AmeriPro Fitness Marketing Guide

In this guide you’ll discover exactly how to achieve huge profits by following the marketing strategies created by some of the most successful professionals in the industry.

I highly suggest that you read each marketing tip in great detail and apply those that you feel will benefit you the most. Whether you plan to market in person, on the Internet, in health clubs, at businesses, or in the medical community you must get your online training services in front of your potential customers, over and over, in order to win their business.

I REPEAT: The key to marketing your online training services, like any successful business, is to consistently get your message in front of as many prospective buyers as is humanly possible – and this guide is created to help you do exactly that!

First, and you must believe me when I say this, you MUST develop an action plan. This simple tip will literally make you hundreds of thousands, if not millions, throughout your life.

If you are serious about creating additional revenue streams for yourself, if you are truly serious about supplementing your income and creating financial independence – then I strongly suggest that you embrace the idea of taking MASSIVE ACTION.

How do you go about taking and applying massive action? It’s simple really…you take one or two marketing strategies from this guide and you put them to work until you see the rewards. You don’t stop trying just because you didn’t get it the first time. Instead, you find what went wrong and you make the needed changes and then try again.

It’s just that simple. You must consistently take massive action until you have accomplished your goals. If you just kind of try, or give it a halfhearted attempt, you’ll miss out on so much.

And don't forget to read through the 'Fitness Pros', 'Medical Partners' and 'Corporate Wellness' links on our site to learn how our program can benefit these affiliations and generate big revenue for you!

On a Shoestring Budget

You can easily do the 'my business referral network circle' where you create a list of local businesses that serve your ideal clients…

Like this:

•The chiropractor
•The tanning salon
•The day spa
•The massage therapist
•The supplement store
•The physical therapist
•The high end hair solons
•The health food stores
•And the boutique dress shops

Then you walk into each of these businesses and offer the owners/manager and the staff our referral program in exchange for them to hand out 4×6 postcards that offer a 2 week free trial.

Nearly all will feel obligated to send you referrals because they feel that they have a true benefit. It's like insurance.

NOW here's the MOST important thing to make the "business referral network circle" marketing system work… you also tell the business owner/manager that in exchange for the referral cards they'll pass out, YOU plan to refer all you're clients to THEIR business making it a perfect "referral network circle."

What business owner in their right mind would not want to earn more for free and get more referrals from you?

That's how you go about starting a personal training business on a shoestring budget.

The Perfect Upgrade To One-On-One Training

Our Online Personal Training Program is ideal for people that are currently training. They probably have a restricted training schedule due to the financial burden of in-person training, but would really like to train multiple times per week. You can now offer them online workouts for a fraction of the cost of in-person sessions.

How many prospects have a spouse, friend, or kids that exercise with them? Often times these loved ones could benefit from training but simply cannot afford to foot the bill for two or more sessions at a time. Offer the spouses, friends, and kids of each of these prospects an online program. Show them the price savings compared in-person sessions and offer to show them our program and answer their questions. This is a great way to build your online clientele and really increase your income.

Accommodate Traveling or On-The-Go Clients

Whether traveling for business or pleasure, many of today’s clients are on-the-go and often hard to set schedules. These traveling clients are ideal candidates for online training programs. Since our program is web based, it makes accessing workouts a piece of cake for traveling clients. All they need is an Internet connection and their login information.

Offer a Budget Friendly Alternative

Many prospective clients want to use personal training only to find out that rates were out of their budget. Rather than letting them go without, offer a budget friendly online program to all prospective clients that are unable to afford traditional in-person sessions.

Generate Additional Income with Meal Plans

Your Online Trainer software gives you the most powerful and user-friendly nutrition software available anywhere. You can begin earning more income instantly by offering personalized seven-day meal plans to prospective clients.

