For a long time, local businesses survived (and even flourished) without focusing much on their marketing side.

Some attractive flyers and word-of-mouth referrals were enough to bring in more customers.

But now the times have changed. Competition for local businesses has multiplied, and old methods are not enough to stand out anymore.

Luckily, there is a platform that you can use to show off your local business to thousands of new potential customers all at once and earn qualified leads.

Yes, that’s Facebook.

“But why Facebook instead of other social platforms?” you may ask.

Why You Need Facebook Marketing

Although many social networks are available for advertising, Facebook is the king for two main reasons.

#1. The volume of users: Among all the other platforms, Facebook has the highest number of users. It has more than 1.5 billion daily active users which means a whole lot of people spend a crazy amount of time on Facebook. This is the place your audience hangs out most of the time.

#2. The ability to customize a target audience: Whether you like it or not, everything you do on Facebook is constantly being tracked. 

What you like, what you watch, what you type, and everything else in between is recorded in the database, and Facebook compiles a detailed profile of each user based on his information and activity.

The Facebook advertising platform gives you the ability to target users by their location, gender, age, income, interest, preferences, and behavior.

Now the question is, “Will Facebook advertising work for your business?”

To answer this question, I have listed 15 types of businesses (with some ad ideas) that can leverage the Facebook platform for advertising their brands.

I’ll explain how you can determine your target audience and what offers you can throw out there for them with the goal to turn them into leads and sales.

Let’s get started.

#1. Dentist

By 2021 the dental industry is projected to be worth around $37 billion. This means people are spending money on their teeth.

Determine the target audience:

Being a dentist, you can target large segments of people. However, I’d suggest you target one small section at a time, and create an offer specifically for that particular audience.

For example, you can target women who are over 24-35 years of age and need to be ready for some important events like an anniversary or a wedding. They tend to like having their teeth cleaned and whitened.

Offer you could test:

You can provide a free teeth whitening session for new patients.

Limit this offer to the first few (15-20) patients only. As they become a lead and happy with your service, you can leverage them into actual sales via follow-ups and special discounts.

#2. Chiropractor

According to Chiropractic experts, Facebook advertising is one of the best ways to attract new patients.

Determine the target audience:

You can target men (or women) who are CrossFit enthusiasts. Since they regularly run, jump, squat, do push-and-pull-ups, and are super tough with their bodies, they often need a chiropractor.

Offer you could test:

A compelling and feasible offer you can try is a consultation, exam, adjustment, and massage at a heavy discount for new patients.

Build trust with new customers over time and increase the odds of them returning to you over and over again.

#3. Veterinarian

The demand for veterinarians is increasing at a high rate. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, the number of licensed and practicing veterinarians will increase by 12 percent by 2022.

Determine the target audience:

As a veterinarian, your audience may vary depending upon the animals you deal with.

For instance, if you’re a cat veterinarian, you can select people who own a cat and have shown interest in reading about cat’s health or cat food. Since they already show concern for their cat, they most likely need your service.

Offer you could test:

Give a free health exam for first-time visitors.

Again, you can limit the availability of the offer to create urgency for the special deal.

#4. Spa/Massage Therapy

Everybody wants to look good. It’s not a coincidence that the global spas and beauty salons market will reach $190.81 billion by 2024.

Determine the target audience:

Since you’re in the business of beauty, your target market is huge. You can target all men and women over 18 years of age in your locality.

However, you need to remember that it’s best to always target one specific segment at a time (with relevant offer), and choose people based on their income level so that your ad reaches the audience who can afford you.

Offer you could test:

You can share some beauty tips in exchange for their email to get the leads or you can try to give a heavy discount for new customers.

#5. Gyms

The fitness industry is growing at a rate of 2.6% globally and has reached $87.23 billion in 2018.

Determine the target audience:

Although you can target large segments of people, I’d suggest focussing on one at a time.

For example, you can target Moms with early school age children or grade school kids as they often feel like they are out of shape. They always want to get back in shape but they get busy with parenting, work, and other parts of life.

Offer you could test:

Free 2 weeks personal training session for the next 20 people.

Build trust with customers over time and increase the odds of them returning to you over and over again.

#6. Restaurant

The food industry is the most stable business on the planet because food is not just a factor of our greed but our need for survival. The growth rate of the food and beverages industry is 11.4% and expected to reach a market volume of $144,162 million by 2022.

Determine the target audience:

With a restaurant, you can appeal to different types of audience – from families with small children to sports fanatics, younger couples, and so many more. But again, the key is to focus on one audience at a time.

