This fall fitness is on shaky ground if you're running a gym or studio. These are uncertain times for people. 

A confused mind doesn't do anything. That could mean changes for those who are doing virtual sessions or memberships as well. 

This episode is all about how to launch fall fitness programs and promote packages in a way that respects the moment people are in. 

If you need help understanding promotions, creating offers, and presenting them in ways that are anything but sleazy, salesy, or pushy, click here to learn about how to ethically connect with your clients. 

Launch Fall Fitness Promotions

Things to consider before you begin promoting:

• what is your customer's biggest problem right now?
• what have they tried already?
• what happened? 
• what did they love/hate about it?

How to respectfully promote right now:

• address the concerns for safety 
• address concerns about immunity 
• use testimonials of people just like your most reluctant members and clients 
•  be open and honest about your concerns and the actions you're taking 

Planning a Launch

A launch has multiple parts. The mistake most fitness professionals make is waiting until a program goes on sale to think of marketing it.

But the bigger the price tag the longer the runway should be. 
There's a pre-launch - that's the period of time when you haven't yet opened the cart (made it for sale) and you begin to tease it. 

First there's the subtle launch when you're considering what your customer needs to be thinking and feeling in order to buy. What do they need to know.

Then there's the more direct pre-launch where you let them know you're:

• working on something special
• excited about something new

When you launch:

• the cart is open
• you're sending frequent emails
• posts and lives are happening daily 
• there's urgency 
• you could use bonuses that disappear

When you close, it's firm. They have to trust you and word travels fast when you don't honor deadlines. 

Need help finding the right words for your promotional emails, posts, pages, headlines and subject lines? 

Fitness professionals…Are you teaching multiple fitness classes a day online?

Running personal training sessions online and doing the workouts with clients?

Feeling beat up, exhausted, tired all the time?

All the while juggling….

• Keeping a facility afloat
• Home schooling 2 kids
• Operating as a single mom
• Or juggling time with spouse/partner and family
• Caregiving to aging parents

In the past two weeks, I’ve heard all of those. Many of them from the same person. You can’t sustain a life or income stream by doing that. If you go down it all crumbles, right?

It’s beyond time to work smarter… and it’s easier than ever

There is a way better business model.

It’s not just that the 1990s called and wants what you’re doing back.

It’s time to let go of limiting beliefs you have about online training.

And… it’s your time. There has NEVER been a better time to create something as a solo entrepreneur that serves people, uses your skills and talents without burning you out.

Listen, first get this:

Health coaching is a multimillion dollar a year industry.

And access to classes does not have to be live.

Be honest.. have you been correcting people in your class on their form? Really giving them feedback? Then there is VERY little different from the perspective of your customer between a recorded session (that allows them to pause and rewind) and live.

The convenience of having access 24/7 so they aren’t dependent on you at a certain time is a WIN for them. A benefit you can charge them for. If they love you, they love you.

Let me back up and talk about health coaching again.

I began health coaching back in 1995 and raised my rates when I went from meeting clients in person to meeting them on the phone with the convenience of being in my home or traveling when I did it.

When I stopped training completely (by then I was only doing 2-3 sessions a week at most anyway) 3 years ago my 50-minute personal training sessions were $100 while coaching is about $300 per 50-minute session for one-on-one. When I do a group I make $500-700 per session. If a group didn’t reach that revenue I’d either cancel or we’d look for a few more participants.

Why Do One-on-One

But I don’t even do one-on-one anymore except for a handful of professional women I love to work with. Because I can’t afford to. A group coaching program triples my hourly revenue but even then, managing a business that brings in 6 figures a month means that my time may be more valuable spent elsewhere. When I do it because I enjoy it, I’m in the comfort of my own home or in a hotel or with my mom.

I have an online business.

Most people have no idea what that means. You might hear it and think that means I’m a personal trainer delivering one-on-one sessions online. Not ever have I done that. Not once.

What Does an Online Business Look Like?

Here it is. Yes, I’ve been a personal trainer, medical exercise specialist, strength and conditioning coach with all the certs… yoga, Pilates…. For years.

But I’m not doing it daily. I’m not even doing it weekly unless I’m launching a new program. Even then, I often don’t need to create a new workout, I can use pieces of prior programs. It’s all there!

So, I’ve created programs once…. ONCE. And sold them for years. I’ve put thousands of women through them for $97 - $249 and then they go on to do the next thing, I’ve also already created once and sold hundreds and then thousands of times.

And so can you.

I laugh when trainers say my Flipping50 Fitness Specialist course is more expensive than most. Whatever you’re thinking of doing with it … you’re thinking too small, my friend. You no longer have to think about the people within a 25-mile radius who will be willing to drive to you. You don’t have to wonder if people will show up for your 4 o’clock class.

Since 2020: Fitness Has Changed

Fitness has changed for fitness professionals. It’s become convenient for consumers. They can choose from anyone in the world. Don’t let that scare you, because most fitness professionals don’t spend time getting to know and care about their customers. They don’t polish their communication and marketing skills. They don’t know how to write copy.

But you can.

If you’d like to learn more about how to do that…

And how to promote that so you aren’t lost in the sea of trainers, health coaches, Pilates and yoga instructors, and barre classes available… all online vying for the same customers right now…

Then I encourage you to take a step.

