by Tyler Valencia, MS

Running your own gym or personal training business can have its ups and downs. You may have the best facility or be a great personal trainer, but if you can’t market yourself, it’s hard to grow your business. With wide adoption of social media today, marketing has become easier and more cost-efficient. However, just like with any business operation you want to make sure you aren’t wasting your money. That is why taking the time to learn how market yourself properly can be the difference between spending $100 to get a lead or $15 to get the same results.

In this post, I’m going to review a few fundamental basics of running a Facebook ad. Keep in mind that these are basic items you want to check with each paid advertisement, and learning more about Facebook ads can only benefit how you market your business and also benefit your bank account.

Please note that the most basic way of “boosting” a post on Facebook is to select the “Boost Post” button on an existing or new image or video off of your business Facebook page. In this post, I am going to share a step-by-step tutorial including images and instructions for using Facebook Ad Manager, which can be found under the down arrow button located at the upper right corner of your Facebook page. Select the down arrow and select either “Create Ads” or “Manage Ads.” After you have started to create an ad you can select your marketing objective and give your campaign a name to help compare different ads later on.

 

Change the location radius.

One of the first steps in getting your Facebook Ad targeted to your audience is changing the location radius. By default, this is set to your current country location, in my case, the United States. By not inputting a more specific location your ad will be sent to Facebook users across the entire country. In my opinion, this is one of the most common mistakes made by beginners and can have the biggest impact. If you own a business in Scottsdale, AZ but your promotion is being shown nationwide, there are millions to hundreds of millions of Facebook users that could be seeing your ad and not ever going to purchase your services.

Taking this one step further, inputting a city and changing the radius will help target your ad even further. For example, when inputting a city, the default radius is typically 25 miles, which is large area to cover and will most likely include thousands of people who aren’t a part of your audience. Changing the radius to 10-12 miles can make your Facebook Ad more specific and reach an audience that is more likely to drive to your gym or purchase your training services.

Change your targeted age and gender demographics.

In the same area where you can alter your location radius, you will also be able to change the age bracket and gender demographic. If you know that your niche market is “stay-at-home moms” or “over 40 males”, this is where you can alter those specific characteristics of your ad. By default, these are set to 18 – 65+ for the age and “ALL” for the gender demographic. If you’re running a personal training business, it’s pretty safe to assume that a younger age bracket isn’t going to purchase your services. Modifying the low end of the age limit can be based off your current clientele base or even looking at the market you want to expand into.

Select detailed targeting “demographics, interests or behaviors” to establish your audience.

The last stop before uploading the image for your ad, setting your daily budget, and choosing your ad placement is selecting target demographics, interests or behaviors. In my experience, this has been great for efficiently targeting your market and trying to get your ad to customers who would have a higher chance of purchasing your service. Below are some great examples:

• Adding “kettlebell” and/or “kettlebell lifting” for personal trainers or gym that are kettlebell based
• Adding “Crossfit” and/or “Spartan Race,” if your gym is specific to those types of activities
• Adding different types of pre-pregnancy or post-pregnancy terms for trainers who specialize in these areas

Above are just a few examples. Please note that these the potential “reach” of these terms will vary based on your location, radius, age and gender details of your ad.

Review. Modify. Analyze.

The last thing to keep in mind when running a Facebook ad is to analyze your data once your campaign is done. Running smaller campaigns instead of one large ad can help you find the demographics and interests that are most effective for your budget.

After your campaign has finished, click over to the Ads Manager and select the “View Charts” option on your recently finished ad. Viewing the different charts can give you insight into the where your ad saw more clicks, the gender/age demographics that your ad reached and also the overall performance.

Summary

You could be one of the best trainers in your area or own one of the best facilities in the area, but if nobody knows about your business then it will have a difficult time achieving growth. Facebook ads is just one of the many tools available to help you market more efficiently. Using items in this tutorial focuses on just one platform, and is just the start. Having multiple marketing streams can not only increase your reach, but open your business to growth in different digital marketing areas.