For example, you can target women who are between the ages of 20 and 40 and have a birthday in the next 30 days. Plus, you can add friends of women who also have a birthday in the same month.

Offer you could test:

A delectable and feasible offer you can provide is a buy one, get one free birthday dinner.

#7 and #8. Yoga and Pilates

People are adopting Yoga all over the world. In 2012, the number of yoga participants in the United States was 20.4 million which is expected to grow to 55 million by 2020.

Determine the target audience:

Target men or women in your local area between the ages of 18 and 65 who are interested in fitness, health, hatha yoga, kundalini yoga, yoga journal, yoga mat, yoga pants, pilates, studio pilates, etc.

Offer you could test:

You can provide a 50% off discount for all your programs if someone brings a friend. To make the deal more lucrative, you can say that the 50% discount deal is good for both parties.

#9. Real Estate

According to data from the National Association of Realtors, 5.51 million existing homes were sold in 2017.

Determine the target audience:

Finding your audience in a real estate business is a bit tricky. Here the important thing is not who needs your product or services but who can afford your product and services.

While customizing your audience, remember to select people who are above a specific range of age, have plenty of income, and are interested in buying a new house.

Offer you could test:

You can use a carousel ad format and show multiple properties in a single ad. It’ll be easy to lure as you have more options to capture the buyer’s eye.

#10. Accounting/Financial Planner

Earning money is hard. Saving money is harder. Investing your money in the right place and achieving financial freedom is the hardest.

Determine the target audience:

Select people who are between the age of 35 and 55, have income above a specific range, and are running a small business. Since they have money and stay busy with their business operations, they most likely need your help to plan their finances.

Offer you could test:

You can run a slideshow or a video to explain who you are and how you can help. Try to show some testimonials to build up an initial trust.

#11. Pet Supplies

In 2017, Americans spent $69.5 billion on their pets. And of course, this figure is expected to grow in the future.

Determine the target audience:

You can target men (or women) in your locality who have a pet, show interest in pet food, and concern about the health of their pet.

Offer you could test:

You can try to give some kind of discount for new customers, or show off some new supplies you have recently added to your inventory.

#12. Wedding Planners

On average, 2.4 million weddings are performed in the U.S. every year. The average amount spent on an American wedding is $22,000. But the more interesting thing is, 72% of all brides say they would have spent more time choosing their reception entertainment.

Determine the target audience:

Target men and women in your area with the status ‘engaged.’ Since they’ll marry soon, obviously they need someone to help them plan their wedding.

Offer you could test:

Based on your customer’s lifecycle, you can develop different ads for different stages. For example, if couples are newly engaged, and the wedding is a few months ahead, you can share some helpful planning tips and maybe get the lead.

As the prospects get engaged with you, you can nurture them for sales.

#13. Local Photographers

Even though everybody has a decent camera on their mobile phones now, professional photography is still a rare talent. You can use props and advanced editing to stand out from the crowd.

Determine the target audience:

As a professional photographer, you can target a wide range of events and audience – from a birthday party to an engagement ceremony, wedding, model’s portfolio, and many more.

However, as I mentioned earlier, focus on only one type of audience at a time. In fact, you can run a seasonal ad for a specific event. For instance, you can target married women in your locality on Mother’s Day who has kids at home and a household income above $100k.

Offer you could test:

Give a Mother’s Day special discount for early bookings.

#14. Car Dealerships

In 2016, some 17.5 million cars and light trucks were sold in the United States. Sales in the U.S. for new car dealers are expected to reach $916 billion by 2020.

Determine the target audience:

You can choose people in your area who are interested in buying a car. An important thing you need to consider is the ‘income range.’ Filter out to people with a high-income range so that your ad reaches the right audience.

Offer you could test:

You can show off your new model and offer a free test drive.

Give a simple signup form to the users. Personally follow up on each of them and close the deal.

#15. Home Improvement

Owning a home is a dream for most people. And when they get it, they don’t hesitate to spend more money on its renovation.

According to a report, the total sales of home improvement retailers in the U.S. will be $409.2 billion in 2019.

Determine the target audience:

If you’re in the business of home improvement, you have to be careful while targeting your audience. Just targeting all the people who own a house wouldn’t be a smart step.

You need to consider other aspects such as age, net worth, home’s value, and interest. You should also target commercial properties as they tend to provide more ROI.

Offer you could test:

You can provide free roof inspections for the first 25 customers. And then give a reasonable discount for roof replacement if needed.

What Next?

So, now is the time to try Facebook ads. If you have already tried, how was the response? Let me know in the comment box.

