Today I’m covering one of the most simple yet powerful formulas in ALL of marketing.

But before we get into that just a reminder that today is the final day of our BIGGEST Freedom Sale ever.

Sale ends at 12pm midnight tonight, so make sure you head on over and stock up on the great business building resources we’ve got to support you in reaching your goals this year.

Ok, so we’re blessed with the opportunity to work with some really great people as clients.

And one of them in particular who has been a client of Eric’s for over 10 years… and an NPE client for over 4 years (since day 1) and that’s Coach RB Berry of Dare to Be Fit in Oceanside, CA.

We gave Coach the title of “King of Social” proof several years ago because there is NOBODY we know of that does a better job at producing unbelievable client results and then leveraging those success stories into their marketing efforts.

I repeat… NOBODY we’ve seen do it better or more consistently then Coach worldwide.

From the thousands of customers we’ve got around the globe, that’s saying something.

If you DON’T currently have a stockpile of client before/after photos then I encourage you to:

1. Dedicate everything you’ve got to getting your clients SERIOUS results from your programs

2. Put systematic processes in place to consistently ‘capture’ those client results

3. Leverage those documented results back into all your marketing

It’s a simple 3-step formula… but it works like no other.

Coach Berry was actually featured along with a great marketing campaign Eric created a couple years ago to help you “jump-start” the process of capturing more social proof in a little known NPE product called “Secrets of Social Proof” on sale now during our Freedom Sale here.

This is one you should definitely have in your library. It includes a DVD of a special presentation on how to best leverage social proof into your marketing Eric did for our Platinum Group meeting some time ago.

Great stuff.

Anyway, not only is Coach the “King of Social Proof”, but he’s also one heck of a guy.

And I’ve got another special story to share with you about him I’ll send out tomorrow.

To your success,
Sean

P.S. Last day of the FREEDOM SALE where everything is going out to the door for our biggest discount ever. Get on over there before midnight and stock up on what’s left!

P.P.S. You’ll see a link to the “Secrets of Social Proof” product mid-way down the page on the left.

Check it out!

A couple years ago, a well known personal trainer was sued by one his clients when she slipped off a stability ball in his studio and claimed she got whiplash.

But he was smart. He had rock-solid legal protection in place.  Otherwise he could have lost his business, his savings and more.

Can you afford to risk everything you’ve worked so hard for, if a clumsy client slips off a stability ball, drops a dumbbell on her foot, trips over a piece of equipment, breaks an ankle during boot camp, or any of the 101 other things that can go wrong…

…and SUES you?

Or…one of your ‘trusted’ trainers quits and steals your clients?

We live in a low-integrity and law-suit-crazy society, and you better be protected.

Here’s how…

One of the sharpest lawyers on the planet (a ‘killer’ in court), is also a former fitness business owner.  And he put together a comprehensive package of legal forms that you can use (modeled after the same ones he used in his fitness business).

They are air-tight, and put all the power in your hands.

And during our NPE Freedom Sale, you can get the entire package, called “Legal Protection For Your Fitness Business” for just $99 (regularly $197).

(You’ll see the product title in the list, click on it to see everything you get)

Unless you are 110% POSITIVE you are completely protected, from every possible angle, you need these forms.

Check them out, and take a look at the 27 other fitness business resources we have on sale for half price…but only until tomorrow.

It’s all here for you.

CYA,
Eric

P.S. Another HIGHLY recommended resource:

If you don’t own AUTO-CLOSER Fitness Sales System yet, NOW is the time to get it. Nothing has more cash in the bank faster for fitness professionals than this. We have HUNDREDS of testimonials from your peers just for this product alone. It’s just two installments of $262 during the sale (regularly $997).

GO HERE TO SAVE 50% OFF ALL OUR FITNESS MARKETING, FITNESS SALES AND FITNESS MANAGEMENT PRODUCTS

First of all…THANK YOU!

We are celebrating our 4th birthday this month and along with it comes our 4th annual FREEDOM SALE.

But this year it’s BIGGER and BETTER than ever before.

And that’s because of you and all our loyal, dedicated Members and customers.

Sean, Camelia, Dick and I…and our entire staff are grateful for your trust and your business.

We work hard every day to bring you the best fitness marketing, sales and management systems, tools and coaching to explode your fitness business now.