Offer Corporate Wellness Programs through Online Training

Today more and more employers are turning to corporate wellness programs as a benefit to offer their employees. Businesses large and small are becoming aware of the financial benefits to having healthy, fit, and active employees. These benefits include:

Increased productivity
Reduced sick day calls
Lower insurance costs
Reduced workplace stress
Greater employee retention

Until recently, you could not effectively offer a corporate wellness program without dedicating yourself full time to the project. Of course, before our program, landing a corporate wellness client is difficult because most businesses do not want to spend an enormous amount of money for providing their employees with a trainer two to four times per week.

Through our Online Trainer, you are now able to offer online corporate wellness programs to businesses in your area. By offering online corporate wellness programs you will have our Online Trainer to deliver professional training programs and meal plans via the Internet. Every corporate client will have their own unique login where they can access their workout calendar, view the exercise videos, update their workout results, log their daily food intake, and enjoy the information packed monthly online health and fitness magazine - all as part of the service that you provide!

The following is a three-step process that you can use to instantly launch a corporate wellness program and begin generating an addition stream of income within less than a week.

1) Step One: Visit small and medium size businesses in your area and schedule a 30-minute benefits consultation with the (decision maker) owner, president, or human resource manager of the company.

Explain to them the benefits of fitness as it relates to their bottom line. Do your research. Find out what other businesses like theirs are looking for i.e.: health insurance reductions, more productive employees, reduced sick calls.

Offer the decision maker a complimentary trial to get a feel for what the service is all about. (This is also a great way to gain a training client as well!) During your meeting you’ll have the opportunity to establish trust and build your credibility, which will help the decision making process big time.

Show them facts, figures, and stats on other companies who have benefited from corporate wellness. This does not mean that you have to show them facts and figures of companies you have worked with. Just show them actual facts and success stories.

2) Step Two: Schedule a monthly visit to the business where you can meet all of the participants (employees) and give them an overview of our program.

Remember to capture every participant's email address, as this will be used for communication and follow-up.

3) Step Three: Have them sign up for one of our personalized training programs.

This is also a good opportunity to connect with the participants and answer any questions that they may have. As you can see, offering a corporate wellness program can be very profitable without taking too much time from your current schedule. This is also one very effective way to generate additional revenue.

Phone Coaching

A great way to create more income with your Online Trainer membership is to offer clients an online training program that includes phone coaching. This is an upgraded feature to the standard online training programs has a couple of benefits.

The first benefit is for your client. When your client is scheduled to connect with our staff over the phone, once a week, they will receive the personal motivation and accountability that traditional in-person personal training provides. Not only will this ensure that they meet their goals, it will also make the program more fun and exciting for them.

The second benefit is that you will a higher commission for these upgraded online training programs. This means more income for you while not requiring very much of your time. It is a total win-win for you and your clients.

Tele-Clinics

Tele-clinics are informational workshops that you hold over a conference call line. You arrange a specific time for your prospects to call number that will get them all on the same conference call with you and then you give a 30-60 minute workshop on a topic of interest.

This topic could be myths about current fad diets, how to raise your metabolism, how to really firm your midsection with core strength workouts, or the importance in stretching as it relates to injury prevention. A great place to find new and exciting topics of interest is in your online Health and Fitness Magazine that you have access to with your Online Trainer membership.

Tele-clinics are a great way for you to generate new clients for our online personal training programs while also generating an additional revenue stream for your business.

During your tele-clinic, you can have all of your prospects log into the demo account and view specific articles in the online Health and Fitness Magazine, view meal plans and discuss specific exercise videos.

These tele-clinics are instrumental in creating a group motivation among your prospects and are great for leveraging time since you are spending the same 30 minutes with all your prospects. Your prospects will get to know each other via the tele-clinics and will form friendships that will encourage and motivate them to continue with their online training program and to actively pursue their fitness and weight loss goals.

Marketing Online Personal Training

Website: So how do you get the most business from the Internet? These days, websites are no longer a luxury, but rather are a necessity for growing and established businesses. A well designed website acts as an extension of your marketing system, and can provide a consistent flow of prospective leads month after month.