Are you struggling to add new paying memberships to your gym or personal training program?

Well, you are in the right place. I believe that Facebook is the #1 platform to effectively create awareness for your gym or personal training program in order to build a predictable source for new leads, prospects, and paying members.

I walk you through the entire set up process for a Facebook ad campaign to generate leads for a personal trainer or gym.

If you’ve tried Facebook advertising and it didn’t work, this post will reveal why you failed at it before.

Conversely, if you haven’t tried advertising on Facebook for your gym or personal training business, then this post will give you a blueprint to work from.

Let’s get started.

Goals for your Fitness Facebook Ads

Before you post a single ad or write a line of copy for a fitness or personal training Facebook ad you need to know what your goals are.

Too many gyms and personal trainers rush off to start advertising on Facebook, because they’ve heard “it’s the thing to be doing these days” but spend ZERO time considering what goals they have for their campaigns.

Potential goals for your gym or personal training business might be:

• Generate Opt-ins to your email list
• Get requests for 7-day Free Trials
• Generate Requests for a free Personal Training Session
• Acquire free consult requests (this is what everyone does I recommend avoiding this)

The overall goal of any Facebook ad campaign for a gym is to attract new members and clients, but if you just post an ad saying “Hey, our gym rocks, we’re wicked trainers, come join” you’re going to be severely disappointed with your results.

For example purposes in this post we’re going to be using a two step fitness Facebook advertising campaign. First the campaign will get a potential new client to opt-in to our email list and then we’ll convert them into a trial or free training session/consult.

IMPORTANT:

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Only have one goal per ad. If you want to get people to opt-in for a free report or ebook and then you’ll convert them into a free trial or session with email marketing, just focus on getting the prospect to opt-in. When you give two options to take action in an ad, more often than not, you get worse results.

What’s Your Offer For Your Fitness Ads?

An offer is a thing you want a prospective new client or member to take you up on.

Offers should have the following characteristics

• Solve a problem for your prospect or answer a burning question
• Have MASSIVE value (ideally a monetary value even if it’s free)
• Be very specific
• Be time-bound or have some form of scarcity

The fourth item, be time-bound or have scarcity, is the hardest for some people to work into their offers. Strive to ensure you always have at least the first three items.

Your offer will align directly with what your Facebook ad campaign goal is.

So example offers might be:

• Free 1-Hour Personal Training Session to the Next 17 People
• 7-Day Free Pass to all our Classes and Open Gym Time
• Free Body Weight Workout Routine and 30-Day Nutrition Plan to Lose 5 lb next Month

Each of the examples offers above

1. Solve a problem (in most cases people want to lose weight or get fit)
2. Have real value (you can attach the value of a PT session or 25% of a monthly membership or make-up a value to the workout routine and nutrition plan)

They don’t all have scarcity or a time frame attached, although the first one does.

You could use any of those ideas above, or come up with your own, but remember your offer will greatly dictate the success you have with your gym Facebook advertising campaigns.

A bad offer to the perfect audience bombs, but a great offer to a lukewarm audience usually garner at least some results.

Who’s your Target Market?

You can have more than one target market (men, women, 20-30 somethings or older boomers), but not often in the same ad.

You must decide who you are going to target with each ad to maximize results.

Who are your best personal training clients? What’s similar about them? Are they all men? All women? What age are they?

Do the same with your members.

The simplest form of targeting of Facebook ads for Gyms and Personal Trainers is creating one warm up ad (I’ll explain what this is below) that is the same for men and women and then when you retarget/follow-up with the prospects who engage with your retargeting ad you segment them into men or women.

What is Segmenting?

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A Fancy way of saying you’ll separate out the women and men and show them different ads. Ideally an ad with a man in it for the men and vice versa for the women.

Not all industries need to do this with Facebook ads, but when you’re in a market like fitness women will respond better to women in an ad and talking about certain benefits while men will be more likely to respond to men in an ad and possibly different benefits of your offer.

For our example we’re going to market our first warm up ad to everyone between 25 and 50 in your local area and then segment them into men and women in the second ad step.

This will all make sense when you’re done, I promise!

Warm Up Facebook Ads

I am a big believer in running two sets of Facebook ads for gyms and personal trainers.

The first ad is targeted at everyone in your serviceable area, this may be your entire city, neighborhood, suburb or grouping of postal/zip codes. The only targeting outside of geographic area you want to use is possibly age and sex, for our example we’ll target all men and women between 25 and 50.

The purpose of this ad is to determine who in your local area is interested in what you’re selling. In this case gym memberships, personal training, nutrition coaching etc.