And, as they say, the ‘proof is in the pudding.’

Nobody in the fitness industry has helped create more fitness business success stories than we have here at NPE.

That’s because our products and services work, and because you work them!

So, again…THANK YOU!

But we don’t just want to ‘say’ Thank You – we want to demonstrate our gratitude with our biggest and best sale ever.

ALL OUR “BEST IN CLASS” PRODUCTS ARE HALF OFF!!!

But only until this Thursday, July 29th.

So grab as many products as you want, right now, and save 50% OFF here:

http://www.NPEFreedomSale.com

To your fitness business success,
Eric

P.S. You can see the full listing of products, the discounts, and buy now right here:

http://www.NPEFreedomSale.com

P.P.S. If you have any questions, or need help, call our office at 1-888-866-4998

Summer is generally a slow time in the fitness industry, but right now we’re seeing several of our clients achieve record breaking months.

Why?

Well, I’ve consolidated some of the results and lessons learned about ‘what’s working now’ for you here:

1. Raising the Rates Campaigns- Several of our members have just achieved their ‘best month’ ever in sales (and cash collected payments) from running a “raise the rates” campaign.

While some may be shy or ‘timid’ about raising rates in a sluggish economy, every one of our clients who’s gotten rid of that ‘head trash’ and just executed the tested and proven strategy and campaign in our CASH FLOW SURGE system product has increased their business with minimal or zero loss of clients.

Raising the rates should be an annual campaign in every business, because it not only gives more margin in your service to invest in continued growth. But it also gives existing clients one of the best ‘reason’s why’ to renew and recommit for another 6-12 months of staying on top of their workouts.

They don’t want to ‘lose out’ on the savings opportunity to renew with you NOW. This is a very powerful motivation for client renewal, and a heck of a way to get renewals rather than simply letting good clients get to the point where they have to ‘think it over’ if they really should renew or not.

A special congrats goes out to NPE Member of the Year and VIP Client Tony Maslan who just achieved his first $100,000+ month (in cash collected, not just gross sales) with this campaign in June. Well done Tony!

2. Public speaking Campaigns- continue to be major low-cost, high impact lead generators for all who apply the strategies and our famous Foot-In-The-Door campaign as shared in the Public Speaking Power Pak Product.

The system is very straight forward for booking speaking gigs with NEW groups if you simply block the time for executing it every week and month.

VIP Member Mike Stare has been regularly booking 2-4 speaking gigs/month like clockwork, and steadily adding fresh leads and clients into his business every week.

3. Low-Cost Front-End Offers- We’ve also had many clients continuing to test and tweak various front-end offers in the $29-$297 price range. These are offers for various services like assessments, program design, discounted first month enrollment, etc. that folks have given special names to and marketed  with a tight deadline for response.

Urgency and scarcity of limited spots available is also a key component to driving response of the offer.

Leveraging online media, we’ve had about 11 VIP clients bring in anywhere from 100-450 leads within a 72 hour period from this strategy.

Of course not all these leads are pre-qualified and theerfore must be sifted and sorted through… but with that volume you can afford to be picky and choosy and STILL come out on top. Typically anywhere from 20-40% (or more) of the respondents end up being very high quality clients when all is said and done.

You can see examples of how many of these offers are structured and presented in our Fitness Advertising Systems Module.

4. Charity Events and Tie-Ins- Event marketing has always been a winner, but by combining events with charity donations gives folks another big ‘reason why’ to respond and jump on board with participation. It just leaves everyone with a good feeling they’re not only investing and participating in something that helps themselves, but also something that helps others with a worthy cause. And that’s a major reason why it works anytime, anywhere.

We’ve had several members running Pushups For Charity and GOLD RUSH events over the last several months, getting great publicity, fresh leads, and a rush of new clients from these types of events.

VIP Members Jeff & Vern Gauthier I believe ended up with over 25 new clients from their GOLD RUSH event they ran in May. You really don’t have to wait for the New Year for running an event like this, it can work any month you choose to run it as long as you invest enough time in driving the promotion.

A big key to success is leveraging local media and strategic alliance partners. Within other businesses that have clients meeting your ideal ‘prospect profile’ there is gold. These are often the best ‘untapped’ pools with big fish swimming around in them… just waiting to be attracted to your business with the right ‘bait’.

