Why You Shouldn't Be Afraid To Spend Money On Personal Trainer Marketing

3 months ago I took what was, for me, a huge step.

I increased my daily ad spend on my Facebook ads from £1/day to £2/day for my company that provides personal training in West Bridgeford.

http://www.boostyourbody.co.uk/

Yes, really.

Over the previous 17 months, which is when we started the business, we grew from £0/month to around £2,000/month using a variety of techniques. Mostly word of mouth, networking, referrals and pure good luck in some cases.

They were great and we ran some ads to supplement that offering a short trial for a low fee, usually 21 days for £21.

Because we were living near the breadline (my wife was pregnant and then on reduced income whilst we had our baby) the maximum I ever put into those ads was £1/day. I figured any more than that would eat into our income too much.  

But things continued to grow and so in January of this year I took the bold step of upping our ad spend to £2/day.

Big money…

In January and February we grew by about £500/month taking us to £2,500/month income. The increased spend resulted in more people coming in on trials and converting onto our regular memberships.

There was a bit of a trend there.

2 months ago I started working with a new business coach. He was, for me, a humongous investment. Eye watering really and if our overheads hadn’t have been kept as low as possible, maximising our profit, there is no way I would (or could) have paid what he asked.

But I did. A leap of faith if you will as I had big plans for the business and wanted to grow faster.

We put together our first Facebook ad, for a £197 paid in full over the phone 8 week program, and I asked the question:

‘What should I set the daily spend at to start off with?’

The answer came back: Start with £30/day.

I thought the guy was off his rocker. Surely that amount would eat into our profits, jeopardising my ability to put food on the table for my wife and kids and pay for our mortgage.

Only it didn’t. A funny thing happened.

We sold one. And then another one. And another. And another. After 5 days we had sold £788 worth of packages (paid in full upfront) for an ad spend of £150.

Now, I don’t know about you but if someone told me that for every £150 I gave them they would give me £788 back I would be raiding the kids piggy bank to rustle up every spare bit of cash I could get my hands on.

The best part is all of those converted onto our regular membership of £130/month.
So that £150 investment not only generated £788 upfront but also £520/month recurring. With an average client retention time of 12 months that's £7,028 from a £150 ad spend.

So here’s the thing.

We are in a numbers game. At any given time there are a certain number of people within our niche who are ready to take action. They have gone through the pre-contemplation, contemplation and planning stages and are ready to hit the button.

And you want to be the one in front of them when that time comes. If you are then, if they fit your niche, they will choose you. How could they not? You are the perfect fit for them because you have designed your whole business around them and talk directly to them.

But if you don’t spend money on advertising you won’t be the one in front of them. It will be somebody else. Somebody who probably won’t do as good a job as you but because they are in the right place at the right time they pick the up potential new Client.

An ad spend of £2/day gets you in front of 250 to 660 people a day (Based on my niche, targeting etc etc)

An ad spend of £30/day gets you in front of 3,600 to 9,400 people a day (Again, based on my niche, targeting etc etc)

Which group of people do you think is most likely to have more people in your niche who are ready to take action at that moment?

Who will sign up to your program and, assuming you have your ad copy and sales process nailed down, will give you £197 over the phone.

Fairly obviously it’s the larger group of people. It’s just a numbers game.

So very simply, the more you spend on your advertising the more people you will get in front of. The more people you get in front of the more likely you are to pick up people who are ready to take action there and then.

Sure you may get lucky on £2/day and end up in front of someone ready to make that change but the odds are very much in favour of the guy spending £30+/day.

And when you make a sale, reinvest that money into marketing. So going back to my example where I made £788 that was nearly enough to cover a months marketing at £30/day. And if I made 4 sales in 5 days how many sales do you think I made in 30 days?

Exactly.

Safe to say that approach has changed my views on marketing to a stage where I am now confident of spending, what still seems to me, big money on advertising. Because it leads to big rewards.

You just have to make sure you have your niche, ad copy and sales process nailed down and this approach can grow your business faster than you can say ‘we need more nappies!’.

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Alex West

Alex is another one of our on-the-ground PT's. Alex regularly contributes to our blog with the real world tips, tricks and advice he has gained from running his own personal trainer studio in Nottingham. Alex has taken the long hard road to success and is passionate about sharing his shortcuts and mistakes so you don't make them too!