Reaching More Online Personal Training Clients
Amidst the need for social distancing and the uncertainty about the future of the fitness industry, many fitness professionals are transitioning to virtual workouts and online personal training via video calls. If you’re super passionate about changing lives, it is much easier to reach people online.
As a virtual or online personal trainer, there are more options for clients of when and where you can meet with them. You can be with clients all around the world and still work from the comfort of your home.
Now that you’re setting up your business, the next step is figuring out how to get online personal training clients. Finding that target market online can seem intimidating. You may be wondering…
- Where do I start?
- How can I easily find prospective clients online?
- What is my target market searching for online?
- How can I show up in those searches?
Luckily, it’s not difficult to get more clients online when you follow these simple strategies.
Comment on Blog Posts
A lot of great things happen when you start commenting on relevant blog posts in your niche.
Let’s say you’re a personal fitness trainer looking to get more clients online. You want to train via Zoom, Skype, Google Meet or FaceTime from the comfort of your home, so you’re looking for tech-savvy, busy people interested in doing the same.
Do some research on competitors in your niche, and start reading their blogs. Find out which blogs rank high in Google searches when you type in relevant keywords like “online personal trainer” or “virtual fitness trainer.”
Comment on popular blog posts your target market is likely to read. Read the comments of others to make sure the people “hanging out” on the blog are, in fact, members of your target market. Respond to others comments and start conversations with prospects on the blog. Leave a link to your website so others can find out more about what you do.
By commenting on relevant industry-specific blog posts, you’ll start to develop relationships with prospective clients, drive traffic back to your website, and increase your visibility to those searching for the exact services you’re offering.
Get the Most out of Facebook (And All Your Social Media)
This is a great place to start because you already have friends and family who can share your information with others that you may not know. You can post information about what you do, share your products, and also post motivational quotes.
Here are a few of our top tips for using Facebook to get online personal training clients:
Testimonials: Another great tool to utilize is to post testimonials from any current clients you have. This is a great step to increasing personal training sales.
Facebook Business Page: You can also create a separate Facebook page for your business, depending on the number of clients you have or as you continue to grow you may want to create an additional page.
Boosted Posts: Facebook also has the option to boost your posts, this is advertising you will need to pay for. By boosting your posts to a target audience (i.e. people who are interested in fitness, weight loss, bodybuilding, etc.) more people will see them.
Facebook Groups: Invite friends and family to be a part of this group and advise them to add other members that they think would be interested. In this Facebook group post everything that is related to nutrition and getting in shape. Also, encourage questions and discussion among the members. This discussion makes what you are doing more real to potential online personal training clients.
Twitter moves fast so scheduling your posts will be helpful on this social media site. Connecting with other people who have the same niche as you will help you to see what they are doing to get online personal training clients and increase their personal training sales online. It is easy to build up your following on Twitter and it could get you in touch with more potential online personal training clients.
Instagram is more about pictures and you can show the different programs you offer and some helpful tips on how to be successful. You can show how to master different exercises or post nutritional recipes with pictures. Your clients will see what you are doing and want to try it out.
Invest in Online Personal Training Software
For many trainers and coaches, personal training software is a good choice. Online personal training software should help you train clients more effectively and efficiently. If you choose to use a software platform to help you train and coach clients you want to make sure that the platform you choose has a strong customer support team that can quickly answer questions and help you solve any problems.
Some of the most highly rated online personal training platforms include gymGo, Trainerize, PT Distinction, Exercise.com, My PT Hub, TrainHeroic, TotalCoaching, and TrueCoach.
Online personal training and coaching software can be a valuable tool to create, deliver, and maintain your coaching services. The more clients you have, and the more complex your business becomes, the more you and your clients will rely on the software to keep in touch and stay on track.
Use Youtube
A Youtube channel is a fantastic way to get more clients online. By producing and posting your own fitness training videos, you’re providing incredible value while increasing your visibility as a sought-after trainer.
If prospects like the free videos you post on Youtube, they’re much more likely to seek you out for private personal training sessions online.
Create your own Youtube channel, being sure to use the same branding you use on your website. This creates a seamless experience for the end-user and makes you more recognizable across multiple channels online.
Consistently upload new videos to your channel and share them with your email list and on social media.
Track and analyze who’s subscribing to your channel, and reach out to them to offer a free one-on-one training session online.
Move prospects through your sales funnel by showing them how easy it is to train with you online. Each video you post serves as an example of what it would be like to work with you, so make sure each one offers valuable tips, exercises, and recommendations.
Optimize Your Website
One of the most effective ways to help your target market find you and to get more clients is to optimize your website for SEO.
An optimized site is more likely to rank higher in Google search results, which means prospects will see your website when searching for relevant keywords.
The more people that find you in searches, the more visits to your website. The more visits to your website, the more potential for conversion.
Identify relevant keywords for your niche by asking “What is the client searching for?”
Research keywords to see how many searches are being performed, how much competition there is for those keywords, and to get other ideas for additional keywords.
Once you’ve found the keywords most likely to be used by your target market, integrate them throughout your website. Use them everywhere from the homepage copy to your blog posts.
Use relevant keywords in your social media posts, especially when sharing on Google+. A lot of the time, Google will rank a G+ post higher than a regular website in its search results. Because prospects might see your G+ post before your website, make sure you always place a link back to your site in every post.
In order to get more clients, you first have to find those clients online. In order to find more clients, you have to think like a client.
Don’t Forget
Identify the outcome your online personal training client is trying to achieve. Instead of searching for “online personal trainer,” which is a way to achieve an outcome, a client might search by the benefit they hope to receive, such as “weight loss” or “increased energy.”
Think like a client when deciding which social media groups to join. Participate in groups and comment on blog posts in an authentic manner, without selling anything. Be the first to respond when prospects have a problem or question, increasing your authority and visibility online.
By anticipating the prospect’s perspective, you’ll be able to find your target market, build relationships with them, and get more clients online.
How to Start an Online Personal Training Career
As you may know, we are giving away the complete comprehensive training for online coaching and training with the purchase of a certification from NESTA and the Spencer Institute. This training has sold for as much as $2,000, but we’re giving it to you free.
Check out what it takes to start a career in personal fitness training. This is your most affordable and fastest way to become a highly qualified personal trainer.
Is your recertification coming up? Learn more about earning your CEU credits. You can find the full list of CEU courses here.
If you are ready to start your online personal training or coaching business, don’t forget to learn more about our online coaching course. You will also really enjoy this very comprehensive training course called Online Expert Empire.
There is always something exciting about earning a new training or coaching certification and applying that new knowledge of how you train your clients. This also helps you hit the reset button.
NESTA and Spencer Institute coaching programs are open to anyone with a desire to learn and help others. There are no prerequisites.
That’s it for now.
Take action!
PS: Click here to see many helpful business/career resources