5. Referral Marketing- continues to be a great driver of pre-qualified, pre-sold clients. Especially when you’ve got a great service and community your clients love being a part of.

A lot of people think referral marketing just ‘happens’ if you deliver a great service.

What they miss is that while a good service IS a pre-requisite for your existing clients to want to refer to you, you’ve also got to implement multiple systems and programming into ALL your marketing efforts if you really want to drive significant response.

We share a ton of the best step-by-step systems with over 50 case studies included from our top clients our our Single Sheet of Paper Referral System Product.

VIP Member Vaughn Bethell has cultivated such a unique ‘inner circle’ community within his client base of athletes, that his facility is becoming the ‘secret spot’ for athletes, ex-athletes, and coaches to gather for both workouts and meetings in is community of Greenville, SC.

6. Multiple Poles in the Water- Most of all, all our top clients are not relying on ONE marketing strategy to drive business this summer.

They are all implementing multiple campaigns and strategies simultaneously to drive growth.

How do they keep it all organized and going at the same time?

Well, that’s certainly a key component of not only success but sustainability.

They’re all following an integrated systems approach as revealed in our DEEP CORE Fitness Marketing System and they’re managing their priorities to make good decisions about what gets their focused attention with tools shared in our Project Manager Pro system.

Conclusion

If summer business has slowed down for you, then I encourage you put some of these strategies into practice fast!

Key word in that last sentence being FAST.

You must shorten the time from idea to implementation. Time is money.

You can always get more money, but the time you can’t get back.

Once you burn it… it’s gone for good.

SPEED is often the difference between those who do and those who just sit around and ‘think about it’… always ‘waiting’ for something to drive them into action.

My advice is put your head down and go.

You can always think about it later.

As one of my old coaches used to say “thinking is a dangerous pastime” to get me out of my head and into feeling the movement of a new skill.

And he was right.

Turning off your mind and just jumping in is great advice.

Even if you’ve never done any of this stuff before, you’ll figure it out.

You don’t have to be a genius and it doesn’t require a whole lot of thought to implement step-by-step workplans and tools.

Find your mark, then put your head down and go.

To your success,
Sean

P.S. Also, a special announcement. We’re running a week or two later than usual, but this coming week we’ll be hosting our 4th annual FREEDOM SALE
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday online in our webstore. NPE is turning 4 and we’re celebrating with the largest sale we’ve ever had to date. Stay tuned for more details coming tomorrow from Eric.

Pavel and John Du Cane created the kettlebell explosion here in the US... and now continue to drive expansion worldwide in several international markets. If you're gonna be a student, you might as well go to the source.

If you didn’t get to review Eric’s email yesterday, make sure you check it out on the blog.

Some GREAT marketing being done by John Du Cane and our friends at Dragon Door.

These guys are awesome and I’m proud to call them a partner of ours.

The week before MEGA TRAINING, they’re going to be down here in Orlando holding an RKC certification at the Disney Wide World of Sports.

I’m going to be in attendance, along with some friends and top clients who’ve already signed up.

Today is the last day to register for the certification with a discount.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, I encourage you to do so here.

Kettlebells are a great tool you can and should be using with both your private training and boot camp/group training clients.

In fact, I don’t know anybody they’re NOT safe for.

And these guys are incredible coaches and instructors you will learn a TON from.

Not to mention the fact that it’s going to be a whole lot of fun!

To your success,
Sean

P.S. Fair warning: Don’t come to this out of shape. You need to get in your butt in gear and come ready to hit it.

Be sure to read the requirements listing and watch the “Grad Workout” video on this page to see what I mean.

This fitness marketing case study is a doozey – so give it a good read, ok?

If you attended MEGA TRAINING last year then you saw John Du Cane, CEO of Dragon Door (the man behind the world-wide kettlebell explosion) give a riveting Key Note presentation.

As you can imagine, building a business like Dragon Door requires exceptional marketing skills, which John has in spades (he’s also a world-class copywriter – you should be studying his Hard-Style magazine, which is mailed free to his customers).

Back in March of this year, John launched his Dragon Door TV show (a weekly online video showcasing stories about kettlebells, Dragon Door customers, RKCs and more).

