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Email marketing for personal trainers can be a powerful way to build an audience and connect with that audience over time. It something that every trainer should have in their business since personal training is so reliant on personal relationships.
Here are 5 things you should know to help get you started.
So, number 1 - let’s start with the absolute basics. What is an email list and email marketing?
Well, email marketing is a type of digital marketing that is also a type of direct marketing, which is basically selling, in this case over email.
So this is done to a list of email addresses that you have collected from people that you know are interested in what you have to offer.
It is a massive asset to any business to have as you have created an audience that you can build a relationship with. And you can do this repeatedly for very little cost until someone unsubscribes or you remove them.
So this allows you to be in constant contact with each person on the list, letting you to not only build the relationship, but it also lets you keep on constant communication about things like useful tips, newsletters, new products, offers and sales.
Entrepreneurs with a great email list can make a lot of money with every email they send out that makes an offer on a product or service they are promoting.
Moving on to the number 2 thing you should know - how do you collect these emails?
Well, you offer something of value, that is normally for free, but not always, in exchange for a person's email address. This offering, if you like, is called a lead magnet…it’s something that attracts leads!
Now, I’m sure you have signed up for plenty of these yourself even recently. I have a separate email address just for signing up for people's email lists and getting my hands on their lead magnet and seeing their marketing and sales funnels.
Lead magnets can be pretty simple, like a checklist that someone can download as a PDF, or a worksheet. It can be an educational ebook or a webinar.
More complex lead magnets can be a quiz, a 7-day challenge, accelerators, or a short free online course or even a video course delivered through email.
For some it will just take a good idea, some time and effort to create it. Others need a lot more money and planning as well. But the one thing they all have in common is that they are relevant and valuable to your ideal client in a way that helps them with something specific.
Now I know that almost all of what I have mentioned so far is online. So what if you’re based in a gym and not online? What is you’re an in-person pt?
Well, you can still do all these things online. They can help any kind of trainer, and some even on a gym floor.
Ebooks and webinars can be shared and promoted to the gym members if you’re allowed to.
But good in person lead magnets can be trial sessions, a prize draw or something like a recipe collection or nutrition consult.
So why is this important? Which is number 3.
Well, there are a few reasons why an email list is important to any business. When I mentioned earlier that you have direct access to your audience that you have built and now own, it is very direct as you are not under the control of an algorithm.
Did you know that even if you have a large following on Facebook, Instagram or any other social media platform, not all of your followers will be shown your content?
Facebook especially has been reducing the number of followers or fans that see your content even if they have liked your page or are a member of your group.
That’s why for a few years now you get the option to ‘boost’ a post so that more people can see it…but for a price!
If you take a look at some of the research, you’ll find that email is still the number one platform that most entrepreneurs, especially online, have the best return on investment.
And that email list is something that you personally own! Yes, it is sitting on someone else’s platform, but each of those platforms allow you to download or export your list so you can move it to wherever you want.
You see, social media can be a little dangerous. Every single day accounts are shut down or removed all together. And if your entire business is built on this and only this, then your business can be gone instantly.
I know this might seem extreme, but is it happening every single day and a lot of the time, the account holder has no idea why and has very few options to get things back up and running again.
So an email list is not just your best form of marketing, it is also your safety net. Regardless of what happens on other platforms, your list will always be there no matter what.
Now, the number 4 thing you need to know is that email marketing is typically made up of 2 types of emails. You have your automations and your campaigns.
Now I am not a big expert in email marketing. But I've been at it a few years on and off and I’m going to give you my versions of the difference between the 2.
Campaigns are pretty much a single send email. They might be your daily emails, your sales emails or your weekly newsletter.
Automations are a more of a pre-planned sequence of emails that are triggered when a person is added to our list. They can include steps that depend on their actions and the use of tags to segment your list into categories and a whole lot more.
But automations rely on technology to help, well…automate the process. So it all happens automatically without you needing to do much after the initial setup.
It is the old set it and forget it…up to a point.
Automations can be used for sales funnels, (keep an ear out for a session coming up soon about these), onboarding new members or guides on how to use a product after someone buys it.
To give you an example, at Invictus we have automations for every new enquiry, each time a new member joins and there is one to onboard every new personal training client for each trainer that we have at the gym. It gives a personalised approach for each trainer for each new client.
For epic personal trainer I have automations for each free resource that can be downloaded from the website. I have one to help onboard new members to the community and also one for when people sign up on the waitlist.
We use them to give a nice welcome, let people know about important information but most of all, we use them to help set the scene and try to get them in the right mindset and help reduce buyer's remorse.
The start is always the most important and you can hear me talk about buyers remorse on the previous session which is number 14.
Lastly, number 5 - is that most email marketing platforms will have all the features you need to send campaigns and automations. However, although most will have them, not all platforms will have them available on a free plan.
And a free plan is a great place to start in the beginning while you’re learning and starting to grow your audience.
My own list is still small and I still use a free plan and really enjoy sending emails when I remember to!
Some of the best platforms that I have used either with Epic personal trainer or Invictus include MailChimp, ConvertKit, Active Campaign and Mailerlite.
Currently I use Mailerlite for both. It has a great free plan which I use for epic personal trainer and it has a really cost effective plan which we use at Invictus.
And I’m not an affiliate, not yet anyway…so I’m just talking from my own experience.
But you can also take a look around and research. There are a lot of great platforms you can use for your email marketing so choose the one that best fits your needs and your pocket.