AmeriPro Fitness provides a free web page for its members where you can showcase your programs, contact information, personal bio, and even accept payments online –for no additional charge to you.

Today millions of overweight and inactive people around the world will turn to the Internet in their quest for weight loss and fitness success. Web sites are no longer virtual business cards, but rather, a good website is a 24 hour cash cow for you.

Article Submission (Online)

Writing short fitness, weight loss, and diet articles is a great traffic builder. Resource sites, such as the ones below will gladly publish diet and fitness articles given to them from fitness professionals, like yourself. These web sites are always searching for new articles and content to offer to their visitors. Writing a weekly fitness or diet article and submitting it to these sites can prove priceless for winning new clients. When writing an article make sure to always include a biline at the end of every article that identifies who you are, what you do, and provides contact information such as your web address, email, and a phone number. Take advantage of the web sites below to market your online training business and build your professional credibility. Write at least two articles per month and submit them to the following sites.

* Article Submission List *

http://www.idietnow.com/
http://www.oqey.com/submit.html
http://www.ideamarketers.com
http://www.selfgrowth.com/artman/exec/admin.cgi
http://www.articlewarehouse.com/submitarticle_featured.aspx
http://www.valuablecontent.com/
http://www.articlecity.com/article_submission.shtml
http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.connectionteam.com/submit.html
http://www.theezine.net/articles/
http://ezinearticles.com
http://www.toupin.com
http://searchwarp.com/
http://www.arrivenet.com

Link Exchange: Start a link exchange program with other web sites that compliment your services. Diet sites, supplement sites, and exercises equipment sites are prime candidates to exchange your link with. These sites all cater your prospective clients. With a little creative thinking you can find many other web sites that are willing to exchange links and promote your business.

Become An Online Fitness Expert: Consumer discussion boards are also an incredible resource for capturing new leads. Web sites like ThreeFatChicks.com, HealthBoards.com, and Sbdbb.com offer discussion boards where the public comes for fitness and diet advice. These sites provide a great platform for you to interact with the public and win new clients.

Ultimately, online marketing can be used to reach more prospective clients and grow your business. The more site exposure you get, the faster your business will grow. Remember that, like all other marketing platforms, consistency is the key to a successful web based business.

Online Discussion Boards

The Internet is peppered with sites that cater to fitness enthusiasts. These people are hot after fitness information that will teach them the easiest ways to improve their physiques, build muscle, and burn fat. Spend some time each month touring these websites and chatting on their discussion boards. Not only is this a great way to keep your finger on the pulse of what people are currently interested in, as it relates to fitness, but you will also be able to pick up new online training clients.

Referrals

Referrals are quite possibly the most powerful form of marketing available. In order to generate the highest number of referrals be outspoken about what you do for a living. Don’t keep your passion for helping individuals a secret. Whenever you meet someone be sure to slip into the conversation that you offer online training.

You will be amazed at the business that will come your way simply from being outspoken about what you do. Don’t be afraid to ask people you meet for their email address. Let them know that you’ll give them a free “test drive” of your online training services. And be sure to add their name to your email database. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen a free “test drive” lead into an ongoing relationship.

Professional Referrals: Doctors, chiropractors, and physical therapists are always prescribing exercise. Talk to your local medical professionals and ask them to refer their patients to you. By aligning yourself with a medical professional you not only increase your credibility as a fitness professional, you also gain the benefits of a steady stream of new clients.

Find the contact information for local doctors, chiropractors, and physical therapists. Make appointments to meet with them, and make sure to bring a large stack of your cards, or fliers. Meet with the medical professionals and explain our credentials and experience. Discuss our program when they refer a patient to you with specific fitness goals. Reassure them that you understand that their patients may have physical limitations that we will build their program around. Follow up often with each medical professional. Make sure that they have a full supply of your business cards, or fliers, and be sure to thank them for each and every referral that they send your way.

