hours in a week that is present. No one in this world can work more hours than that, no matter how good or hardworking an individual they may be.
This model is generally a bit more effort to set up. The way you do it is by finding ways to have a lot more clients without having to spend a lot more hours on the job. That means leveraging your time. Here are a few ways you can do that:
1. Offer Membership-Based Options: Instead of seeing one person and charging a higher per session rate (like the specialist) you could see more people and charge them each a lower weekly rate to get the same or greater outcome.
2. Hire Trainers To Work For You: In this case, you’ll teach the trainers on your team your system and methodology, and you’ll derive passive income from the work performed. It does mean hiring and managing staff and can be very lucrative in the long term.
For now, we’ll concentrate on the first model (low volume, high price), since it’s the generally the quickest and easiest to set up.
Becoming A Specialist
Specialising allows you to do a number of things:
You can target your marketing, so you need to do less marketing and you get more clients.
Keep the cost of acquiring a lead right down
It makes it easier for the consumer to know if you are the right person for them
You can charge more, as people expect to pay more for a specialist, and they’re not just comparing you on price.
You can work fewer hours without a reduction in income since your hourly rate goes up.
You keep your clients for longer since your training is tailored exactly to suit them.
Exactly what do I mean by “finding a niche to specialise in?” Actually, a more accurate description would be “finding a niche within a niche to specialise in”. In other words, you’re after a fairly narrowly targeted group.
When I talk to personal trainers about specialising, they’ll often say to me something like, “Oh, I already do that. I specialise in working with women”.
Well, this is NOT what I mean by specialising.
“Women” is a very broad niche. In fact, it’s roughly half the people in the entire world!
Working with the niche “women” is certainly not what I mean by “specialising”.
Instead, you need to find a niche WITHIN this broader niche.
Here are some examples of niches within the niche of “women”: overweight women preparing for pregnancy, brides-to-be who want to look their best on their wedding day or new mums who want to get back in shape after having a baby.
A common newcomer mistake can be that many people who try to define a niche for themselves for the first time tend to choose a niche that is either too broad or too narrow.
The next section will stop you from falling into this trap.
There literally are thousands of “niches within niches” out there. So how do you choose the right one for you?
An important process to go through is to really assess if the target market that you have in mind is in fact a worthwhile one to focus upon. You need to avoid that trap of choosing a niche that’s either too broad or too narrow.
We’ve created an easy to use assessment tool for you to quickly decide if, in fact, you are onto a winner.
Let’s explore a few examples of targeting a niche within a niche:
Rapid muscle growth and strength for men over the age of 40
Weight loss, increase mood, energy and toning for menopausal women
Pain relief - move pain-free for (men & women) over 50”s
Beginners run club - always wanted to run, but never felt like they could