Step I

First, register for the 5-Day Build Your Business bootcamp to grow your business. It’s the start of growing your presence, your confidence, your clarity about your message. If you’ll commit to yourself and your business for 5 days, you’ll have the process that’s grown my following to over 200,000 women in my niche, who then join my email list, who then join programs.

Wherever you are in your process of starting, growing, or scaling your business so you don’t have to do everything personally or physically and finally can have freedom and health you’re teaching others to have… in order to get a change, you have to change.

Step II

Next, if you work with midlife women, register for the Flipping50 Fitness Specialist course. This month you get a complimentary Marketing to Women Copywriting Course with your purchase. If you’re worried about the cost, you and I need to spend time together so you understand how to make the single sale that pays for that and then keep doing that over and over again.

We’ll do that with a virtual conference late fall to help you outline the business – and the life with freedom – you want.

Links to Resources:

5-Day Build Your Business Bootcamp

Flipping50 Fitness Specialist

Marketing to Women Copywriting Course

If you make either of these two biggest fitness marketing mistakes post pandemic, it will cost you. You’re going to make them totally unintentionally. I mean of course, right? Why would anyone intentionally make a marketing mistake?

Beyond that, though you may think that yes, you’ve got these two bases covered and realize after listening, no you don’t.

One way you know this is worth a listen is you’re attracting the wrong kind of people.

Another way you know this episode is worth your time is you’re not getting any engagement on your social or your content marketing. 

If you confuse, you lose.

• What are you sharing in your social media posts?
• Do people understand what you do, why you do it?
• Are you establishing yourself as a go-to authority in the area where you want people to find you for programs, products, and services?

Analyze:

• The name of your social media profile
• The posts you create (one by one because that’s how they see them)
• The way you’ve positioned yourself

And then apply this to the following to avoid two biggest fitness marketing mistakes

Big Fitness Marketing Mistake #1: No Specific Audience

The other day I reviewed a business website and social media platforms as part of a social media audit. It was hard to know who the ideal customer was and if I couldn’t tell as a fitness marketer looking for it, how could anyone?

Just because you’re focused on a certain age and gender (demographic), it doesn’t mean that that everyone in that demographic wants the same thing.

First, there’s your niche. Are you about food, exercise, mindset, hormones, weight loss? What is your specific niche?

But that’s not even enough.

Here's an example:

Take women in menopause. Many are married, but an almost equal number are single. Are you talking about dating? About traveling alone? Or about family vacations? About drinking wines and trips to Napa? Some (I’m one) wouldn’t enjoy that at all because they rarely and then barely drink.

Some women have a conservative view of menopause, what’s happening and possible, while others are thinking about doing triathlons after retirement. Who are you talking to?

Women in perimenopause are more likely to have kids at home full time jobs, and a unique set of problems, compared to women just post menopause. There’s a subset of women in post menopause who did have children later … so who are you talking to? Define it very specifically. And realize, they need to feel “like you.” If your images, videos, and copy doesn’t resonate with who they are or want to be, you miss the opportunity to help women looking for you.

Bottomline?

Narrow your niche. Know who they are and who they are not. In the Marketing to Women Copywriting course, I shared 5 unique profiles of female buyers. Not only from an interest standpoint, but from a motivation to buy angle. When you dive into that you’ll create copy that resonates so very much with your audience. The fitness copywriting tips will improve every single fitness marketing outreach you make.

Big Fitness Marketing Mistake #2: Making It About You

Once you’re a brand: a Jodie Foster, or Simone Biles, someone cares about you and what you’re doing. But until you have that brand recognition what really matters is how you tie any post about you to them. It’s always about them.

Know before you post what emotion you want to evoke. How do you want them to feel by reading/watching/viewing your post?

How could it make them feel? Is there any way what you’re posting could evoke a negative reaction? Consider it. We can’t please all the people all the time, but you do want to consider if you could cause more of a disconnect than a connection. If your post puts you too far up on a pedestal you may want to consider if there’s another way to tell the story you’re aiming for.

Make Changes to Avoid Big Fitness Marketing Mistakes

Maybe the photo works if the copy changes, or vice versa.

If you’re stunning, for instance, sharing how vulnerable you feel at times, or if you’re thin, lithe and fit, sharing how and when it wasn’t always this way, can connect you better to someone who is not there yet.

Here’s an example of a flat vs. a connecting post:

Original Post copy:

“Women in their 60s have served and cared for others so much. They find it hard to care for themselves. You can’t pour from an empty cup.”

New Copy:

I see you there, beautiful giver. Serving and caring for your family and your friends. I see you wanting to continue doing that for decades. Wanting to enjoy retirement – or rewirement – and your decades ahead.

Can you pour from an empty cup?

What fills you up? With your wisdom of care for others you’ve suppressed your own needs for a time, but you know. What is it for you?

• Time alone
• Time with friends
• Reading
• Nature
• Music
• Exercise

-----

This new kind of post reaches her. It reaches her instead of teaches and preaches™ or just states a problem. It asks a compelling question that a reader will answer in her mind.

Never forget one of the most powerful words in marketing is you. Whether you say it or write it or imply it, speak to one single “you.”

There you have it. Two biggest fitness marketing mistakes that you can avoid. If you’re a solo entrepreneur, you can pivot quickly and make your next post already better.

Resources Mentioned in this episode:

Marketing to Women Copywriting Course

Flipping50 Fitness Specialist