From Passion to Profit: Heart Centered Strategies for FitPros

005 Identifying the Best Marketing Strategies for Your Fitness Business

• Nichola Page • Season 1 • Episode 5

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In this episode, we'll explore the art of identifying the best marketing strategies for your specific health & fitness business. I'll be helping you pinpoint which ones are right for you and your business.  From paid ads to organic outreach, online presence to offline visibility, the options can seem overwhelming. But fear not, we'll navigate through them together.

Understanding Online Marketing:
Online marketing encompasses a broad spectrum, including social media strategies, whether it's targeted Facebook ads or engaging content on your business pages. It extends to platforms like Instagram, where connecting with your audience is key. Your website also plays a pivotal role. Are you driving traffic effectively? Are visitors converting into customers? These are the pillars of online marketing. Consider YouTube, online ad campaigns, Google ads, webinars, and even podcasts or blogs. Each falls under this dynamic umbrella, effective when tailored to your ideal clients.

Exploring Offline Marketing:
Offline marketing ventures into tangible methods like flyers, posters, and referral invitations.  Local papers or magazines provide another avenue. Speaking engagements, joint ventures, and referral partnerships amplify your reach. Engaging with the community at events like summer fairs or school fetes can make a substantial impact. Even strategies like lumpy mail, physically delivered to mailboxes, hold potential. The possibilities are extensive.

Diversify Beyond Social Media:
While social media is a powerful tool, relying solely on it can leave your business vulnerable. Algorithms dictate who sees your content, and violations of platform rules can disrupt your reach. It's crucial to have multiple avenues to connect with your ideal clients. Consider where they spend their time, both online and offline, and strategically position your offerings.

Key Considerations:

  • Understand your ideal client's habits and preferences
  • Collaborate with local services or amenities.
  • Leverage surveys to identify preferred social media platforms.
  • Engage in groups and events your ideal clients participate in.
  • Establish connections with those who already serve your ideal clients

Next Steps:
1. Define your ideal client's routine and interests.
2. Conduct surveys among existing clients to glean insights.
3. Identify the most relevant marketing methods based on your findings.
4. Focus on two or three strategies for initial testing.
5. Track and analyze results, be prepared to refine your approach.

Remember, diversity in marketing strategies is key. Avoid placing all your efforts in one basket, particularly the social media basket. Ensure you have other avenues to connect, safeguarding your outreach.

Resource Links:


Hello, and 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 looking at how to identify the best marketing strategies for your specific business. I'm going to be identifying the different types of marketing methods that there are, and then how you would identify which ones are right for you and your business. 

There are so many different types of marketing methods.  There are paid ads, there's organic marketing, there's online marketing, there's offline marketing, but how do you know which ones are going to be best for you? 

Before I go into how you pinpoint specifically which ones you're going to use, let me just explain in a bit more detail what the different marketing strategies or methods are. As I've said, we've got online marketing, and we've got offline marketing. But let me clarify what I mean by this.  

With online marketing, this includes everything such as your social media marketing, whether you're doing paid ads on Facebook, whether it's what you're doing on your business pages, it's what you're doing on Instagram, whichever social media platform you're using, that's one type of marketing strategy. There's the paid version of it, then there's the organic stuff that you do.  

Online marketing will also include your website.  What are you doing with your website? Are you driving traffic to it? Are you getting conversions from it? You've got YouTube, are you using that as a platform? Are you doing online ads in some way shape or form? Are you doing Google ads? Are you on radio? Are you doing webinars? Do you have a blog? Do you have a podcast?  All of that comes under the umbrella of online marketing, all of which can work really well, providing that it's getting in front of your ideal clients. 

Then we have offline marketing. Examples here would be flyers and posters. Maybe you give your actual clients referral invitations to hand out to other people. Maybe you do some ads in your local paper or local magazine. Maybe you do some speaking events, maybe you do some joint ventures, or have some referral partnerships with other businesses who also serve your ideal clients. 

Mayne you attend your local summer fair or the school fete and you have a stand there. Maybe you do something that's called, what I call lumpy mail.  Other people might call that bulky mail.  Where you send something out in the post, through people's letter boxes, that's promoting what you're doing.  

The list is almost endless. There are so many things and ways to get what you are offering in front of your ideal clients. 

It's not just about social media. In fact, I'm a massive fan of picking more than just social media.  Social media can work extremely well, whether it's paid or organic. But you put your business in a vulnerable position, if you are solely relying on social media as a way to get in front of your ideal client. Because firstly, you can't guarantee that your followers, your friends are actually going to see what you put on your social media platforms  The algorithm determines that.  That's outside of your control. So only a percentage of people are going to see your social media posts at any given time. Just using social media as a way of marketing, that's not within your control.  You could violate Facebook's rules.  For example, I know numerous people in the health and fitness industry who have had their pages shut down because they have allegedly violated a Facebook rule, which makes no sense whatsoever. However, trying to get that page back up you've got to jump through hoops, if you even get set back up at all. And you don't want to be in that position. If that's your only way of reaching your clients and either the algorithm is not showing it or you get your page shut down, what do you do? You've got to start all over again. So I'm a huge, advocate of if you're using social media fine having two or maybe three other ways of getting in front of your ideal clients.  

