How Offline Advertising Can Get You Online PT Clients

Sep 13, 2019

By Tim Saye




This instalment of our Get Online Clients via Offline Marketing series details how you can use offline ads to build a bigger online audience and ultimately get more online training clients.

Do you think offline ads are dead? Think again. Who are your ideal clients? High performing professionals in mid to senior management positions or even running their own business? Maybe parents who have disposable income while raising their children or the most tech-savvy Gen Z people, who are much into anything geeky?

Feel free to go out and ask them where they consume information, check the news, hear about the latest updates in their interests, etc. Granted there may be a percentage who only goes online, but even they walk past billboards and signs on the street or see ads on buses or the tube.


Where should you post your ad?

The key to a successful offline ad campaign is to find the medium your target market consumes the most in your local area. Do they listen to the radio? Do they watch television? Maybe there's a daily paper or magazine they read regularly. You can find out where is the most frequented corner, square, park or station near you. If they are businessmen and women, they may collect business cards. Ask your clients how likely they are to take flyers when offered!

Once you have answers to those questions, you will be able to identify where it'll be worth focusing your offline ad budget. You may find that a billboard or a sign near your local gym might get a lot of attention. Or that your clients listen to a radio show or read a specific paper every morning before work. Pick 2 or 3 and start considering what kind of ad you'd like to post.


What to say on your ad?

Your options here are endless. The best way to go about this is to find something specific that will attract your ideal clients' attention enough to take action. Also, consider the channel you're about to use because that will affect how you can transmit your message.


Radio

A radio advert or appearance relies on hearing only, so whatever it says in that short time frame has to be on point. Either the call-to-action itself, the benefit of hitting up your website or even the way you present it. As long as it grabs attention in the first few seconds and offers something your ideal client values highly, you may have gotten yourself a new follower. Just make sure your website or contact details are repeated a few times to stick.


Paper/Magazine

Just like when getting a guest article published, you'd like to choose a paper or magazine that has two characteristics: frequently read by your target market and includes somewhat relevant content to health and fitness.

The next thing you'd like to consider is how you can encourage the reader to look you up after having seen your ad. This principle also applies to flyers. Besides giving them information, you would like to spark action. You can achieve that by making it worth their time to open their smartphone or laptop and looking up your website.

A niche-focused value offer can come into play nicely here. Whether that's a freebie or a low-barrier lead magnet, so long it promises a solution to a problem they have been trying to solve for some time, they will follow through.

For example, you can promote the free guide you already have implemented on your website: "how to stay fit and get things done while raising small children" or "how to boost your productivity at work with exercise". These are ideas applicable to a specific population. Find the most pressing problem of your ideal clients and create an offer around that. This principle applies to flyers too, make sure the reader will feel the information printed on the brochure is worth it.


Billboard/Signs

People don't talk about street adverts as much anymore, even though the billboards and signs are still out there 24/7 without rest and shout whatever is written on them to everybody passing by. You can use this strategy in two ways.


Permanent Signs

This one is ideally positioned somewhere near your gym or studio and gives people directions on where to find you as well as has your contact details, your key services and skills on it so people can find you when they need to.

Their most significant advantage is that they work for you even when you are on holiday, you are asleep or also while you are with clients. A sign at the right spot can be your forever quiet audience building tool. People will walk by it daily until they're ready to do something about their fitness and you will be the first on their mind.


Temporary Signs

When you have a limited time offer, or you're launching a new service or trying to promote an event, paying for a short-term advert on a board nearby can help you grow your online audience significantly.

The offer and the visual needs to grab attention at a glimpse; the description needs to encourage the reader to follow through and get on the web page to claim that offer or register for the launch updates.


How to attract technology lovers?

I have one word for you (OK, two): QR codes. You can make it super easy to the reader to take the next step without having to type in your full web address.

You can place a QR code on a billboard, on fliers, in a paper advert or even on your business card. Practically anywhere that needs printing.


Wrapping Up

Offline advertising can be a great addition to your marketing strategy. It is less likely to bring in immediate sales so you may find it hard to measure its ROI. However, it's still one of the best long-term marketing tools to build an audience of potential leads to coach using PT Distinction.

Tags