A warm up Facebook ad for a gym could be a slideshow video with text you create using an app like Animoto. The video would be 30 seconds long and take an angle of why your gym is great, the results your members achieve etc.

Click here to see how I use Animoto to create slideshow videos for Facebook Ads.

The formula for creating an effective warm-up ad is:

GRAB ATTENTION FAST -> EXPLAIN THE NEED -> FILL THE NEED -> MAKE THE OFFER OR CTA

Don’t make a commercial that talks about your brand. Unfortunately no one cares , they care about them and what you can do for them to solve their problem or fill their need.

The idea is someone interested in joining a gym, getting fit and/or losing weight will see this video in their newsfeed, stop their thumb scroll for a moment and watch some if not all of it.

You want to ensure the images, video clips and text you choose speaks to the problem the viewer is having and how your gym can solve it.

If you’re a personal trainer, same idea. Focus on how you help bring accountability and structure to your clients fitness programs.

Blog Posts as Warm Up Ads

Another type of warm-up ad is a blog post or article that follows the same formula I outlined for a video.

For the purpose of this gym and personal training Facebook advertising guide we’re going to assume you use a video. Videos tend to work better for how we’re going to do things, but if you have an article written, or could write one that grabs attention, explains a need and then fills a need, it doesn’t hurt to test it with an ad targeting the same demographics in your local area.

An example article might be: Why You’re Doing Weight Loss Wrong and the Two Changes that Can Make it Right

I don’t know what would be in that nutrition article exactly, maybe why following fad diets is stupid, why weight loss is calories in and calories out and how tracking your intake each day and replacing all empty calories with vegetables would get you to your goal. At the end of the article introduce your free session, trial or consult. Maybe even a nutrition consult for a topic like that.

Whether it’s a video or article, the most important piece is when someone watches or clicks and we can discern that person likely has the need or problem we spoke about. In this case they want to lose weight or get fit.

Set-up your Warm-Up Ad

The final step is to launch the fitness ad on Facebook for your warm up ad.

If you have never set up a Facebook ad before then you’ll want to check out this video here. It’s a beginners tutorial on how to set up a Facebook advertising campaign.

For those that know how set up your ad here are the parameters to follow, assuming it’s a video.

1. Campaign should be for video views
2. Choose a budget of at least $5.00 a day, but if your area and target demographics has more than 100,000 people in it I would advise a budget of $10 to $20 a day
3. Target the geographical area around your gym that makes the most sense. Don’t try to get too broad, you’ll only waste money.
4. Target the demographics we discussed above (men and women, 25-50)
5. Edit your placements to be only Facebook News Feed for mobile and desktop (we’ll discuss Instagram later on)
6. Create your ad with no call to action button

Done!

Next step is to create a custom audience of people we can remarket to who watched at least 75% of your video.

Not sure what Remarketing/retargeting means?

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Simply put it’s the process of creating an audience of people who have engaged with your website, videos, or Facebook page over a set period of time (e.g. 7 days, 14 days, 30 days) and then targeting them again (hence retargeting) with another ad.

Creating Facebook Custom Audiences for Retargeting

Lets create a custom audience on Facebook of people who have watched 75% or more of your fitness or personal training video ad.

For those that aren’t familiar, a custom Facebook audience is a group of people who have engaged with our ads, website or Facebook page. If you’re not familiar with how to create one check out this video.

We’re going to create an audience of people who have watched at least 75% of our warm up ad.

Why?

Because 75% is long enough that we know they were engaged. You don’t accidentally watch twenty-two seconds (75% of 30 seconds) of a video on Facebook do you?

These are the people we’re now going to make an offer to by retargeting them with another ad.

Make them an Offer They Can’t Refuse

To this point we’ve setup your warm up facebook ad for your gym or personal training business and we’ve created a custom audience of people on Facebook who watched at least 75% of your video.

Now it’s time to make those 75% viewers an offer.

Let’s keep it simple, and we’ll make an offer for either a Free Personal Training session or Free 7-Day Membership to your Gym.

A word on consults. People don’t want a consult, they want to lose weight, get lean, get strong, get bigger, have more energy etc. No one wants a consult, so don’t call it that.

Here are better ways to say it:

• Free Fat Burning Personal Training Session
• Free 7-Day Membership to Calorie Burning Classes

It’s saying the same thing, I know, but just add in those “buzz words” to let the prospect know “Yeah, that’s what I want!”. Small words are powerful.

Two options to setup this Facebook retargeting ad for your gym or personal training business.

1. An image ad that links to a landing page where prospects can give you their info to take you up on your offer
2. Use a Facebook lead ad to collect prospects info without them having to even leave Facebook.