So how do you determine which one of these myriad of different methods to use? Well, the ideal thing is, you need to make sure that you fish where your fish are. Now, by that I mean, that you need to create along with who your ideal client is, the persona, the client avatar, whatever you want to call that, a picture of who they are, their pain points, etc. You also need to know, where do they spend their time?  That's what I mean by, where are your fish? What are they doing online? What are they doing offline? So that you can put your hook, what you're offering in front of them.  So they will buy or take the action that you want them to take, and now move a step closer towards you and becoming a paying client? 

So where are your fish? Things to think about all this? How do they spend their spare time? What local services, or amenities do they use? Now, even if you've got an online business, still think about.. in your local area, where you are based right now, your ideal clients are there.  You might be wanting to reach people across the UK or across the globe, cut your ideal clients are still in your local area. What services or amenities do they use, which could be a potential collaboration or partnership, so you could get your information in front of them? Let me give you an example.  If you are targeting women who want to lose weight and get in shape, the chances are they are going to hairdressers and nail salons. So, could you get your information in there? They're going to see it. That's where your fish are.  Do they read any local magazines, local papers where you could potentially put your marketing materials?   

Which social media platforms do they use?  If you're not sure, do a survey.  There is no point in you spending a huge amount of time, let's say on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. Spreading yourself really thin, putting it on all of those platforms.  If your ideal clients are primarily on Facebook, or primarily on Instagram, you're wasting your time and your energy using other platforms where they're not really using it. So think about which ones they do use and if you're not sure, do a bit of a survey of your actual clients that you've got right now to see which ones they spend more of their time on.  Leverage your time and make sure that you're getting your information in front of them.  

Are your ideal clients part of any groups? Do they attend different events? Maybe online or offline events? This is about creating a clearer picture. Because once you know where your fish are, now you can identify which of those online and offline marketing strategies are going to be the best and the most effective way of you using your time and potentially your money. You can also think about, when it comes to where you put your marketing, who do you know already or know of, who has access to your ideal clients? Do you know someone? Or do you know of someone or a business that already serves your ideal clients, the ones that you're trying to reach, but in a different slightly different way?  

You know, we have a huge network.  We have the people we are immediately connected with, who we already know and have relationships with. Then they have people who they know and they have relationships with that could introduce you to somebody else. I think there's something like six degrees of connection or something to like.  We are only six steps away from being connected to everybody on the planet, which is crazy. But who do you know? Or who do you know of, who has access to your ideal clients who serves them in some way shape or form that you may be able to do some form of collaboration or partnership with in order to get your information in front of them? It's not competing with them, you're offering them something slightly different to what that person or that business is offering. So there's quite a bit for you to think about here.

Let's just get clear on what your actions are off the back of what I've just said.  First and foremost, create that picture of who your ideal clients are in terms of how and where they spend their time.  Their spare time there, you know, every single day, what is it they're doing?  Build a picture up of those. And if you don't know, you can do a survey of your existing clients to find out more.  You're just trying to see what the commonalities are in terms of where they're spending their time. That can inform you then, of all the different types of marketing that are out there, which ones are more likely to work for you.  

Once you're clear on that, and you know where your fish are, then you can pinpoint three different marketing methods to test. So maybe you're going to continue on with social media, but you're going to focus in on one or two platforms specifically, because you know, those are the ones that your ideal clients use the most.  You might stop using another platform for the time being, because your ideal clients don't use it. 

The second thing you might do is, there might be a local service you could do some kind of collaboration with. That's how you're going to test getting in front of your ideal clients.  It may be that you're just going to use flyers or posters and put them in specific places where you know your ideal clients will go. Obviously, the wording on your marketing, the message has got to land. But then they see that marketing, they resonate with the message, they are now more likely to take action.   

So just pick two or three key marketing methods to test. Now I say test because what you have to be prepared to do is test your different marketing methods.  Give it enough time to test it.  Track the results that you're getting from it, so that you know what is or isn't working, Don't just try one piece of marketing or a strategy once, get nothing from it and assume that strategy will not work.  There ould be a number of reasons why it doesn't.  It could be that the message didn't land.  It could be the action that you're asking them to take wasn't clear enough, or the steps to take the action you want them to take was to onerous.  

But first, you have got to get really clear on which types of marketing strategies or methods are going to be the better fit for you and your business. Please remember, do not put all of your eggs in one basket, ie the social media basket.  You need to do something else too as you're making it vulnerable, particularly if you're not getting anybody's email addresses.  

I hope you have found this really useful. I really hope that this has got you thinking about the best types of marketing for your business. In other episodes, I'm going to be going into detail on the different marketing strategies, the different methods, but for now, your job is to make sure you are clear on where your fish are. Pick the most relevant, the most effective, two or three strategies to test out so that you get your information in front of your ideal clients. So, fish where your fish are, don't put all your eggs in one basket, the social media basket, test two or three strategies and track the results so you know what is and what isn't working.