Currently the buzz word when it comes to marketing your fitness or personal training business is social media!

It is proving to be one of the most cost effective and powerful strategies to get your personal training business in front of potential clients. Social media is not the only place you can attract leads though. There are a host of valuable places that you may want to get your personal training business listed.

I’m going to assume you have the main social media bases covered.  Including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Interest. If you haven’t I would recommend addressing these first before working on any of the listings below.

Having a listing in many of the places below can be a powerful strategy in marketing your business.  Listings are useful for creating links and pathways to your website, and for being in a place where your potential client is looking for your services or just looking at some listings.  I am constantly amazed with some of the strange ways clients have found me over the years.

You may find that your local competitors haven’t taken the time to create any of these listing so will allow you to stand out.  You may find people start to comment that they have seen your business listed in a few places. It is often not the first time they see you that they take action so it’s worth being in many places.

Before posting your listing.  Have a plan.

Work out who you want to read and respond to the listing.  What problem you can help them with.  What you want them to do and the links you want to take them too.  I often use a landing page link to direct visitors too.  This is so I can capture their email addresses and follow up with email marketing.

If you are able to add text then add something that explains who you can help, and what you can help them do.

PLEASE Don’t just be a general jack of all trades personal trainer that helps with toning up, weight loss, muscle gain, sports performance, rehab.  You should choose one thing you are great at and talk about that.  People will be more impressed you are a specialist at something and not trying to help everyone from teenagers to grannies.

Know Your Ideal Personal Training Client

First and foremost you need to know who your ideal client is.  This will help massively in identifying the best places to look to list your business.

1. Knowing these things will help you identify the best places to list your business and the message you should have.
2. Know your avatar / ideal client you are trying to attract
3. Know the life time value of your clients.  So if there are fees and you can work out how many clients you need to acquire and how often for it to be effective

If possible to add text.  Think about what you are going to write that would make your listing stand out.  Don’t just put the boring stuff that you do everything.  Highlight the main problems you solve, and have a compelling call to action to offer people who see your listing.

Having a compelling offer is key.  You want your post to stand out from others.  So offer a reason for someone to take action and get in touch.  You could offer a free trial, free coaching call.  What ever it is make sure it has a tangible benefit and feels valuable.  This will encourage more people to actually take action.

You may find there are local listing sites in your area not listed below, and I would recommend you spend some time searching for them and get yourself on them with links to either your website or social media.

Pay to play

You may find that many of the sites offer an option to upgrade your listing.  To have prime spot at the top in your area.  This can often be a very inexpensive way to stand out.  It’s definitely worth checking and working out the cost versus potential gain.  This is helped by knowing the lifetime value of a client.

Networking sites

There are th places where people go to find out what’s going on.  Forums to discuss problems or find solutions.

Netmums.com
This One of the best places I have added a listing in the past is Netmums, there are both free listings and the opportunity to promote your listing by securing a place at the top for a very small fee.  There are local networks and discussion boards you can jump in on.   When I used to advertise I think it was £10 per month.  With a average client value of £500 I could quite happily advertise there and just 1 client every 3 years would pay for itself.

Look for networking sites that your avatar may well be using.  Even if you can’t have a listing.  Having a profile with some information about you and then adding value and commenting in the group may well attract people to find you.

Directory and search based listings

Google my business
If you haven’t registered your personal trainer website on google my business, you need get over there and do that now.  If someone is searching on Google this will help you appear in the little map listings that often appear when searching locally.  Google is by far the largest search engine and is the place you must list your personal training business.

Yell.com
The days of the yellow pages are pretty much done but having a listing on yell.com can be useful.  They have a decent web presence and often appear quite high in search ranking.

Bing
No where near as much search traffic as Google but a listing for your fitness business on here is not a bad idea.

Yahoo
Another search engine that can be a useful place to list your personal training business

Review sites

Yelp.com
A great place to add a listing that is becoming more and more heavily used.  How about getting your clients to go and leave a review after the first few weeks of training with you?  You can build that in as part of your personal training client journey so that you have a steady stream of great reviews being left for you.

Even More Personal Trainer Marketing Places

Here are some other places worth adding a listing too.  Some of the below may be US based some UK so some may not apply to your business at all.

1. Thompson Local
2. elocal
3. Better Business Bureau
4. Angie’s List
5. Merchant Circle
6. LinkedIn
7. YP.com
8. Whitepages
9. Superpages.com
10. Yellowbook
11. CitySearch
12. MapQuest/Yext
13. Local.com
14. Foursquare
15. USDirectory.com
16. BizJournals.com
17. TeleAtlas
18. Discover Our Town
19. EZ Local
20. Kudzu
21. CityVoter
22. Manta
23. UsCity
24. Advice Local
25. InfoUSA
26. Infignos
27. Get Fave
28. My Huckleberry
29. Yellowee
30. LocalStack
31. Brownbook
32. Magic Yellow
33. CitySquares
34. Map Creator
35. Judy's Book
36. TripAdvisor
37. Thumbtack
38. YellowPagesGoesGreen.org
39. Home Advisor
40. ShowMeLocal
41. ChamberofCommerce.com
42. Yellowbot
43. Hotfrog
44. Brownbook
45. InsiderPages
46. applegate
47. pinbud
48. Scoot
49. Cylex
50. www.localdatasearch.com
51. TouchLocal
52. bizwiki
53. hotfrog uk
54. 192
55. 118
56. Opendi
57. b99
58. Local Search
59. Look-Trade
60. Yalwa

Action steps

Wow, so that list is pretty daunting.

Here's my recommendation, go through each listing gradually, maybe just one per day. Not all of them will be relevant for you based on your location.

If there is the option to leave reviews make a note and create a system to ask your clients to post for you.  I would even recommend making quick videos to show your clients how they can leave a review for you and maybe guide them what to say.  It's not uncommon for them to struggle to figure out the technology and be a little unsure what to write.

An auto-responder like aweber or active campaign can be great for automating asking for reviews.