Brand Development for Gyms and Personal Training Studios
One of the first things personal trainers who want to build a successful online business should do is create a dynamic and recognizable brand.
Most personal trainers understand they need a logo and a website. However, it might not surprise you to hear that branding isn’t that simple.
Whether you are talking about a fitness brand or any other brand, having a strong brand will help people understand what the brand represents and allows them to let down the shield customers put up. Once that shield is taken down by a brand, it allows the customer to build trust with the brand and its image. Just because you think your brand is sufficient enough with the logo, colors, and website that YOU like, it most likely isn’t capturing the customers you want.
Your brand needs substance, something that creates a brand identity. Your brand’s identity comes from the obvious things you think it does: the name of your business, it’s logo, colors, shapes, or graphics. Yet, it also includes the type of language you decide to use and the “tone” that language gives off to customers.
A brand identity is important because it allows the brand to benefit from
- Price premiums
- Perception of quality
- Recognition
- Loyalty, and differentiation.
All of these benefits mentioned above come from having a strong brand identity. So, what would these look like in the fitness industry?
Price Premiums in the Fitness World
A price premium in the fitness world would mean that your brand identity is strong enough to position your gym or services in the mind of your customer into believing that your brand is providing a quality of service that is worth paying the higher price you’re charging.
Perception of Quality is Everywhere
The perception of quality is seen in many different industries and is easily adapted in the fitness industry. For example, Toyota and a Lexus technically do the same thing, people are willing to pay a higher price for the higher perceived quality in the Lexus.
It doesn’t technically matter if Lexus is of higher quality, all that matters is that in the Lexus is better in the customers’ mind.
The same thing happens in the fitness world. Most box gyms and other generalized fitness centers typically have low perceived quality but a high convenience factor. However, convenience doesn’t always translate to customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Recognition and Loyalty
This one seems obvious, but it is a necessity for any gym owner or personal trainer to have. Not only does it mean that customers are more likely to remember you and your brand but they want to be associated with “good” brands.
So, when your brand is strong and gives them positive feelings, they are more likely to refer you to others.
A strong fitness brand will stick in its client’s minds.
Differentiation
A fitness brand with a strong brand identity will be able to stand out in it’s marketplace. De-pending on how big your gym/client base is, differentiation will look different.
But the goal is the same: Use techniques such as perceived quality to stand out from the com-petition and find creative ways to win over the competition.
The FitBrand Profile™
Here at Fitness Web Formula, we have crafted our own solution to creating an effective brand identity that successfully finds and retains clients: The FitBrand Profile™
Through the FitBrand Profile™, we have assembled four steps that personal trainers need to think about when crafting a brand that will work for them:
1. Understanding the target audience and what your business represents
2. Recognize a problem that potential clients have and relate to them (Empathy & Authority).
3. Create and execute a plan to solve that problem
Why are these the main focuses of our process? Read below for a deeper understanding of how the FitBrand Profile™ works for our clients.
1. Understanding the target audience and what your business represents
This is the most important step when creating your brand: who are you creating it for? You want to gain a deep understanding of who your clientele is, so you aren’t wasting resources on attracting the wrong crowd to your fitness facility or website.
One mistake that we see our trainers making is they think their brand is for “everyone”.
But, they’re really speaking to no one because they end up with a generic marketing message that prevents them from standing out amongst their competition.
If you start creating a brand and targeting people through ads or social media posts without understanding who you are trying to attract, then you will likely attract the wrong clients. In other words, you will attract people who you don’t specialize in training or that you just don’t know how to train correctly.
For example, if you are a trainer in your early 40s specializing in training clients in their 40-50s who mainly come to you to stay fit, you are likely going to want to attract that age group. This doesn’t mean you can’t, or won’t, train 20-30 year-olds but your message will likely get across more clearly to the group in their 40-50s.
2. Recognize a problem that potential clients have and relate to them (Empathy & Authority).
Once you understand who your clients are, you can find out what problems they have and are wanting you to solve. Depending on your client base, the problem they are looking to solve will vary immensely, and you need to determine what that problem is.
With that being said, it is important to dig even deeper than this. Understanding your client’s issues on a deeper, emotional, and circumstantial level will help you provide a better service.
Through providing this more meaningful service, you will find your customers are willing to pay higher prices and stay with your services for longer periods of time.
In order to make this process easier on our clients we created the FitBrand Profile’. The Fit-Brand Profile” is a playbook for all your marketing needs.
With the FitBrand Profile, you will:
Identify your ideal client and their pain points,
Establishes yourself as the authority, and
Crafts a clear and consistent message to speak to your clients
The next step in the FitBrand Profile”‘ journey is to establish authority. You might be thinking, “I have all these certifications, why do I need to establish authority?”.
Well, establishing authority can be done without just showing that you have certifications and experience.
The FitBrand Profile”‘ will allow you to let your clients know, “This is how I am going to solve your problem!’ It speaks to your audience in a way that they understand you know their pain points and how you will help them achieve their goals.
3. Create and execute a plan to solve that problem
The last step we take our clients through during the FitBrand Profile”‘ journey is creating a plan to solve their own, or, their client’s problems and finding solutions to executing that plan.
How will you solve those problems your desired clients are dealing with?
You will build a framework that works with your brand. We build your unique profile using an array of our successful business profiles and understandings of consumer psychology based on 10+ years of experience honing our skills as fitness marketers.
Finally, we use your FitBrand Profilew as a foundation. This foundation will become the basis of your marketing copy, sales funnels, lead nurturing campaigns, and what we call the “Monster Follow-Up”. This creates the best possible lead generation and user experience.
Executing this plan with the FitBrand Profile would look like you having a consistent message in all of your marketing efforts.
And if you decide to move on to focus on the marketing yourself, the Profile will always be a tool that is there for you to use and refer back to.
Through our FitBrand Profile™, fitness professionals have the ability to build a sustainable, lasting business. It establishes them as the leader in their area and allows them to become an expert in whichever field they are pursuing.
Click here to learn more about how the FitBrand Profile™ and how we can help you bring your professional fitness journey to life!