According to 59 percent of consumers, marketing emails have a significant influence on their purchasing decisions. If you’re not using email marketing to generate leads for your personal training or health coaching business, you could be missing out on a lot of potential growth opportunities.
Are you new to the world of email marketing? Are you unsure of where to begin or how to refine your existing strategy? If this is the case, read on to learn more about email marketing, as well as some specific ways coaches and trainers use it to generate more leads for their businesses.
Benefits of Email Marketing
Email marketing is a powerful tool for all kinds of businesses but especially small health coaching or personal training businesses. The following are some specific benefits you can experience when you start sending marketing emails:
Save Money
Like most small business owners, chances are you’re working with a pretty limited marketing budget. You might not have a lot to spend, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still see great results.
Email marketing is a very cost-effective option that allows you to promote your services without spending tons of money. It’s more affordable than most other marketing tactics, including social media marketing, direct mail, and traditional approaches like billboard advertising.
High ROI
In addition to being very affordable, email marketing also yields a high return on your investment. Some reports show that it has an ROI of 300 percent!
Establish and Build Long-Term Relationships
These days, many trainers and coaches are pouring a lot of time and energy into building relationships on social media.
There’s nothing wrong with this, and social media marketing definitely has its place, but it can also be hard to use it to build long-term relationships. There are so many voices on social media, it’s easy for yours to get drowned out.
With email marketing, though, you can reach people in a more direct way. This, in turn, helps to increase the likelihood that they’ll remember you and think of your services in the future.
Low Barrier to Entry
It’s not hard to set up an email list for your business, either. There are lots of online email marketing platforms that help you create a list and generate automated emails. These services are very affordable—some of them even have a free option for folks who are just getting started and aren’t ready to invest.
Easy Tracking
When you use an email marketing service, you also gain access to data you can use to monitor the effectiveness of your emails. This data helps you to see who’s opening your emails and what kinds of messages get the most attention. You can then use that data to refine your approach and put out the kind of email marketing content people most want to see.
Build Trust
When created in the right way (you’ll learn how to do this in just a second), marketing emails can help you to build trust between yourself and potential clients. If they can see that you know your stuff and are willing to provide them with a significant amount of value just for signing up for your email list, they’ll be more interested in investing in your services to see what else you can do for them.
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9 Ways for Trainers and Coaches to Use Email Marketing
It’s clear that there are a lot of advantages to a strong email marketing strategy. Every professional has to figure out which techniques work best for them and their target audience, though, to experience these advantages.
For personal trainers, nutritionists, and health coaches, there are some specific strategies that are particularly effective when it comes to generating leads and sparking interest. They include these nine:
1. Be Consistent
One of the cardinal rules of email marketing is to be consistent. Remember, it often takes multiple emails or interactions with a brand before a person is willing to buy what they’re selling.
If you send out marketing emails super sporadically, it’ll be harder for the folks on your email list to get to know you and start developing a relationship with you. This, in turn, will decrease the likelihood that they’ll be interested in your services, or it may take longer before they decide to learn more about or invest in them.
Of course, on the flip side, you don’t want to send out emails so often that people get sick of hearing from you. This is a surefire way to find yourself in their spam folder. Figure out a happy medium that keeps your business in their minds but doesn’t overwhelm them.
2. Provide Value
Next, make sure you’re providing value with every marketing email that you send. There are lots of ways to provide value to the folks on your email list. The following are some popular options for those in the personal training/health coaching industry:
- Provide solutions to common health and wellness problems (share tips on meal prepping, for example, or an at-home workout guide)
- Address some frequently asked questions you get on social media or from your clients
- Share links to your most recent blog posts or YouTube videos to bring traffic back to your website or another platform
- Share links to informative or fun resources that you encountered online in the last week or month
When you’re putting together an email for those on your list, ask yourself what they’re going to get out of it. This will help you ensure you’re providing value and aren’t emailing just for the sake of sending something.
3. Use Social Media to Encourage Sign-ups
There’s no point in having an email list if no one is signed up for it. One of the best ways to get people’s email addresses on your list is to use social media to invite them to sign up.