You can see the latest episode here.

Click the picture to see the latest Dragon Door TV episode

John does an awesome job of creating raving fans and a real sense of community and belonging among his customers.  That leads to LOUD word of mouth buzz, lots of referrals and lots of sales.

And his Dragon Door TV show is a great example of one of the ways he does that.

Which is why I want you to see it.

When you watch, you’ll certainly notice the high production values of the videos, and the attractive, articulate host.

Not to mention the cool looking, multi-feature website.

DON’T GET HUNG UP ON THAT STUFF.

Really, don’t.

Certainly the bells and whistles make for a more compelling experience, but they are absolutely not necessary for you to get started copying this ‘raving fan’ marketing example.

Look, there’s no getting around the fact that the internet is becoming more and more video-centric.  Video is REALLY important as a marketing medium.  And with all the simple, inexpensive tools available to you these days, there’s no reason you can’t leverage it.

So here are the 3 things I encourage you to do:

1. Start your own weekly or bi-weekly “TV” show (you can set up a page on your website or blog for this). Watch John’s previous episodes for ideas – but if you really sit down and think about it, there are an almost limitless number of topics you can do your “TV” segments on.
2. Notice how John has a “deal of the week” special offer under the video. It’s one thing to provide engaging, entertaining and instructional content (that’s ‘soft-marketing’), but it can really pump things up when you also associate a more direct and immediate offer with urgency (just for this week).
3. Take note of the INVOLVEMENT device John uses – his question of the week – which is just below the video. Not only does this get viewers involved (increasing ‘time on site’, interest and engagement)…but it’s also a KILLER way to get immensely valuable marketing intelligence. You can find out precisely what your prospects WANT and will PAY for by utilizing an effective survey like this.

Answer the multiple choice question of the week yourself to see the results (or just click the results button). You might be surprised by what you discover (very instructive).

Check this out today, right here.

Be a fitness marketing maniac,
Eric

P.S. A good friend of John’s, one of the most experienced fitness experts in the world and an amazing story teller and teacher, will be the Key Note speaker at this year’s MEGA TRAINING.  We’ll be sharing more about this gentleman very soon. For now, go ahead and grab your tickets to MEGA TRAINING 2010 here and get 12 profitable promotions you can ‘copy and paste’ right into your fitness business the same day you get home.

Below are the Top Ten FREE websites for submitting your fitness marketing press releases to promote your personal training, boot camp, group training or health club fitness business.

And I’m going to show you a simple way to leverage every press release you write into two more fitness marketing assets.

There are 3 really good reasons you want to be submitting press releases and articles online, consistently every single month.

1. You get valuable back links to your web site that increase traffic and improve/solidify your Google, Yahoo and Bing search engine position.
2. The likelihood of getting MAJOR media coverage increases with each submission.
3. The vast majority of your competition is NOT doing this, so it’s a marketplace domination strategy.

NOTE: One of the profitable promotions presented at MEGA TRAINING 2010 is all about how to get major publicity.

Here are the TOP TEN FREE Press Release Services For Your Fitness Marketing and Boot Camp Marketing

http://www.freepressrelease.com

Freepressrelease.com was featured in the New York Times and has some solid tutorials on how to write effective news releases (see the right hand column on home page).  It’s easier than you think.

http://www.i-newswire.com

http://www.prlog.org

http://www.pr-inside.com

http://www.bignews.biz

http://www.pressreleasepoint.com

http://www.clickpress.com

http://www.openpr.com

http://www.ideamarketers.com

http://www.1888pressrelease.com

And here are three current (as of today, July 20, 2010) ‘hot topics’ you can submit press releases on (plus headline ideas):

Is this the weight loss ‘magic bullet’? (new weight loss pill Qnexa)

Why BMI is an ineffective health measurement tool

Relates to new Health Care ‘Reform’ bill, and how it will negatively impact people. BIG TIP: Always take a stand in your press releases and articles, be an advocate or antagonist in order to get attention.  Being ‘vanilla’ rarely ever leads to exposure.

Diabetes medication can kill you (Avandia causes strokes/heart attacks)

Keep in mind that EVERY press release you write can quickly be transformed into a brief article you then submit to http://www.ezinearticles.com

Then take the best article you write each month, tweak it slightly, add a little more content, and submit it to a couple LOCAL blogs to see if they will publish it as a guest article.

