Rest assured; I’m going to give you 6 more ways to increase your sales this season. But I’m going to do it a little backhandedly. That is, I’m going to share why your marketing ISN’T bringing you more sales. These are six reasons why too many fitness pros are striking out when it comes to social media, or any marketing for that reason, and what to do about it. Fail to serve your customers Posting generic information that another fitness professional can post, you need to ask why. There are currently about 375,000 trainers in the US alone. Yet, keep in mind no one is restricted to training with a trainer “locally” anymore. I’ve worked with clients in Italy, Trinidad, UK, Australia as well as all over the US recently. Personal training is expected to grow by 39%. That is, the number of trainers, not necessarily the number of clients. Now, what’s happened during the pandemic? Big chains, medium and small ones are losing 2 to 5 trainers at a time right now because there are not enough clients to go around. There aren’t enough members coming back in. That doesn’t mean they’ll all be successful with online businesses. Either way, be the unique one serving the niche you serve better than anyone. Get press, get partners, get wise on social media strategies and then use them, every time. Fail to identify how prospects are thinking or feeling before you create content Posts about random health habits for the holidays are generic commodities. What deeper layer can you provide that shows understanding of exactly what emotions your customer has during the holidays? Are the emotions excitement and desire to toss abandon to usual health habits to have pleasure? Is it fear of gaining weight and losing control? Is it a depressing time due to emotions of holidays past or losses? You can’t know how to help them if you don’t focus on what they feel and think at this moment. You also can’t do a post so inclusive that you target someone who is depressed and someone who loves the holidays in the same piece of content. You’re doing it again – trying to serve everyone all the time. That level of marketing forgets what really works, targeting one individual. Not tracking results You have to know what works and toss the rest. What are the results of your digital ads? How many visits to a landing page and from unique visitors, how many sales? You have to track your conversion rates. On social, how many website clicks result from your posts? How much engagement matters too, but if you’re not moving them off social to your email list, what’s the point? Email is where you nurture and sell. Those are the people interested in real help and support. Not making it a part of a whole relationship with you (bring them back for next week’s episode/blog/live or send them to the episode prior. Too long on your introduction & explanation Get to the answer within seconds. Whatever your title or image promises to deliver. Do it. No long bumper or talk about the show or anything but the thing you promised in the title that was so juicy it got them there. If you’re on a live and you wait “until a few more join”? and I got there on time? You’re wasting my time. So, start when you said you’d start. YOU should join early if you want to wait a few minutes to dive into material, but it is maddening for busy people or just prompt people when you ignore them in favor of the latecomers, or when you don’t just give me the info you promised before some long prelude. Thinking they need to know who you are or how you’re qualified first It’s easy to think they need to know who you are and launch into years of experience or degrees. They don’t. And for that reason, they’ll choose a stranger who has simply been a fitness enthusiast for years, happens to have had good luck and next to no training if they get a quicker answer than listening to a dissertation about your background. There’s a place for it but don’t lead with it. There they are - a backhanded way of finding 6 ways