When putting together a post inviting sign-ups, be sure to clarify what people are going to get when they do sign up (give them a taste of the kind of value you’re providing). Make it easy for them to do so, too.
Include a link to the sign-up page in your post as well so they can get over there as easily as possible. Remember, the more steps people have to go through, the less likely they are to actually sign up.
To further increase the chances of people signing up, consider offering them some kind of free gift that you’ll send to their email inbox. An example might be an eBook featuring recipes, workouts, or other information that solves a common problem for your target audience.
4. Ask About Signing Up People In-Person
Some trainers and coaches make the mistake of assuming that they can only invite people to sign up for their email list through virtual platforms (social media, their website, etc.). Don’t underestimate the value of inviting people to sign up in-person, though.
If people come into your gym or coaching practice for a consultation or to ask questions, invite them to sign up for your email list. Let them know that, when they do this, they can be informed about upcoming promotions and get free health and fitness tips.
Most people have no problem with signing up, especially if you’re clear about what they’re getting out of it. Have a tablet or iPad at your front desk for them so they can easily input their information right then and there.
5. Feature Client Testimonials
Client testimonials are a powerful marketing tool. If people can read about other clients’ experiences working with you, they’re going to be much more inclined to look into your services for themselves.
In your marketing emails, consider including a section to highlight certain clients and share their testimonials. It’s especially helpful if you can also include a picture of them, especially if you’re advertising some kind of service that can help clients improve their physique (lose weight, gain muscle, etc.).
6. Make Emails Timely
It’s often helpful to make the subject of your marketing emails related to some kind of current event. This allows you to tap into what’s on a lot of people’s minds and encourage them to see what you have to say about the issue.
An example of this is the fact that, in early 2020, lots of marketing emails contain information related to the COVID-19 pandemic and immune system support. Those are things that many people are concerned about, and many trainers and health coaches are sharing their knowledge to help assuage potential clients’ fears and get them interested in their services.
7. Segment Subscribers
Segmenting subscribers is a good way to reach more people and provide them with highly targeted content.
Segmentation involves dividing your subscribers up into smaller groups depending on specific characteristics. For example, you can divide up your email list so that information related to prenatal or postpartum health goes only to women who are expecting or have just given birth to a child.
The easiest way to do this is to allow people to pick certain preferences when they’re signing up for your list. You can give them the option to decide what kind of emails they want to receive from you. That way, they won’t end up feeling overwhelmed or that your content is irrelevant to them.
8. Include Pictures or Videos
Don’t underestimate the value of pictures and videos in your marketing emails, either. Pictures help to diversify your content and allow people to feel more connected to you and your work. The same goes for videos.
In addition to sharing before-and-after pictures, you can also share images of recent recipes you’ve created or put together infographics that simplify complicated concepts.
Videos can be especially helpful when you’re trying to increase the amount of value you provide your subscribers. It’s often easier to teach people how to do a particular exercise with a video than it is with a written description, for example.
Keep in mind that different types of media appeal to different people. Experiment with several options to see what resonates most with your subscribers and consider making that the primary medium you use for delivering messages.
9. Offer Promotions
Finally, a great way to ensure people open your marketing emails and engage with them is to include some kind of discount or information about a promotion that you’re running. If people know that they have an opportunity to save money, they’re going to be way more interested in opening your email and seeing what you have to say.
There are tons of different ways you can promote your services and reward people for being on your email list. You could give your email list subscribers an exclusive discount code for your products or services or give them priority access to sign up for your next course or an upcoming round of coaching. Offering chances to enter giveaways is another good option.
Start Generating More Leads Today
Generating leads is one of the most challenging parts of running your own health coaching or personal training business. The good news, though, is that there are plenty of low-cost strategies you can use to get people interested in your services, including email marketing.
Follow the strategies listed above when constructing your emails and you’ll have a much easier time seeing results from your efforts. Don’t forget to check out our other email marketing resources today as well for additional advice and guidance.
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Image source: Unsplash
