Direct Mail Marketing Strategies for Personal Trainers

 By guest author Logan Strain

Direct mail marketing should an integral part of every personal trainers marketing strategy. Unfortunately, most trainers who employ it fail to understand its full benefits, and wind up wasting a lot more postage than they have to.

Direct mail is distinct from other forms of advertising in that it is very precise. While something like a yellow pages ad is designed to reach a broad swath of people, a very small percentage of which may be in the market for your services, you can target who receives your message.

Here are the most common uses of direct mail

Cold Mailing

Just like this sounds, this is where you mail an ad to every address you can get a hold of.  This is one of the least cost-effective, but sadly most used, use of direct mail.  It wastes a lot of paper and postage because you have no idea if the people you are sending the ads to are in the market for personal training services.  Thus, it completely ignores one of the primary benefits of direct mail.  At the same time, however, it is possible to make cold mailing fairly cost effective if you do it intelligently

Retrieving old patients

You should already know that the people most likely to seek your services are the people who already have.  Direct mail is a fantastic way to get back in touch with clients who haven’t been in for a workout in a while.

Getting referrals

A lot of trainers don’t like asking for referrals directly, because they don’t want to make their clients feel pressured.  Direct mail is an easy and indirect way to ask your clients for a referral.

Follow Up

If you meet a new potential client at a client appreciation day or complimentary workout, you can follow up your initial meeting with a letter.  This allows you to take the next step in building a relationship with them.

Maintaining your current clients

It’s always cheaper and easier to keep the clients you have than to get new ones.  A letter on your patient’s birthday or for holidays can help let your clients know that they are appreciated.

But how do you make sure you get the best response to your direct marketing campaign?

The first step is to make sure you have a quality list of leads.  You should always prioritize your current clients, followed by your former regular clients. Next should come people who you meet through seminars and classes.  At these events, make sure you have a clipboard and pen handy that allows people provide their mailing information.

The next step is assembling a quality letter. Like any piece of marketing, it should have a strong headline, something that grabs the reader and encourages them to read more.

Finally, make sure it comes in a nice package.  Always mail first class, and if you can, write out the mailing address by hand.  That extra step gives it a more personal touch, so it won’t be treated like “junk mail.

Of course, before you invest in direct mail marketing, you probably want to know how effective it will eventually be.  Unfortunately, there is no accurate way to predict that, so it will be up to you to experiment what is more effective to you.  To start, mail a small part of your mailing list to see which demographics respond the most.  You can use this information to concentrate you direct mail marketing efforts only on those who are most likely to respond.

This has been a personal training marketing post by guest author Logan Strain