Client Referrals: Each one of your current members has friends, family, and co-workers with whom they interact with on a daily basis. In a given week each of your clients probably come into contact with about 50 people. These are all potential clients.

Offer your clients the finder’s fee for every new prospect they refer to you or have them become an Affiliate. Motivate your members to tell their fitness success stories with everyone they know, and you will be surprised by all of the referrals that are sent your way.

When you guide your clients to us to help with their goals and they experience satisfactory results, you have earned the right to ask them to bring you more business. They are believers in your services, since they have experienced success with you firsthand.

Supply all of your clients with a small stack of your business cards containing your name, phone, and email address. On one side of the card explain that the card is worth a 2 week free trial. Ask your clients to hand your cards out to everyone that they know who may be in the market for exercise.

Follow up with your clients. Ask them if they have been handing out your cards. Remind them that for every prospect that they send your way you will reward them. Ask them if they know anyone off the top of their heads who would benefit from a personal training program. Ask for the contact information of the suggested people. Remember to thank your clients for every single prospect that they send your way. Let them know that you appreciate their efforts and that you value their business. Reward them, recognize them, and they will continue to be your motivated sales force.

Cross Marketing

The idea here is to have businesses in your area that cater to your potential clients co-market with you. Visit businesses such as health food stores, supplement stores, vitamin stores, and beauty salons. Put a flier together that outlines our services (see marketing material) that they can hand out to their customers.

For example: if a customer spends $50.00 or more at Joe’s Health Food Shack they receive a free 2 week trial. The flier should have your name, contact information, and a little blurb about the benefits the client will experience by working with us. This type of cross marketing is a total win/win. The store gets customers to spend more money and you get referrals to potential clients.

Identify businesses in your area that cater to your potential clients. Meet with the business owners and discuss the idea of cross marketing with them. Show them the benefit to their business and explain how both of your businesses would flourish. Agree on the content of your fliers. Create your fliers. Make sure that you include your name, contact information, and a description of the benefits a client would reap by working with you. Distribute your fliers to each of the participating businesses. Follow up with each participating business at least once a week. Visit each store, ask how the promotion is going, see if they need more fliers, and be sure to thank them for all the business they have sent your way.

Seminars – The Proven Lead Generator

Offer a free group fitness seminar like ‘Learn four exercises for firmer thighs’ or ‘Tone & tight leg and abs seminar’. The goal here is to get as many potential clients to come to this seminar as possible. Have a sign-up roster with only a limited number of spaces available. The day before the seminar call every member who signed up and confirm (remind) that you are looking forward to seeing him or her at the seminar. After providing some useful tips, offer everyone that showed up a free 2 week trial. This is a great way to generate solid leads and convert them into online clients.

Some great venues for seminars are the aerobics room at your local YMCA or health club, your training studio, area hospitals, churches, and big businesses who would let you give a free seminar or workshop to their employees. Ask these places to allow you to make announcements and post signs that tell the date, time, and content of the seminar. Tell all your clients to come and to bring their family and friends.

Prepare your topic. Make sure that you incorporate a few fun activities throughout your talk so that your audience participates. At the end of your seminar send a sign up sheet around the room for all those who attended to receive a free 2 week trial from you. These are prospects that are interested in fitness so they are going to be hot leads, and fairly easy to convert to clients. Do not hesitate to give valuable information out. You’ll find that the more value you give, the more business they’ll give you.

Free Media

Article Submission (Print): Your local newspaper, community magazine, and fitness websites are hungry for ready-toprint content on topics such as diet, weight loss, and fitness. These publications are great places to advertise your services in by supplying informative fitness articles. The power of free press is amazing, and there is nothing better than to be recognized as a local professional that the community can turn to.

Find out the names of your local newspapers, community magazines, and any other local publications. Find out who the publishers are, and the guidelines for article submission. Write and submit three articles a month through their specific guidelines.