Ideally, each of your press releases and articles will contain two links back to your website or blog:

1. To your homepage
2. To a page on your site/blog with content related to your press release/article (and every content page on your site or blog should have some form of lead generation mechanism so interested readers can opt-in to get more content, or a consultation/free trial from you).

Your Public Relations Fitness Marketing Action Plan

Build two hours of public relations time into your monthly calendar for writing one or two press releases (which can then be adapted into short articles) and submitting them to the free PR sites listed above, to www.ezinearticles.com, and to your local blogs.

You absolutely want to be developing relationships with influential local blogs – just like newspapers, they are always looking for great content. But unlike newspapers, they don’t have multiple reporters on staff who are constantly generating new content.  They need – and are eager for – your help.

This isn’t a magic bullet fitness marketing strategy – it may take a couple months to see a measurable increase in traffic to your site, or improvement to your Google ranking – but it will pay off over time.

This is the kind of ‘work’ that most just aren’t willing to do.  And that’s really good news for you…if you’re one of the few willing to do it.

It’s the principle of the ‘slight edge’.

And if done consistently, the chances of one of your news releases or articles getting noticed by the right person and leading to some major publicity grows every single month.  But at the very least, you will get an ever-growing number of quality back-links to your website/blog that increase traffic and improve your search engine ranking (or solidify it, if you’re already at the top).

At MEGA TRAINING 2010, Brad Linder of Get You In Shape, will show you the profitable promotion that landed him 3 local newspaper articles in 30 days, including the FRONT COVER of the Dallas Morning News.

Brad’s presentation is one of 12 profitable fitness marketing promotions taught to you at MEGA TRAINING. Promotions you can ‘copy and paste’ right into your fitness business the same day you get home.

MEGA TRAINING 2010 is ALL about putting in your hands actionable, immediately usable promotions and tools that get results…not rah-rah, feel good stuff, or general, ‘I’ve heard it all before’ success tips.

Go here to grab your seats to MEGA TRAINING today.

Be a fitness marketing maniac,
Eric

P.S. Do you have questions about how to get publicity? If so, post your question below in the comments section and I’ll answer it.

Last week we had a special Facebook fitness marketing training webinar for our VIP Members.

It was delivered by the man who is widely regarded as the leading Facebook marketing expert.

He’s a hard core ‘numbers’ guy and has rigorously tested to determine exactly what works.

He shared facebook marketing best practices with our VIPs, and will be delivering a KILLER Facebook presentation at MEGA TRAINING.

One of the points he drove home during the VIP training is how incredibly productive Facebook is for marketing live events like nutrition and fitness seminars and workshops.

That’s great news, because we already know how potent live events are for generating clients.

In fact, there’s probably no stronger way to get more high quality clients faster than with seminars and workshops.

That’s why we’ve got two very successful fit-pros showing you profitable promotions for putting people into live events.

Conor Kelly – who put 110 ‘butts in seats’ for a nutrition workshop

Ben Davis – Ben and his partner, Steve, generated 473 leads and put 142 attendees into fitness seminars in 60 days

If you want proven, profitable promotions combined with possibly the strongest communication/marketing channel for generating clients with seminars and workshops, then MEGA TRAINING 2010 is the place to be.

Take a look at all the details here.

Sean and I look forward to seeing you there.

Be a fitness marketing maniac,
Eric

P.S. We’re pulling out all the stops for MEGA TRAINING. 12 profitable promotions you can ‘copy and paste’ right into your fitness business the same day you get home, ‘From Fitness Commodity to Fitness Celebrity’ training, movie night, an AMAZING key note speaker (more news on that front coming soon), Member of the Year Contest (which will showcase even more profitable promotions), and whole lot more.  Check it out and grab your seats now, right here.

I’m on the road again and now in the middle of a 4-day Southeast tour.

Back at work on a very special project which will finally be revealed at MEGA TRAINING this year. We’ve been at this thing for over 6 months now and can’t wait to share it with everyone in October.

Anyway, this morning I wrote an article on “how to keep more of what you make”.

Which is a VERY important topic that every entrepreneur and business owner should be learning everything they can about right now.

