The question on most business owners’ minds:

How do I get more clients for my business?

In this post, we’ll be going through some of the ways a personal training business can grow and increase revenue.

If you want to run and grow a personal training business, there are a few different proven approaches. For this article, we’ll focus on strategies for businesses that are already up and running. 

Whether you’ve taken the entrepreneurial route and started a thriving fitness business, or you’re working for someone else, these strategies will help you find new clients, and increase client retention and revenue. 

Let’s get started.

1. Niche down: focus on your target market

You might think that you’ll gain fewer clients if you niche down. But that’s not the case. Niching down means that you will focus on a super-targeted audience. It’s away from the generic training some people offer. 

For example, if your strength is providing fitness training for elderly people, it’s what you should focus on. It means that your target audience is old people. You have no business attending to younger people.

With this, you’ll be the go-to person for the type of services and authority in your chosen path. It’ll also be easy for people who need your services to find you.

2. Request referrals

You might be wondering:

Why is requesting referrals so important?

It isn’t rocket science, it is because they trust the recommendations of people who have tried out these products and services and can attest to their effectiveness.

As a personal trainer, ensure you provide top-notch services for your clients. Then, ask them to kindly refer their family members and friends to your business. 

If you’re still unsure about how to present your case, you can use this format: 

“Hello (name), I’d appreciate it if you can refer my outfit to your friends and put in a word or two for me. It’ll mean a lot to me.” 

You can give your clients a brochure or business card to give to people. If you have a client email list, consider sending your referral request that way—maybe even include an incentive for clients whose referrals sign up as new clients. 

Some businesses are even able to thrive on referrals alone.

3. Build your network

For every event you attend, take advantage of them by meeting new people and telling them what you do. All you have to do is to impress and win them over. Share your business cards too. Just make sure your business lingers in their memories.

Your personal training business deserves to grow. It’ll only grow when you increase your clients and revenue. Act now and see how rewarding these strategies are.

4. Set up a mobile-optimized website

To for brand visibility and to build brand awareness, set up a simple, mobile-optimized website with all the key information current and prospective customers need—especially on the go. Contact information is a bare necessity. You might consider integrating an option to sign up for a personal training session, or at least a form to request a session.

Don’t rely on Facebook or Instagram as your primary web-based presence. For one, as a business owner, you simply have less control over your brand and your content when you build that presence on a social media platform exclusively. What if the platform disappeared tomorrow? Would you lose all your client information? 

Set up a simple site—it doesn’t need 100 pages. Just make sure the most important things are easy to locate. 

If there’s information you’d share with every single client about what to expect in a personal training session, include that in an FAQ section. 

Think about whether you want to include pricing information. Weigh the pros and cons of possible sticker shock, and think about ways to explain not just what a personal training session includes, but the value your clients get in return for an investment in their health. 

Set up your Google MyBusiness profile and read up on how to optimize for local SEO—you want to be the first result in Google search when people search for phrases like “personal training in (city).” 

Consider adding a blog to your site—it can be a great way to keep clients engaged, and give prospective clients more information about you and your personal training style, and results your customers are able to achieve. Plus, blog articles, if you publish regularly, can be great content for an email newsletter that keeps you top of mind for your customers. 

Think about whether your business needs a mobile app. Not every business does, but at the very least, make sure your site is mobile-friendly. You can be penalized in Google search results if your site isn’t mobile-friendly (which means you’re less visible), and it’s really likely that your on-the-go target audience is checking out your site from their phones. An app might be especially helpful if it’s a way for clients to set personal goals for themselves and track their progress, for example. 

5. Create an email list

When you bring on new clients, ask them if you can email them periodically. They’ll appreciate the courtesy of being asked, and you’ll benefit from being able to share promotions, or recent blog posts, or even articles about health and fitness that you discovered and want to share. It’s a great tool for keeping the clients you already have. 

But don’t spam your list or message them every day. That’s a good way to irritate your clients and they might block or mark your messages at spam. Worse, they might begin to perceive your business as untrustworthy. 

6. Use social media the right way

Social media is a great tool to increase clients and ultimately, revenue for your personal training business. 

It is a broad subject but let’s delve right into it.

When first starting a personal training business, it can get quite frustrating because it has very few clients and getting more seems a bit impossible. 

At a certain point in time, I was a regular Facebook user and all I did was engage in casual conversations and post pictures. One day, I decided to create awareness about the services I rendered via Facebook. 

Five people contacted me and two eventually signed up for my fitness plans.

It dawned on me afterward that I could use social media as leverage to gain more clients. There and then, I started making regular updates and I never looked back after.

There are over 2.5 billion social media users in the world. You have no excuse for not taking advantage of this traffic to generate more revenue for your business. 

For personal training business, the most recommended social media include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. But pay attention to your target audience and figure out whether they’re active on these platforms. Don’t feel like you have to engage on every single platform—make sure you’re measuring your impact so you’re not wasting your time and money on an audience that isn’t likely to be interested in your services. 

Social media used to be a better source of “free” advertising. Facebook, in particular, has made a lot of changes in the past few years to deprioritize brand or company-related content, in part to build their ad revenue, but also to offer a better experience for users. So if you’re going to invest time and energy in social, at least be aware of the paid options—you often get what you pay for. 

And one other aside: if you’re active on social media platforms, don’t just post and then ignore. When people message you through those platforms or post comments, do your best to respond quickly. 

Facebook

There are over 1 billion Facebook users in the world making it the world’s most popular social media platform. 

Whether you’re running an online or offline personal training business, there are certain demographics that you’ll target for paid promotions. Consider your ideal client’s age-grade, gender, location, physique, etc. Don’t waste money on advertising to a demographic that’s outside your ideal target market. 

Facebook and Twitter are also a great place to share content from your website, especially if you’re regularly publishing a blog. Don’t forget to encourage your followers to share your posts. 

Twitter

With over 250 million users, Twitter is a popular micro-blogging platform that connects people all over the world. 

An advantage of using Twitter to build brand visibility is that it makes it easy to see what topics are trending in your particular location, which can help you create trending posts that boost your local visibility. 

Also, the app suggests other users who live in your location and around you. For offline personal trainers, you need to follow people who live within your location.

But that’s not all.

Having large followers without churning out topnotch, relatable contents amounts to nothing. Be a teacher—educate them on different subjects related to your field. Build your presence as a trusted thought leader, especially if you’re posting content consistently. Out of sight is out of mind. 

Instagram

Instagram is great for sharing visual content—photos and videos. Test it out, see if your target demographic uses Instagram—you might even just ask your clients. 

I recommend one or two posts every day. Stay focused on brand, and don’t make out all about you personally. Maybe you offer short video clips of training sessions. Give your clients a first-hand window into what to expect.

Also, ensure you reply to your messages on time. People appreciate businesses that are timely with responses.

YouTube

YouTube is, of course, known for its vast video content. As a personal trainer, you can record tidbits of your training sessions and upload them on YouTube. If you’re thinking of using Instagram to share video content, it probably makes sense to start by uploading it to YouTube first and promoting it there as well. Don’t be afraid to get the most out of your investment in the video—share it on your website, in your newsletter, and across social media platforms. 

To get more clients and increase your revenue for your personal fitness business, the name of the game is understanding your ideal customer—what do they want from personal training? How old are they? Where do they spend time online? Once you’re clear on your target market and their habits—show up there. Be available and discoverable on the web and in person. Good luck!