Image Ad and Landing Page

You need two things to make this ad work.

1. Image(s) to use for your ad(s)
2. Landing page to collect leads from

I recommend having at least two different images (although more to test isn’t a bad idea) but at least have one that appeals to women and another for men. We’re going to set up two different ads, one for each sex.

You’re also going to need a landing page to send prospects to where they can give you their information. This could be a simple page on your website with a form, or you could create a landing page using a tool like Instapage.

Whatever page you send your prospects to make sure it’s to the point, has a form to fill out to claim your offer and talks about the benefits of taking your offer.

I suggest collecting the following information from your leads:

• Name
• Phone number (you MUST call and follow-up fast)
• Email

Once someone submits your form I suggest you follow-up ASAP. This person is never more ready to take action then they are right at the time they fill out that form, so don’t wait a few hours or worse a few days before contacting them and they have time to decide “Nah, I don’t really want to get in shape and lose that weight”

Getting into building a landing page and creating images is outside the scope of this article. To learn more about that I suggest grabbing my Local Business Facebook Ads program.

Facebook Lead Ad

A lead ad, if you’re not familiar, is the same setup as an image ad but rather than linking off Facebook to a landing page, when the prospect clicks the ad it opens a form right on Facebook with their details already filled in from their Facebook profile.

The pros of going this route are that people don’t have to leave Facebook and they don’t have to fill anything in, so the barrier to claiming your offer is VERY low.

The con of this method is you only have your image and copy above the image to persuade the prospect to claim the offer. If you keep it simple in your ad and say something like:

“Claim your FREE 1-Hour Fat Burning Personal Training Session with TRAINER NAME now. Only 4 left for this month.”

That’s pretty straight forward, and I feel would work well.

The technical side to setting up a lead ad and getting your leads information is a little strange, so check out this video if you’re not familiar with how to setup a Facebook lead ad.

I suggest collecting the same information from your leads with a a Facebook lead ad as you would with a landing page.

What Goes in my Offer Ad?

Since we’re talking about Facebook advertising for gyms and personal trainers you want to use images of people ideally doing the thing you’re making the offer for or people who look happy that they’ve succeeded at something (e.g. lost the weight they wanted).

Selling the Transformation

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The term transformation is used a lot in Fitness marketing. Your images and landing page copy, whenever possible, must sell the transformation people will experience in your program from the current discontent state they are in now to the after state which is when they will be lean and stronger.

f it’s a 7-Day pass to your classes, then use an image of people in your classes. If it’s a free personal training session then use an image of someone in a session.

If you can, avoid using stock photos. Use actual photos of your actual members and clients (with their OK of course).

As I mentioned above I suggest creating one ad for women and one for men, also if you want to get more specific you can make four ads:

• Men & weight loss
• Men & muscle gain
• Women & weight loss
• Women & toning/muscle gain

The copy of your ad should be to the point. Something like:

“Claim your FREE 1-Hour Fat Burning Personal Training Session with TRAINER NAME now. Only 4 left for this month.”

Let’s break that ad down a bit.

1. You’re asking them to do something (claim their free session)
2. You’re calling it something specific (1-Hour Fat Burning Personal Training Session)
3. You’re personalizing it to a trainer
4. You’re creating scarcity with stating there’s only 4 left this month.

The 4 left this month is for illustrative purposes only, but creating some form of urgency in your marketing is essential, especially when running ads on Facebook for your fitness business.

I’m not suggesting you should lie in your marketing. To be 100% ethical I would suggest only offering so many of your packages each month. Then letting them know they only have 24-hours to claim it and sign-up for their session or start of their membership.

You may not get as many leads, but you’ll get quality ones that actually come in the door. I know from working with and talking to gym owners, getting leads is one thing, but getting them in the door to talk with is a whole other story, hence why I said call ASAP after someone submits a form.

That’s the final step of your facebook ad funnel for gyms and personal trainers.

I know we covered a lot in this post, but if you’ll take the steps outlined and just get started I guarantee you will find success with this.

Just a quick word about Instagram

What about Instagram?

I know a lot of fitness professionals use Instagram. I didn’t mention it in this guide because we were focused specifically on Facebook, but you can use a similar method to advertise on Instagram.

I would create a separate campaign that specifically targets Instagram, because the images and videos on Instagram are formatted slightly different than they are on Facebook.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed this post and it gives you a clearer picture about how to succeed with Facebook ads for a gym or personal training business.

There are a lot of moving pieces to this I know. But I know that you can do it.