While there are several ways to earn your living in the fitness industry, very few trainers have actually considered organizing fitness workshops as a possible revenue stream.
Fitness workshops can provide boost to your fitness business, here’s how to create a fitness workshop that you can use as a marketing tool to get new clients or simply make some money on the weekends.
Remember, don’t over think the situation! Just do it!
STEP 1: SET A DATE
Pick up a weekend preferably (avoid public holidays). And now that you have decided to create one, keep it in the next week or so (give yourself some time to prepare as well).
STEP 2: PICK A TOPIC
Feel free to pick any topic related to fitness or health. You want something that can be done in 2-4 hours and will get your idea/system off the ground. For example “Kettlebell Exercises for your Living Room.”
You will learn a lot from the first event, so don’t think you’re going to nail it on the first shot. Your goal is to get as many people there as possible so you can learn as much as possible. Just like training a client one on one, you’ll find that every person has different issues that you’ll need to address.
STEP 3: SUMMARIZE YOUR WORKSHOP
Now that you have a topic you can write your summary. This will be the sales copy that you’ll be using to get people to the event. I recommend doing this before you actually outline the workshop because it will give you some direction in writing it.
STEP 4: PICK A LOCATION
If you have a gym, the location of the fitness workshop is more or less obvious. If you don’t have your own space, try contacting local gyms (smaller gyms if you can find them), and offer a 20-25% hosting fee or a flat amount.
If this is your first event, consider this as an advertising expense.
STEP 5: WRITE YOUR WORKSHOP OUTLINE
The outline of your workshop is completely dependent on your topic, but it is possible to give you a basic structure to build on. Here it is:
- Introduction (talk about your expertise, overview of what you’re going to talk about)
- Main Content: Summary of what you’re going to demonstrate. Demonstration of content. Hands on practice of content.
- Conclusion: Summarize the next stage of the content (where to go from here)
HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR FIRST FITNESS WORKSHOP
STEP 1: OUTLINE YOUR FITNESS WORKSHOP MARKETING CAMPAIGN
Now that you know what the workshop is, when it’s going to be, and where it’s going to be held, you can start telling people about it.
In general, post your workshop information on your website, your Facebook fan page, and some popular local event sites.
Here are some specific steps.
STEP 2A: CONTENT MARKETING SUPPORT
To support your workshop you’ll want to come out with 3-10 content pieces before the event. These pieces should provide some small detail of the information you’re planning on teaching and lead them to the workshop if they’d like more information on the same vein. The pieces could be tips, tricks, exercise demonstrations, sample workouts, techniques, etc.
You’ll want to release each piece leading up to the event on a regular schedule (say Mondays and Wednesdays) and be sure to include a link and banner to the event. You’ll also be using each piece to produce your related promotional social media posts and email campaigns.
STEP 2B: SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
While you should include some pictures and graphics that simply say, “Come to my workshop,” most of your social media and email marketing should be promoting your Content Marketing pieces, subtly promoting your workshop. The cool thing about having the free content is that it gives you a pass to promote whatever deeper knowledge you have to offer beyond the free information you’re providing.
With social media, you also get to test out which concept you’re presenting has a greater impact and response. While the content (article, video, graphic, etc.) could talk about anything, let’s say, “5 Tips to Improve Your Kettlebell Swing” for example, you can post it on your social media channels with any headline you want. For that piece, you could say something like, “Common mistakes you’re probably making with the kettlebell swing.” Same piece, different approach. Try out different one’s and see where that gets you in terms of traffic and conversions (conversions in this case being tickets sold).
If you’re unfamiliar with social media marketing, use Facebook. Facebook allows you the most likely audience that will attend your event, and the ability to hit them the most consistently. After that, I would say Instagram, then Twitter, then YouTube/Pinterest/etc.
STEP 2C: EMAIL MARKETING
You’ll work your email marketing the same way you’ll be working your social media marketing. You’ll need to be using several newsletter campaigns to promote your related content while you sprinkle in your direct promotional emails. For this you’ll want to use at least a 3 related to 1 direct email campaign approach spread over every 2-3 weeks depending on how soon your workshop is going to be held.
STEP 3: FOLLOWING UP WITH ATTENDEES
The marketing job isn’t over even when the event is done!
Now that you’ve gotten people to your event, you have an excellent opportunity to follow up with them to cultivate a greater following and community. Send an email within 1-2 days of the event thanking your attendees for coming and asking for feedback.
If the workshop is part of a series, tell them when the next part will be.
If you have a related product, offer them a discount for buying it within 7 days of the workshop. If they’re not already following you on your social media channels, ask them to follow you. There are literally a million different ways to follow up with your customers; the worst thing you could do is not use any of them.
This is a very simple approach using primarily free online marketing techniques. You could enhance your results by using pay-per-click campaigns using social media, printing postcards and sending them to local vendors, offering free perks for attendance, etc., but this free methodology has the added benefit of creating a lot of new content for your website, and that is something that you should always be looking to do!
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