Fitness Business and Marketing

Market research for personal trainers

Following on from last week you should have established a niche that you want to work with. This week we are going to look at how we can establish the facts about your market.

Market Research

Market research is often seen as a doubting task, it brings to mind images of tables and stats. But in reality market research, especially in the field of personal training is much more straight forward than that (or it can be if you want it to be). The main aim of market research is to understand your market, now the biggest mistake made by personal trainers is to presume they know what the market wants. Very often what you think and market wants and what they actually do are two very different things!

The first step is to decide who the typical client is for your niche, initially this might be quiet broad but as you start to market your product this can be refined and then used to maximize the effectiveness f your marketing effort.

Client Profile

The client profile should include (but not limited to) the following information:-

Sex
Age
Occupation
Income

What do they read?
What do they surf?
Where do they hang out?

What are their primary goals?
What services might they require?

What you are trying to establish is who your potential clients are, and as much information about them as possible.  You should remember that you are looking at hard facts not what you think your clients should be.  Also remember that you should be looking at sections of the market who not only want your services but can also afford them.

 

Does your market exist?

Now you know who your ideal client base is, what they want and where you might find them. The next step is to establish if this market exists in your area, not only that but also if the market is sufficiently large enough to be considered profitable?  Try using on-line databases, census information and maybe even some of your own primary research such as questionnaires to really establish the scope of the market that you would like to target.

This stage is very important, and one that many new personal trainers overlook, remember what we think the market wants is totally irrelevant.  In order to make a business successful we need to only consider what the market actually wants and needs.  This can only be done through research!

 

ACTION POINTS

  • Write up a client profile for your chosen niches, remember these should be as specific as possible.
  • Try and research the size of this market in your local area.

We will be using these steps over the coming weeks to make your business and more specifically your marketing as effective as it can possibly be!

TOM

[ssba]

Tom has been involved in the fitness industry for nearly 20 years. He is a specialist in rehabilitation, exercise referral and helping other fitness professionals to improve their business. He is also involved with course development, teaching, assessing and IQA of a range of training courses. He is always willing to meet other professionals so please do contact him via social media with any questions or just to say hello.

1 Comments

Write a comment