How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy For Your Gym

It's funny. Many people undervalue what content marketing strategy will do for their gym or studio. People think that just by turning the lights on and opening the door that their gym or studio will fill up. 

Or by just posting a blog post thousands of people are going to read it. If this is your action plan your success is going to be very limited, unfortunately.

Why should people choose your gym or studio over the other options that are out there? I am sure you have many reasons in your head... 

But what is in your head is not accessible by the general public. You are only making it accessible to the few people who you interact with on a daily basis. 

We all have those people in our lives who we share our ideas with. Our plans. Why our gym, studio, or product is truly great. 

But this form of knowledge is not scalable. And to be successful in anything you have to be able to scale.

You can scale content marketing. Getting what is in your head out into the faces of thousands, if not millions, of people. 

Now before you get ahead of yourself, it is going to take a lot of work and not everyone who comes across your content is going to buy from you. But it is a numbers gain, the more people that see it, the more likely someone will buy from you.

Another thing to remember, just because you are producing content does not mean you will be guaranteed business. You have to produce good quality content that will help your audience. 

They need to either be:

1. You need to educate people
2. You need to entertain people
3. You need to make people think
4. You need to show people that you understand what they are struggling with

If you can achieve this with your content you will begin to create value for your audience. And when you are adding value you will begin to build trust.

That is one of the most important goals of content marketing. 

To build an audience that trusts you. If someone you don’t trust tells you how to do something, how soon do you forget? If you’re me it’s pretty much immediately. 

But remember trust takes time and practice to achieve from your audience.

You’re probably asking how do I start producing quality content that will build trust with my audience? 

This is where learning how to create a content strategy is so important. And we will be taking you through how to create a content marketing strategy in 7 steps.

STEP 1: Set your objectives

The first step is to set your objectives. 

If you don’t know what you are setting out to achieve, how will you know what content to produce? 

Once you have your objectives in mind, the next step is to determine your target audience. Who are you trying to reach with your content? 

This is important because it will dictate the type of content you create.

There are several objectives that you want to achieve through your content:

Add value and be useful

Your content needs to add value to your reader. If you are just producing content for the sake of it, and there is no value you are going to lose more people than you can. People can easily pick up from your content whether you are personally invested or not. Work at making passion felt through your content.

Provide actionable content. Someone who consumes your content should be able to do something new after consuming it. Teach your audience something new, allowing them to go and try it out. They will begin thinking, “Ahh they were right about that!”. And keep doing that so they keep coming back for more.

Build an audience

Your content should be focused on building an audience. Without an audience, you will have no one to sell to later on. You need to get personal. Not necessarily communicating with everyone one-on-one. Your content needs to come across on a personal level. It needs to be genuine.

Create authority

Your content must position you as an expert in your field. If you do not portray yourself as an expert or give insightful content, no one is going to trust you. If you do not build trust, people will not turn to you for help.

People who turn to your content for answers are more likely to speak about you or share your content online.

Brand awareness

You need to create brand awareness. You want people to know your brand from just looking at the content. Or your logo. Position your content so you become familiar with your audience.

I know this is pretty obvious, but make sure people know your brand for good things such as incredible customer service, killer workouts, or knowledgeable content. Not for overcharging, or under-delivering.

Generate traffic

If you’re creating content to generate traffic, first understand where you want that traffic to go:

• A blog post

• A form to sign up for your newsletter

• A particular sales funnel

• A free e-book you’re giving away

Answer questions

When people begin engaging with your content, there are going to be questions. Just because you answer the questions once doesn’t mean you won’t answer them a hundred more times. 

Create a list of your frequently asked questions. 

Then create content that answers them. Now you will be one step ahead in answering people's questions before they have even thought of them.

STEP 2: Understand who you are creating content for

One thing you need to understand is your content is not for everyone. 

Not everyone is interested in working out, eating healthy, or generally improving themselves (I know it’s surprising, but unfortunately it’s true). 

Not everyone is in your region if you are brick and mortar gym or studio. Not everyone speaks your language if you are delivering a digital product.

You do not want to appeal to everyone, because if you try this you may end up disappointing a lot more than you satisfy. This will result in poor reviews and poor retention.

The first step is understanding who your audience is.

What helps a lot is to create an avatar of your ideal customer. Give them a name. Make it personal. This way when you are writing content you know exactly who you are speaking to.

How to create your avatar?

1. Give your avatar a name

2. Understand their demographic:

• What’s their gender?

• How old are they?

• What is their income?

• Where are they located?

• How much do they earn?

