Does this happen to you?
You work hard on marketing your business. Get it working. Get busy training clients and stop marketing. Then wake up one day and realize “we need to do more marketing again!”
You’re not alone. That’s why we’ve put together this article- to help you more consistently attract the right new prospects and keep em’ coming through your door all year long.
It’s “mission critical” to create a rock-solid sales and marketing plan to deliver the right quality and quantity of new clients your business needs each month to hit goals.
Read on to learn more about how you can craft a plan that gives you everything you need and then some.
1. Get a clear vision for your success and develop a positive mindset.
All champions see the future before they create it. And whether in sports or business, success requires a clear vision and a mindset to go create that which you don’t yet have and cannot see.
That’s why the first step in creating any plan is to first answer the following questions:
- What does success look like for your business?
- When you visualize and see the future in your mind, what will it feel like when you’ve accomplished your vision?
2. Develop a profile of the perfect client you want to attract.
The most important element for the success of ANY business is ensuring you’ve got a great market to serve that’s well-defined and easy to reach.
Get THIS right and everything gets easy.
Get this wrong, and there is no amount of good messaging, technology, or magic that will deliver results.
Here are the three questions to guide you in defining your market:
Who are they?
Where do they live or work?
Why do they buy?
3. A positioning statement that distinguishes your business from the competitors.
A positioning statement is an expression of how your service and brand fills a particular consumer need in a way that your competitors don’t.
It must answer the following questions:
- Who is your target market?
- What’s your category?
- What primary benefits do you provide your clients?
- Why should they believe the claims you make about your services and how you can help them?
We’ve already covered target market, so let’s talk about category.
There are many categories. The point is to define yours. Are you competing against other gyms? Other personal trainers? Other weight loss programs?
Ask your clients what they love most about working with you.
4. Create compelling offers that give your prospect a reason to respond.
When you’ve got a well-defined market, and good positioning… then more than half your marketing battle is won.
But now it’s time to go fishing.
And that means you’ve got to get the right bait on your hook.
Your “bait” in this case is your offer.
There are two types of offers: free and paid.
Free offers are generally used for list building in exchange for a prospect sharing their contact information OR to move them forward in a simple sales process.
Examples of free offers include case studies, guides or reports, cheat sheets or handouts, toolkits, free trials, free workshops, quizzes or surveys, assessments or tests, and consultations.
Paid offers on the other hand qualify a prospect for a larger sale, or discount an existing product or service offering in order to generate response.
Examples of paid offers include trial periods of services (less than 30 days is best for fitness service offerings), assessments or evaluations, and more.
5. Messaging that connects emotionally with your prospect.
Messaging is all about how you communicate with your prospects. What do you say to them in order to inspire them to take action?
Imagine you’re knocking on their door, they open and you’ve got 5 seconds in order to keep them interested enough to invite you in.
What will you say?
Here are some questions to guide you in the right direction:
- What problem(s) does your prospect want to solve?
- What goal(s) do they want to achieve?
- How do they feel about their problem? What pain is it causing them?
- Why does the goal matter to them? How will they feel once they’ve achieved it?
- What positive benefits do they hope to gain with your services?
- What are the negative consequences of not taking action?
If this were easy, then everyone would be a good copywriter.
6. Consistent application of good marketing strategy applied across all phases of the Fitness Marketing Lifecycle.
The Fitness Marketing Lifecycle is the process by which a person evolves from knowing nothing about your business, to raising their hand to learn more, to becoming a client, and then eventually becoming a raving fan who tells everyone they know about you.
Each step of the lifecycle is important. And at each step, you’ll adjust the way you communicate, the messages you deliver, and the call to action you make.
There are many ways to attract and nurture prospective clients to your business.
Just remember, when you own a local service business, don’t get stuck behind the computer.
It’s easy to get caught behind a desk… especially when you’re crafting a marketing plan or working on digital advertising.
But relationships are the goal of all your planning and activity, so don’t forget what matters most.
Get out and build relationships in your community!
Putting It All Together (Plan)
As you work through assembling the components of your plan, it’s then time to put it all together.
Here are a few important considerations in that process:
- Assess where your business has the greatest opportunity for immediate improvement (in every business there are ‘easy wins’ that can move you forward quickly… identify them and take action).
- Determine your available resources (time, money).
- Create a plan and start moving forward.
- COMMIT to doing whatever is necessary to reach your goals.
- Track your results, adjust as needed, and “upgrade” your plan to reach your goals faster.
Best Practices
-Lots of business owners try to craft a yearly plan.
-While that can be helpful, try just focusing on 90 days at a time.
-A lot of changes happen quickly in a growing business.
-If you can get your marketing working 2-3 months ahead, you’ll be light years above your competition.
-And the most important aspect of every plan is consistent action.
-Consistency with marketing will grow your business from a stage 2 to stage 4 business (and well beyond).