8 Personal Trainer Marketing Ideas. How To Promote Yourself

Knowing how to promote yourself as a personal trainer is key in running a fitness business nowadays. As there are more and more professionals active in this field, you have to differentiate yourself from your competitors with a strong personal training marketing strategy.

Implementing a marketing strategy can be easy if you follow a few steps. First of all, you have to set a goal, meaning to know exactly what you want to achieve through that personal training marketing strategy.

The most important thing when you search for personal training marketing ideas is to keep in mind that you have to promote yourself, to make people know you exist. In order to do so, you can find in this article some inspiring personal training promotion ideas. Put them in practice and get ready to boost your business. 🙂

1. Create a personal trainer blog

As a personal trainer, writing on a blog gives you more authority in the industry. Sharing your knowledge with others makes them trust you more, as they see you really know what you’re doing there when you go to the gym to train them.

Maybe it doesn’t come naturally to write on a blog in the beginning, but doing it constantly will help you write better and better and especially, will help you find your style. There are many things you can write about on a personal trainer blog: about the exercises you use to do for certain muscle groups, nutrition tips, recovery techniques, and so on. So, don’t worry. Just start doing it and everything will come naturally. What better personal trainer marketing strategy than explaining people exactly what plans you have with them? For more tips & tricks, find out in this article how to start a fitness blog right now. 🙂

2. Build a great community

When people consume the content you publish, they don’t only think if they should or shouldn’t hire you as their personal trainer. They also think about how you can help them accomplish their goals.

After you create trusting, powerful and engaging content, something magical happens: you start building your community. And that’s magical because once they trust you, they won’t go to anyone else: they become loyal.

It’s incredibly difficult to sell something if no one knows about you or your services. You can not sell personal training sessions without making yourself known in the gym you work in or in your local area.

When it comes to marketing yourself as a personal trainer, there are a few things you must do, such as inviting people to workshops, implementing gym challenges, or adding your classes to the gym’s timetable. By doing so, people will start coming to your classes, and you’ll grow a great community little by little.

3. Word of mouth

Word of mouth is still one of the best marketing ideas for personal trainers. According to Nielson, approximately 92% of consumers will believe recommendations from family or friends over traditional marketing techniques.

In fact, word of mouth can be considered the office alternative for social media. You have no idea how far the message is going to spread. A client can talk about you with a friend, that friend to his family, his family to other friends, and so on. Word of mouth is good because it is trusting, real, and free.

4. Be present on social media

With all the personal training marketing ideas, nothing can beat social media. Why? Because social media has changed the way, people receive and spread information. Social media is everywhere. It’s accessible, it’s powerful, and it’s here to stay.

If you want to put into practice strong marketing ideas for personal trainers, consider making a business profile on Facebook and Instagram, create some awesome photos and content to post on your wall, and create engagement with your audience.

Here’s a short video that might help you understand better what valuable content on a personal trainer’s social media profile is about:

5. Participate at events

Seminars are destined to make professionals deepen their knowledge, and fitness competitions are destined to be the place where professionals show their sports performances. But both of them have a thing in common: they are the main place where people create connections.

Networking is essential in all kinds of businesses because by interacting with other people in your industry, you not only have the chance to learn something new but you have the chance to partner up with others and create something unique.

Many businesses started from scratch, with people who met each other at an event. Therefore, if you want to grow your business and become a real professional, you must make yourself known in the market and show up at fitness events, seminars, marathons, etc.

6. Business cards

As a personal trainer, you help people learn how to live healthier life and create for them a fitness routine. As the demand for personal trainers grows, so does the number of professionals entering the fitness world. Standing out from your competitors begins with your personal trainer business card.

Whether you choose to go to a designer or to do it yourself, you just have to keep in mind that your business card has all the essential elements:: logo (if you have one), name, address, and contact information.

Anyway, if you choose to do it yourself, you may want to have a little bit of fun with Canva, a design tool free and easy to use, where you can create all the visual elements for your business. The advantage is that Canva also offers templates for any design you want to make. Here I made for you a business card example for personal trainers. Get the app and get ready to put into practice a marketing idea for personal trainers. 🙂

7. Online booking

Having an online booking system is one of the most important things to consider in your personal trainer career. After you build your community and you are mostly busy doing your best to train them, an online booking page is all you need. Why? Because talking on the phone with your clients and making appointments on your agenda takes too much time.

Why is having an online booking system the best solution? Because clients can book themselves online through social media “Book Now” buttons with just a few taps, and you don’t have to worry anymore about interrupting your work to book another session. You can also take deposits or full payments online and eliminate your no-shows and cash payments. Give it a try; it’s a golden marketing strategy for personal trainers. Here’s a guide on how to set up your booking buttons on Facebook and Instagram. 

8. Client management

Isn’t it pleasant when you notice that your favorite baker knows exactly what cake you like in his shop? Well, not a good idea to talk about cakes in an article about sports, but you get the point: when you know details about your clients, they like you more. Simply because you know them and you show you care about them.

Therefore, a good idea should be to use a personal trainer scheduling app that lets you manage your appointments, your revenue, and your client’s details all in one. It is very affordable, also with a free plan, and you can put into practice a personal trainer marketing strategy: text message reminders before sessions to all your clients. You can download the app directly from the App Store or Google Play.

As even Stephanie Chapa, a well-known fitness competitor, said, “it’s not about being the best. It’s about being better than you were yesterday.” So, get ready to make these personal training marketing ideas part of your daily routine and promote yourself in the fitness industry.