Write articles that include fitness tips about topics of interest such as: How to Avoid Weight Gain During the Holidays, Practical New Year’s Resolutions for Healthy Weight Gain, How to Get in Shape for Summer. Write a bi-line to include at the end of each of your articles, that says who you are, what you do, and how you can be contacted.

It is important that you do not come across as simply a professional that is out to plug his or her business. Only mention your business in the bi-line of your article and fill the body of the article with useful information. Not only will publications be weary of a self promoting article, but the people who read it will also be turned off. Think of this type of marketing as a wolf in sheep’s clothing – the fact that you are marketing is so subtle that most won’t think of it as a marketing piece, but rather a valid and informative article.

Press Release: Sending out press releases to your local media is a great way to get free press for your business. The thing to keep in mind when creating your press release is to not come across as a sales pitch. You are a local fitness professional who is offering a tip or piece of advice on fitness to the members of the community. If your press release comes across as mainly a sales pitch it will probably be thrown out the window, so make sure that you are giving valid, interesting information that the public can benefit from.

One of the most effective ways to get your press release picked up is by piggybacking on a current national news story. The press loves to hear counter points, arguments, and supporting statements from professionals and experts like you.

Write your informative press release on an interesting topic. Be sure to include your bi-line that includes your contact information. Find the contact information for your local media by searching the web, and send out new press releases consistently.

Don’t be discouraged if your press releases aren’t published. Be patient and consistent. Send thank you notes to all editors and publishers who entertain your work. Let them know that you appreciate their time, and that your goal is to provide them with valid content that their reader or viewers would benefit from. You will be surprised as to how quickly you can become a local fitness celebrity.

An effective way for getting your press release noticed and picked up is to piggyback on current events. If a new study comes out regarding obesity in children, then immediately send out a press release with information in it regarding children’s fitness with quotes from the new study.

Public Speaking

Although most people do everything within their power to avoid public speaking, once you learn to embrace this skill you will find that your marketing efforts will payoff exponentially. When you get up in front of a group and give them information from your expertise there is an intense rapport building that takes place. You are taking your time to educate and inform them on the topic of health and fitness in a way that will benefit them. Often those you speak to will reciprocate your kindness by making a purchase from you and spreading the word about your business.

If you are new to speaking a great way to hone the skill is by joining your local Toastmasters International group. Toastmasters International groups are designed specifically to improve the public speaking skills of its members. To learn more and to find a Toastmasters International group in your area visit www.Toastmasters.org.

Once you have conquered your fear of public speaking and have sharpened the skill, you are now ready to get in front of a group! A great way to seek out groups to speak to is to go to your local library or city hall and to ask for a list of the association in the city. They should be able to provide you with the name, size, and contact information for multiple groups in your area.

Niche Markets

Do you want to be regarded as an expert on fitness and weight loss related topics? The quickest and easiest way to position yourself as an expert is to cater to a niche market. Your particular niche market may be golf enthusiasts. Now you go to local golf clubs and offer to give free seminars and talks on your “Online Workout”. You then submit articles to golfing publications in your area and post free golfer strength training information on your website.

As you can see, this process of becoming an expert to a niche market is not difficult. All it takes is some effort on your part and before you know it you will be receiving referral after referral from those within your niche.

Please do not limit yourself to having only one niche. You can very easily have multiple niche markets that all lead to online training clients.

Joint Ventures

Coming together with another business in a joint venture is a way to cooperatively drum up leads for both businesses. An example would be a personal trainer embarking on a joint venture with a Registered Dietitian. Both parties would agree to write an article about the other and post it on their website along with a link to the other’s site. This way the fitness minded clients of the RD would be referred to the personal trainer and the personal trainer’s clients that are in need of nutritional counseling would be referred to the RD. Both businesses benefit along with their respective clients. Be open minded when brainstorming about who to strike up a joint venture with. Look for businesses that cater to your potential clientele but do not offer competing services. Great examples include your local beauty salon, spas, health food stores, vitamin shops, and tanning salons.

