From Passion to Profit: Heart Centered Strategies for FitPros

003 Using the Right Hook to Attract Clients into Your Fitness Business

• Nichola Page • Season 1 • Episode 3

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In this episode, I’ll be your guide in understanding the art of using the right "hook" to attract new clients into your health and fitness business.  A “hook” is an irresistible offering that entices your ideal clients and brings them closer to working with you. 

First and foremost, we'll uncover what a "hook" is and the significance of it in establishing trust with your target audience.  Learn how this powerful tool can captivate potential clients and set the stage for meaningful collaborations.

But what sets a "hook" apart from a run-of-the-mill lead magnet or free giveaway? We'll differentiate between these concepts and emphasize that your hook doesn't always have to be free. Discover how to craft a hook that not only addresses your ideal clients' needs but also guides them one step closer to choosing your services.

Drawing inspiration from the "Trailer to the Movie" concept, we'll demonstrate how your hook should provide a tantalizing taste of what your offerings entail. Dive into strategies that make your hook low-risk, ensuring it's more accessible to potential clients and reduces the barrier to entry.

I'll explain the need for seamless access to your hook, using landing pages and software solutions that streamline the process. Plus the role of your hook in growing your email list and nurturing potential clients through email marketing. 

Action Steps:

  1. Reflect on the best-suited type of hook for your business - whether it's going to be the "Trailer to the Movie" or a method to simply grow your email list.
  2. Let's work on streamlining the process for potential clients to access your hook, ensuring it's quick and user-friendly
  3. Craft compelling marketing messages that clearly demonstrate the value and benefits of your hook.
  4. Evaluate if your existing hook needs adjustments in either its offering or promotional approach.

Remember, your future clients are unfamiliar with your excellence. Provide them with a low-risk opportunity to experience what you have to offer. This initial step can lead to lasting, fruitful partnerships.

Join me on the next episode as we delve further into transforming passion into profit. Stay tuned!

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Welcome to From Passion to Profit, where we talk about all things related to managing and creating a successful health and fitness business. I'm your host, Nichola Page and in this episode, we'll be identifying what your hook should be, to attract new clients.

I'm going to be sharing different types of hooks that are often used in our industry.  How to identify the right hook for your business.  I'll be telling you what a hook is.  And what to do with it once you know what your hook is, to increase the number of new people coming through.

So firstly, what is a hook? Well, in marketing speak, you will hear it referred to as your lead magnet. Sometimes people refer to it as your free giveaway.  It doesn't have to be free by the way.  Your hook is basically something that your ideal clients want and need. That allows them to take a step closer towards working with you. So rather than putting some marketing out there which is getting people to directly buy one of your memberships or your packages, you give them a hook, a free or a low-cost offer.  Something where they can just get a taster of what you're all about... a hook, or a lead magnet.

 Your hook is going to allow you to build trust with that ideal client and demonstrate your expertise and your authority. What we know is that people will go on to buy from someone, from a business like yours, when they know like and trust that business or the individual that they're buying from. So, your hook is a way of you accelerating that trust and building on that relationship with them. 

Now there are a couple of ways you can look at the kind of hook you're going to use.  A very common one that we have in the industry is what I call the trailer to the movie. Let me give you an example…  

If you are teaching Pilates classes, whether it's in your own studio, or you're hiring venues or you're online.  What you want people to sign up to going forward is a membership or a block of classes, or whatever you're offering. What you would offer is your hook, the trailer to that movie.  The movie is the membership that you want them to sign up to or the Pilates classes that you want them to sign up to. Your hook needs to be a taster of what they can expect, should they then go on to become a member. 

 In your marketing, all you’re talking about is why they need to say yes to your hook. Maybe what you're going to offer is a free taster Pilates class, or maybe you a free seven-day trial of a Pilates membership. It's all about giving people a taste of what’s to come.  Maybe you don't want to do it free, which is fine. You don't have to do everything for free. But do it as a low-cost entry.

 The reason why we often offer things for free or low cost is, there's less risk from the individual that is taking that first step, there's less risk on their part. Very few people will be ready to just buy from you without knowing anything about you or your business, without never having a trial of it first.  

What could your trailer to the movie be? If it's classes that you do, it's easy. If you work with clients, one to one, then the typical thing that you've seen in the industry is a consultation. But if all you're doing in your consultation is talking, asking them questions to find out more things about them, that's a very boring way of doing your hook as a consultation. How can you give them a real taster of what to expect? 

If you don't already have a hook, this is something you absolutely need to start looking at. You need to bring this in because, in order for your marketing to work better, for people to move closer towards them becoming a paying client, you need to have something that is going to hook them in. So what could your trailer to the movie be? 

Maybe where you're at, at the moment with your business, is you're trying to build and grow your email list.  Which is a great thing to do. By the way, you can do both things, particularly if you're getting a lot of people who are not saying yes to your taster class, your trial membership or your consultation.  Maybe for them, that's a step too far.  Maybe they're not ready, they don't have the confidence to do it.  Maybe they're not convinced you are the right person yet. What you could do here is offer them something else that is really low risk, probably free, where they can get a bit of a taster.  It's not necessarily a taster to the movie, but it is going to start to build trust.   

Let's just have a think about what this might be.  Maybe what you could do to get people to take at least one step closer to you is something like PDF downloads, challenges, free Facebook groups.  If you've got an online business, a seven-day free trial of your online membership is a no-brainer to offer.