Listen, if you’re going to put in the blood, sweat, and tears it takes to open and grow your own business… then you’ve GOT to do “whatever it takes” to scale things up to serious profits that compensate you for all the extra risk, work, and responsibility.

It makes no sense to work twice as hard, routinely put in 12+ hour days, and just scrape by with a meager salary you could earn working a regular job.

That’s not to say that every business doesn’t have to go through continual reinvestment back into growth… ESPECIALLY the first few years… because it does.

But there MUST be a plan and path forward to move beyond that phase of growth.

And you better have a very clear picture of what it will take to make that transition so you can “laser-focus” in on working your plan and moving forward fast.

A little background to this story

Growing NET PROFIT (profits after expenses) is not the same as growing GROSS INCOME (total sales revenue of your business).

Many people confuse the two.

Over the last several years we’ve helped thousands of fitness business owners, coaches, and personal trainers explode their income.

In some cases a staggering increase of 10x previous revenue marks… in as little as 12 months.

But much like winning the lottery… then ending up broke just a few years later… income explosion without disciplined MONEY MANAGEMENT creates a new set of problems.

To keep money and create WEALTH… you need to learn a whole new set of skills, habits, and adopt a new mindset that will sustain your growth and success.

And not only do these lessons and habits apply to your business life… they apply to your personal life as well.

New Skills Sets and Accepting Greater Responsibility

Nobody gets and KEEPS wealth “flying by the seat of their pants.”

It just can’t be done.

I can’t tell you how many private phone calls we’ve been on with clients who could not produce a financial report on their business.

And when we’ve discussed that this is a real problem and outline what needs to be done about it, I’ve seen things go 1 of 2 ways:

1. The client ‘gets it’ and digs into ALL the information they do have (bank statements, credit card statements, loan paperwork, accounting software, etc.) and starts to work through it.

The folks that do this always come back with tremendous “AH-HA” moments.

Why?

Because now they are taking responsibility for this area of their business, educating themselves about it, and now with an awareness of what’s really going on they have the information they need to make good business decisions.

Just last month we had a top VIP client… with one of his lowest ‘gross’ months of this year… have his BEST ‘net’ month as a direct result of this process.

And he’s not the only one, we’ve got about a dozen clients working through the same process right now.

2. The other scenario I’ve seen is the client says “yeah, I know I need to do that”… but ignore our advice and do nothing about it.

And I can only reason that they’re so disorganized that facing the real issue… and doing the ‘work’ required…is a whole lot more painful than just continuing to focus on ‘marketing and sales’.

So they ignore the problem and just continue going along ‘status quo’.

The problem with this approach is it continues to cover up and mask the real problem… which is a lack of financial information, systems, and skill sets that are required to really turn the ship around.

Unfortunately, when this occurs it’s usually just a matter of time until the ‘cover up’ doesn’t work any longer and things go bad quickly.

Money-Management in Your Business AND
Your Personal Life

I’ll share with you that as NPE has grown over the last several years, I’ve had to grow a lot personally and professionally to stay ahead of the growth we’ve experienced.

I wasn’t born with an understanding of finance and I certainly don’t love accounting.

But I’m not afraid to dig in my heels, and do the work required to learn and develop new systems, habits, and beliefs.

And as I’ve grown in managing the finance systems that run our business, I’ve transferred those same principles over into my personal life as well.

Eric and I both adhere to a disciplined wealth creation systems for achieving real financial freedom, and we’ve decided to share them in a special spill-all-the-beans money-making and money-keeping presentation at MEGA TRAINING this year.

I’m not going to say too much more about this right now, other than this session alone will be worth your investment of time and money attending MEGA TRAINING this year.

If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to grab your registration with our early bird discount here.

I’m really looking forward to sharing and working on this with all of you.

To your success,

Sean

P.S. Ok, time for me to hit the road. Big day ahead here on the last leg of the tour. But I encourage you to print this article out and take it to heart. It very well might save your business from collapse, and when you do get things in place to KEEP more of what you make I can tell you that everything gets a whole lot more rewarding and fun!

Join us at MEGA TRAINING this year and let us help you dig into this further. It IS the ‘hidden’ skill set that I don’t see anyone talking about but EVERYONE needs to master.