Grocery Store Tours

Ever wonder how you can reach out and connect with potential clients in your area that are interested in fitness and weight loss? Here is your answer: plan a grocery store tour in your local grocer. A grocery store tour is where you organize a certain time for people to gather together at a grocery store for you to walk them through the store, pointing out optimal foods for achieving weight loss goals, and educating them on the nutritional value of foods.

First meet with the grocery store manager and get his or her approval for the tour. Next, print out flyers or postcards that promote the tour and include a time and date and a number to call to RSVP. Now you are ready for your big night.

After you have toured the store make sure that you offer each and every attendee either a free 2 week trial. You will be surprised at how many new clients you will discover. Grocery store tours work as great lead generators since they do not take place in your studio and are free of any sales pressure. Your goal with the grocery store tour is to use it to build relationships with prospects. Then, once a relationship is established, closing the deal on online training is so much easier.

Direct Mail

An effective way of reaching out to the potential clients in your area is to connect with them via direct mail pieces. This could be a postcard or a long copy letter that is mailed directly to their place of residence. This direct mail piece should contain a strong call to action and all of your contact information. Don’t be afraid to give something away for free – that is a proven way to attract new clients.

A cost effective way of getting a direct mail piece to the houses of your prospective clients is to partner with a real estate agent in your area and to do a cross promotion with them. Often times, realtors will leave flyers or door hangers at every house in a certain mile radius. Partner with such a realtor and let them know that you will split the cost with them to have your own flyer or postcard included with theirs. You will find this to be a win-win situation.

E-zines

While there are seemingly endless ways to promote your business, here's a list of some favorite ways by starting an e-zine.

- Tell your clients, associates, and friends. Send out one of your best issues (or your first issue) as a sample issue, inviting them to sign up if they like it. (Never sign anyone up without his/her permission.)

- Start an e-zine and list your e-zine in free e-zine directories. There are hundreds of these on the Web where people visit to search for e-zines on particular topics. Make sure you're here so you can be found! (One of the best is Charlie Page's Directory of E-zines.)

- Swap ads with other e-zines. Search online e-zine directories for other e-zines whose target readership matches yours, and contact their publishers. Swap at least three ads in a row for best results.

- Buy ads in other e-zines. Again, search those directories for other e-zines whose target readership matches yours, and see their ad specifications and rates. Purchase at least three ads in a row for best results.

- Plug your e-zine in your e-mail signature. After your usual contact information at the bottom of all your e-mails, be sure to include a two- or three-line plug for your e-zine.

- Get published in OTHER e-zines. There are dozens of Web sites where other publishers visit to pick up free content for their e-zines. Why not post YOUR articles there for them to use? You get free exposure and plenty of traffic back to your site.

- Do a co-op with other e-zine subscribers. You can cross-promote with other e-zine publishers on your own, or use an automated service such as Subscription Rocket.

- Try a pay-for-subscriber service. These services advertise your e-zine for you and bring you subscribers automatically for as little as 10 to 30 cents apiece.

- Announce your e-zine to all of the professional organizations and associations you're a member of. They usually allow you to make announcements in their newsletters or on their online bulletin boards.

- Advertise your e-zine on the back of your business cards. In the text, be sure to tell people how they can sign up for your e-zine.

- Become active in a few online forums where your ideal readers hang out. In your posts, position yourself as a resource in your area of expertise, and include a signature file that promotes your e-zine!

Conclusion

Remember that prospecting is a science, so you cannot expect to gain clients by just haphazardly “trying” any one of the prospecting techniques we discussed. You must apply yourself. Keep a list of prospects to follow up with.

By combining the techniques above you will find that marketing can be fun and profitable when done correctly. But one thing that needs to be repeated again is this. You must take action – MASSIVE ACTION and give 100% effort to make your online training business grow.

Now is the time where the rubber meets the road. You now have all the tools you need and want to successfully incorporate Online Training into your business.