What could you put out there that your ideal clients would benefit from hearing or seeing or doing?  That isn't necessarily a direct exchange of your time.  Where they’re not coming to an actual session or a consultation with you. Have you got a checklist that you could put out there? Maybe you could write an eBook? Have you got a bit of a toolkit?  Have you got some recipes, particularly if what you offer is to do with nutrition? I've seen many instances where trainers will use a free recipe book as a hook when actually they don't do anything to do with nutrition, it makes no sense. Whilst your hook is to get people to take just a tiny step closer towards you, to get them on your email list, how is that a snippet of what you do? Maybe it's one element of what you do. It's not such a risk for them as they haven't got to go anywhere to get access to it. They haven't got to build up the courage to go and step into a class where they don't know anybody, which for some people is a huge barrier to taking that first step. What could you be offering?

Think about it… Do you want to be offering more of the trailer to the movie?  Or a lower-level hook like a checklist, toolkit, PDF download or maybe it's a video series.  What could that be for you? 

There are three things that your hook needs to have. First and foremost, it must be specific to your ideal client. Then it must help them solve a problem in some way. At the end of the day, somebody is only going to say yes to the product or the programme, the membership that you're offering - if it helps them move away from where they're at, and towards what they want instead. So does your hook do that?  Thirdly, does it give them a taster of what you're going to be offering them further down the line? 

The taster could be the whole trailer to the movie, a free taster class.  Or if it is a PDF download what's going to be in it that gives them a sense of who you are, how you help, how you've helped others?  Include testimonials in there, that kind of thing.  

Those three things are really important. It's got to be specific, it's got to help them in some way, and it's got to be a taster. Maybe not a complete taster, but part of a taster of what it is that you offer further down the line. Once they've taken that step closer to you, they are more likely to continue moving forward, providing you have ticked all the boxes of course.  Providing you have shown how you help them and that what you're offering next is the perfect solution for them.  

If you do offer a download of some description, your next step would then be to get them to say yes to the taster class, whether that's free or low cost. Before you give the offer to buy a membership or sign up to a package.  It's step-by-step.

Once you're clear on what your hook is going to be, maybe you're going to have the full trailer to the movie or something that's more of a lower risk. You need to think about, how will your ideal clients actually access it?  What steps do they need to take to get it?  You might need to think about what software you're going to use in order for them to opt in. Do they need to go to a landing page, for example, to fill in their contact details?

Quite often, what I will see with clients when we first start working together, is the only way somebody can really access what they're offering is to either text them, email them or send them a DM on social media.  Which means that there's a lot of toing and froing that goes on. Maybe it's particularly in the DM’s, they reach out to say they're interested.  You go back to them and say great, here's how it works. They go silent. They're just lost in the abyss of the DM’s. 

What you want to think about is how can you make it as quick and as easy for that person, when they see what you're offering. When they’re thinking…I like the sound of that, that sounds like that's going to help me, I want the thing that's been offered.  How can you make that super easy and quick for them to access it?  To fill in their details and commit to having the thing?  What software do you need to make that happen? 

Of course, that will also tick the other box of helping to grow your email list. If somebody does say yes to a consultation and they fill in their details to get booked in, even if they don't show up for that consultation, you still have their details so you can use email marketing to get them to the next step.

 When it comes to your whole marketing and sales funnel, you have to look at each part of it is a step-by-step process. Your aim with putting your hook out there, your lead magnet out there with your marketing is to get them to take the first step.  Then you've got to get them to consume the thing or show up to the thing that you're offering. That's the second step.  Then you have to get them to say yes to buy, to sign up to your membership, your packages, that's the final step.  

With your hook, remember that it's got to be something that your ideal clients really want, you've really got to be able to show the value of what this thing is, so they want it.

Let's just take a moment to look at the actions for you to take. First and foremost, what is the best type of hook for your business? Is it the trailer to the movie? Or is it to get them onto your email list, so you can then get them to go to the next step? How are you going to make it as easy as possible for people to access it? Let's not get them stuck in the whole DM’s or backwards and forwards on email.

 Once you're clear on what you're offering, and how they're going to get hold of it, you can then think about the wording that you will use.  Wording that's going to really showcase why your hook is the most logical step for them to take right now. How is it going to help them? Whatever you're going to put in your marketing to get people to take action, it has really got to show how this offer gets them from where they are now or closer from where they are now to where they want to be. How will it help them?!

 Maybe at the moment, you've already got your hook right.  you're listening to this and feel confident that what you’re putting out there is the right thing, but you’re just not getting enough people saying yes to it.  Then take a look at the wording that you're using to promote it. Is it really talking to the ideal client? Is it really showcasing why they should say yes to this thing now?  What's the benefit to them? Or are you just listing what I call the features, what they get? 

People will make a decision to say yes to something that's been offered to them based on how that thing they're being offered makes them feel.  If they feel like this sounds great, this sounds like exactly what I need, I want those results.  If you can do that with your marketing, they are going to say yes.

If you feel that you have got that wording right, and you're still not getting any takers, then it might be that people are not seeing it. You might need to go back to the drawing board.

 I hope you’ve found this useful, and it's got you really thinking about what actions you need to take.  What you are putting out there to get your ideal clients to take a step closer towards you. But I'm going to leave you with this one thing to remember… your future clients don't know how great you are yet. They need to be able to dip their toe in, to do something that's taking that step closer to you, that's low risk. Usually, that means it's low cost as well before they are ready to sign up and work with you. So, what is that thing? What is your hook?

 I'm Nichola Page, you've been listening to From Passion to Profit, and I really look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Take care.