You can have more than one avatar for your gym or studio. Go ahead and create all the ones that you believe are relevant.

1. What are they looking to achieve?

2. What challenges are they facing?

3. How can you help them? 

Need some more guidance on developing your perfect client avatar (or buyer persona)? Check out this handy video from the team at Digital Marketer...

STEP 3: Your audience has a problem

Everyone has a problem that they need help in solving. You need to create content that highlights the problems that your audience is facing. It makes your content relatable to them. 

But the important part is your content needs to show your audience the way to solve the problem.

Highlighting the solution that you have for them. People love it when you can help them in solving their problems. Identify the problem or problems that your gym or studio can solve and will begin to gain interest from your audience.

Highlighting and solving problems is a powerful way to create content. But don’t highlight problems in every piece of content. Remember, too much of a good thing is a bad thing.

STEP 4: Okay but other places solve the same problem... What makes you unique?

Let’s be honest with ourselves for a moment. You’re not the only gym or studio around. You’re not the only one with an irresistible online offer. 

The sooner we accept this fact, the better. Because now we can figure out what is unique about our brand or solution. 

When we find this point of difference, it is a content gold mine. It will just keep giving over and over again.

Treat your point of difference well. Because when it begins to work for you, copycats will try and take it. So make sure you do it better than anyone else. And make sure your audience knows that you can do it better than anyone else.

STEP 5: Where are you going to post your content?

Where we post content is almost as important as creating it. We don’t want to spend hours, days, weeks, creating content. 

And then we go and screw it up by sending our content out on the wrong channels. I’m not saying it won’t be seen, but for every piece of content you create, you want to give it the best possible chance of reaching the correct audience.

You’re not going to post a short 200 character post as a blog post on your website. We know we would want to post this on Twitter for example.

And it is not possible to post a 3000-word post on social media. It would go as a blog post and you could break down that blog post into bite-size chunks and repurpose it on your social media.

So before you begin creating the content, understand where you want to post it. This will give you a lot of direction in your creating process.

STEP 6: You have to have a content creation and publication process

For everything in business, there is a process. Everything that works well has a well-oiled process supporting it. 

And content creation and publication are no different. 

Don’t just think creating content is opening your laptop and just typing... Then magically amazing content appears on your audience's screens.

There is a process involved, with many steps and different people involved. Understand this process and what works for you. Or else you won’t be able to deliver valuable and consistent content to your audience.

You need to use this process to establish what content to produce, where to post this content, and when to post this content.

Spend some creating your writing process. It will improve your content marketing dramatically. Writing improves pretty much all aspects of your life.

How to create a process?

1. Write an overview of what you hope to achieve.
2. Understand the outputs. Basically, when this process is completed, what are the results?
3. Understand the inputs. What needs to be done before this process can be executed? What tools are required to complete this process?
4. Get your process flow. The best way to do this is to simply do the work over and over. Write down step 1, step 2, step 3, and so on. Until you get to the last step in the process.
5. Can you streamline the process? Look for ways to make the process more efficient. For example, you could use online tools or outsource your research to a freelancer.
6. Who is involved? Understand exactly who is required to complete a process. For example, a blog post requires a writer, an SEO specialist, and an editor. It is better to assign the roles required instead of the people, as people may change. Or it could be the same person doing all of the roles.

STEP 7: Other people’s words can be more powerful than yours

Create content that generates positive engagement from your audience. People are more likely to trust what you have to say if other people are agreeing with you, posting how you helped them.

Testimonials are a great way to get new clients. But your content needs to encourage feedback or else you’re not getting anything back.

You can simply set up an automated email to go out to all the people who attended your Bootcamp. Asking them what they loved, and what could have been approved. 

This way you get two benefits. You have positive feedback to share. And you will know what to work on to keep on improving as you get new members.

That’s a wrap

Just a quick summary of the 7-steps for creating a content strategy:

1. Set your objectives

2. Understand who you are creating content for

3. Identify a problem and solve it

4. Find a point of difference and you will have a content gold mine

5. Identify the correct channels to reach your desired audience

6. Create processes for everything

7. Testimonials are incredible for your content

Why should people choose your gym or studio over the other options that are out there? This is a question you undoubtedly think about often, and you have many reasons in your head... 

But what is in your head is not accessible by the general public. You are only making it accessible to the few people who you interact with on a daily basis. 

However, through content marketing strategy, you can make this information available to anyone who is interested in learning more about your business. 

All you need to do is begin creating content that speaks to the unique value proposition of your gym or studio. 

By doing this, you will be able to attract new customers and set yourself apart from the competition. Are you ready to get started?