Show notes
Now, one of the best forms of marketing that a personal trainer can use, and I think pretty much all successful trainers do already use is content marketing.
It has almost just become an essential part of a personal trainer's job since the start of YouTube and especially smartphones and all the social media apps. So I guess it’s been for the last 10 years or so.
So, in case you have been living under a rock, content marketing is the creation of content or information that helps to educate, motivate, make connections and try to position yourself in the industry in a certain way.
I’m 100% sure you are a consumer of content marketing because that is exactly what this podcast is! And I’m pretty sure that you listen to others as well as watch YouTube videos or read blogs.
So as a trainer, getting into content marketing, if you haven’t already, is a great move to help you establish and grow your personal training business.
So let’s dig into why you should be creating content as a way of marketing yourself.
First off, it is a great way to build relationships. Potential clients get to see you, trust you and sample your way of doing things way before they even spend a penny with you. They can get to know you and view you as an expert that can really help them with the issues that they might have.
But it also helps you build relationships with other creators that compliment you and your business finding new ways to work together to help grow your businesses together.
When people see you as a go to expert that can help them achieve their goals with in business or more with their fitness goals, they are more likely to hire you.
This is pretty much what Jay Abraham talks about with his strategy of preeminence. It’s about positioning yourself as the go-to expert in your area so that you can become the obvious choice for people to work with.
You can work towards this by consistently producing high-quality content that is highly relevant to your audience and promoting yourself as the expert.
Now to do this you are going to need to know who your audience is, so you can make your content relevant. So it really speaks to them and their current situation.
That brings us to point number 2 for content marketing, which is about knowing your ideal client. I’ve already talked about this in session number 9, so go and check that out. There’s a link in the show notes on the website.
But this strategy needs you to niche down and help a certain type of person with a specific goal so that you can really connect and also make that space your own.
Your content needs to always keep in mind your ideal client when you’re creating content so you can keep asking yourself if what you are creating is actually going to help that person. If it is then carrying on creating, if not, then stop and think of another idea.
And if you are short on ideas, check out session number 22 where I give you 5 cool ways to get content ideas.
The next thing on the list is you deciding on your main platform to create and publish your content on.
Now there are only really 3 ways to create content. You have written, which is your blog and articles. You have audio, which is mainly going to be a podcast. Then you have video which is probably going to be on YouTube.
Social media sites are either made up of short form videos or posts which are basically written but with the addition of one or more images. So, there are still basically 3 ways to create.
Now, one way to decide is by looking at what ways you consume content. So if you mainly watch YouTube videos, then you are going to be more familiar with that system and what works. If you read blogs and articles all the time then that might be a good place to start.
Just remember that this is your main platform, not necessarily your only platform. I’ll tell you why in a little bit.
Now, I create a podcast, partly because that is the main form of content that I consume. I probably listen to about 2-3 hours of podcasts everyday on my way to and from the gym.
But there are a coupe of other reasons why I stuck with podcasts that you will also need to think about as well.
I also chose podcasts because I know that my target audience listens to podcasts.
There is no point creating content for a platform, no matter how much you like it, if your audience isn’t there.
Next, you need to think about what you are comfortable with. If you like YouTube and your audience is also there, but you are scared to death of appearing on camera, then maybe YouTube isn't for you.
For me, writing blogs feels boring and can take a really long time to write. Video needs some extra equipment that costs money and I know editing video can be a pain and time consuming. Plus it is a big learning curve to do it well.
For me, podcasting was the easiest too. I already had a microphone, I was most familiar with it, my audience was already there and it’s quick.
If these things are missing, like with video, taking the time to edit everything, then that creates more friction and it might stop me from being consistent.
Now there are also other types of content you can use to help promote your services. These include things like a book or e-book, webinars, public speaking gigs and that type of thing. But these will be in addition to your main platform.
A couple of minutes ago I talked about having your main platform that you will create for. This doesn't mean this needs to be the only platform you will publish on.
This is because you can repurpose your content so that it can be published on other platforms.
Take a YouTube video for example. Once you have that video made, you can edit out smaller clips and repost those as YouTube shorts, instagram reels or Tik-Tok videos.
You can take screenshots and make Instagram posts or stories and write a caption.
With the right type of video you can get it transcribed and have that posted as a blog.
So from one video you can get all this other content for other platforms to spread the work. And these smaller pieces can lead back to your main YouTube video on your main platform.
This happens all the time. A series of blog posts get repurposed into a book for example.
Even with this podcast. With this podcast, I take out small soundbites, add an audiogram and post it to Instagram stories, Instagram posts. The full podcast gets an audiogram added and the whole thing goes up on my YouTube channel.
Finally, the transcription from the audio gets copied and pasted onto my website and acts as show notes, or what is really a blog post that Google searches and shows when people are searching for my content or ask a question that my content can help with.
It is all really quick and easy to do and I use Descript for all of it.
Now, there’s one more last thing you’ll need to do and that is to look at your results.
By that, I mean track the successes of each piece of content so that you can see what is working and not working with your audience.
What type of content resonates with your audience the most? From a high level for example, if my YouTube videos started to really outperform my podcast, maybe I would change my main platform and focus there more.
More likely though is what your content is about. The topic areas that people are stuck with. For example, do they like more ‘how-to’ types of content or do they like things more when you post about your day and show them ‘behind the scenes’ content?
You can find this out using analytics for each platform. You can see the likes, comments and engagement easily on platforms like Instagram.
Websites and blogs can use Google Analytics or if you’re on WordPress, install Google's Site Kit plugin.
Podcasting hosting platforms show downloads and listening times as well as demographics like location and even things like devices used to download.
I used to post a link to Apple Podcasts when I shared an Instagram story about a new session so people could listen there. It is the biggest one after all. But my analytics showed me that most people are listening to this on Spotify. So now I link to Spotify as I know that it is more popular with you.
Over time you get to use this information to refine your message. One that works better and better with your audience and what they like and what they need. A message that will create better connections with your audience helping you make a business that can grow more and more in the future.
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