Grab your MEGA TRAINING registration with our early bird discount here.

I want to show you a VERY reliable fitness marketing strategy (maybe the most reliable) for getting more fitness clients.

Few things have worked as consistently as this over the years.

And it’s something you can use every single month. You have unlimited opportunity.

I’m talking about the strategy of “entering the conversation ALREADY OCCURRING in your prospects’ or clients’ mind” (Robert Collier).

But, how do you do that?  What’s the tactical application of this fitness marketing strategy?

You do it by leveraging HOLIDAYS and/or major NEWS as your ‘reason why’ for making a great offer that is linked to the holiday or news event.

I’ll explain, but first let’s do a quick review of direct response fitness marketing fundamentals.

Unlike brand/image marketing, direct response marketing is all about…response.

Because without response, your fitness marketing dollars can’t be quantified. You don’t know if you have a winner, or a dog, unless you can quantify.

And there are three primary variables that determine the effectiveness of your direct response fitness marketing.

Here they are in order of importance:

1. The “WHO” you are marketing to.

Even the greatest marketing piece ever created will bomb if it’s put in front of people who have no interest in, or ability to pay for, what’s being offered. The converse of that is also true – even a relatively weak marketing piece will do reasonably well if presented to the right audience.

2. The OFFER you make.

How irresitible is it?  How valuable is it?  How limited is it?

3. The “CREATIVE”.

Basically, this means the way the offer is presented in the context of your marketing piece (postcard, letter, email, web site, flyer, etc). The headline, the story, the credibility/believability, the social proof, the call to action.

In terms of the “who” – your best opportunity is always with your own house list (internal marketing).  They already know, like and trust you, and presumably are interested in fitness solutions (that’s why they’re on your list).

But you’re certainly not limited to your house list for holiday/news event marketing. Just make sure any external marketing you do is targeted to the right demographics (at MEGA TRAINING in October, we’re bringing in the leading expert on Facebook marketing who will show you an incredibly powerful way to TIGHTLY target your ideal prospects with pinpoint accuracy).

The ‘creative’ of your marketing piece will be almost entirely about the tie-in between the holiday/news event and the special offer you’re making (this is where you “enter the conversation already occurring in their mind”).  And the holiday/news event is your ‘reason why’ for making your special offer – it’s a logical justification.

So the final piece – and the most important piece – is your offer.

Make your offer compelling.  One of the easiest ways to do that is by illustrating how valuable it is (listing out the various components of the offer -what they get – and assigning the appropriate value each component). It should solve a problem (Tony Maslan developed the “kickstart” offer which is designed to get people started with an effective fitness program at a very low introductory cost). And it should be positioned as unique and proprietary – this can easily be accomplished with a name that conveys a strong benefit…like ‘kickstart’.

I’ve given you lots of details here because I want you to understand the process, and the elements that affect success of your promotion.

But the bottom line is this:

1. Pick an upcoming holiday or ‘piggyback’ on an existing news event (something big like the oil spill in the Gulf, or some big local story)
2. Create an irresistible offer of VALUE
3. Associate your offer with the holiday or news event as your ‘reason why’ for making it
4. Roll out your promotion (I recommend starting with your house list so you can test inexpensively with a few emails and maybe a postcard – I-AM RAINMAKER is perfect for this).

There are holidays every single month of the year, and major news events (both national and local) are occurring all the time, so you’re never at a loss for ‘reasons why’ to run a promotion.

One more thing to consider, but only for internal marketing (to your house list): Your event tie-in can be about something that happened/is going to happen…to you.

Did you recently have a new baby?  Did you get married?  Did you achieve some major goal or receive an award?  Did someone drive their car into the front of your facility? (That actually happened to one of our VIPs and he astutely used it as a reason why to run a cool promotion.)

The point is that your ‘reason why’ opportunities are almost limitless, restricted only by your imagination.

Tony Maslan will be doing a presentation on a very successful holiday promotion at MEGA TRAINING in October, showing you the promotion and teaching you how to use it.  And that’s just one of 12 different profitable promotions you’ll be given to ‘copy and paste’ right into your fitness business the same day you get home from MEGA TRAINING.

Take a look at all of them here and register for MEGA TRAINING before the price increase.

Be a fitness marketing maniac,
Eric