Let’s get right into these fast and cheap ways to get new personal training clients and boot camp clients…

1. The 5 Cent Strategic Alliance Flyer

According to Time magazine, two of the expenses people are NOT cutting back on during this recession are movies (escape) and beauty (feel good). Let’s look at how we can leverage that information to create a cool marketing tactic and tool…that’s cheap…that works…and that can be systemized!

In your town there’s gotta be at least a couple nail salons, spas, and beauty salons. Find out the names of these places and then create a simple “Recession Buster” free gift these places can give away to their customers.

For PT: The flyer could offer two free personal training sessions plus a 7-day meal plan (or whatever you want the offer to be).

For Boot Camp: The flyer could offer a free week of camp.

Be sure you clearly show the value of the offer (e.g. $97 Value or $49.95 Value), and some benefit-copy and testimonials.

Then, as the “icing on the cake” – include a drawing to win dinner and movie for two.

So the offer looks something like this:

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Free $49.95 “Recession-Buster” Gift From Sally’s Nail Salon
BECAUSE WE LOVE OUR CUSTOMERS!
(that’s an important bit of copy)

Use this flyer to get one free week of fitness boot camp…PLUS…you’re entered to win a $100 NIGHT ON THE TOWN (dinner for two at Jacques and two movie tickets)

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From there it’s all about a call to action with urgency and response mechanisms (use a deadline date, make it easy for them to respond – driving to a landing page and/or the phone).

Keep the flyer simple – it doesn’t have to be a work of art. Just make it clear what the offer is, who it’s from and the reason why.

Create one (just one) flyer with the name of each salon, spa or nail place. Then hop in your car and go talk to the owner or manager…of the most popular, heavily trafficked business first.

Show her the flyer, explain why you’re doing this (it’s win-win), tell her you’re going to make the same offer to these other competing businesses (show her the other flyers you’ve created), but let her know that if she’s willing to make sure this flyer gets into the hands of every single one of her customers over the next week…you’ll give her an “exclusive.”

That little bit of take-away selling goes a long way to get people aligned with you and “buying into” the program. Just don’t be too abrupt about it, and be sure you tell her you came to her first because she’s got the best salon in town (pay a compliment).

A busy salon might have a couple hundred customers in a week. Find out how many they average, let’s say it’s 200/week, then add another 50 just in case, and go copy 250 flyers and bring them back to the manager (don’t expect them to make the copies for you).

Your total investment:

250 flyers at 5 cents each = $12.50
Two hours of your time = ?
Dinner and movie for 2 = $100 (and you could probably get this for half price if you negotiate a little with the restaurant manager, showing him how you’re using his restaurant name on all these flyers – giving him some free advertising).

So, for a “hard” investment of $112.50 (or less), you get your offer in front of 200 women who ARE SPENDING MONEY RIGHT NOW to take care of their appearance.

That’s a critical point. You’re not marketing to just anyone, you’re going after your ideal target market here.

Think you might be able to pull a few clients out of that?

It’s not a magic bullet…it’s just another pole in the water…that works.

2. The Recipe Book Campaign With Perfect Message To Market Match

If you’re not offering a recipe book as a lead-gen bait piece, you’re missing out. People love healthy, fat-burning, metabolism accelerating recipes.

Here’s how this campaign works:

You create a little recipe e-book (you can use this forever, so it’s well worth the investment of your time).

Fire up Google and do a quick search on grocery stores in your area (unless you already know all the good ones). You should have some high-end, healthy stores like Whole Foods.

Go to their web site and look for cool foods you can incorporate into some of your recipes (like their wild Alaskan Salmon or their organic field greens).

Take graphics (pictures) right off their web site (like the one above) of some of the beautiful, healthy foods and drop them right into your recipe book associated with the recipe where they’ll be used. Put a little blurb under the picture about where to find this in the Whole Foods (“aisle 6, right next to their incredible balsamic vinagrette dressing selection”) and something about the nutritional value/benefits of the item. You should also include their web site URL in this blurb, so folks can click right through if they want.

At the beginning of the e-book, be sure there’s info about you and what you do (not salesy).

At the end of the e-book, you could offer another free resource, like your Fitness Expert Network book, for example. You don’t want to be overtly promotional in this version of your recipe book, for reasons you’ll see in a moment.

Keep your recipe e-book short. It doesn’t need to be something Martha Stewart would be proud of, it just has to have good info, good recipes, and the association with the grocery, as I mentioned (you can do this for multiple groceries).

Then print out your e-book and bind it (Kinkos can do a great job for a couple bucks).

Next, make up a flyer that promotes the e-book (keep it simple). Make sure you use the word “FREE” very prominently.

Set up a separate landing page offering the e-book, with contact capture form.

Then head over to the Whole Foods and talk to the manager. Show him your recipe book, be sure you point out how it CROSS-SELLS his products, and show him the flyer promoting the e-book for free. Explain how this recipe book is perfect for his health-conscious customers, how it promotes his stuff and how it’s free. Then ask him to make the flyers available at every check-out counter.

This is how you create a strategic alliance that works. Yes, there are a couple steps and a bit of up-front work you have to do before you’re even certain you’ll seal the deal. But is it worth it?

Well, just think about how many people shop at a Whole Foods every single week. Probably thousands. If just 2% of them request your e-book, that’s 20 leads a week…for free. If 5% request it, that’s 50 leads…a week.

This thing can “feed” you leads non-stop for a long, long time. And you’re not limited to doing this just with Whole Foods, you could set this up with every grocery in your town.

If you can’t see the power in something like this…you’ve got your eyes shut.

Effective marketing is not just about networking and “talking to people”, creating winning ads, postcards and sales letters, or having a blog or website, or cool brochures, or public speaking or publicity. And it’s certainly not just about having great ideas.

A great idea and nickel will get you a stick of gum. By that I mean an idea, in and of itself, has no benefit to you, no value to you, regardless of how great it is.

The only value comes when that idea is put into action. And that value is increased almost exponentially when the idea is put into practice utilizing great fitness marketing tools and great fitness marketing systems.

That’s how you get real leverage. And that’s how you get really great results.

Do you see how strong your marketing can be when you go beyond just “ideas” and “tactics”? If you like this stuff, then you’re a fitness marketing maniac in the making and you’ll LOVE our comprehensive DEEP-CORE Fitness Marketing System. We’re starting the next live 6-week coaching and training on DEEP-CORE real soon. Get all the details (and a sweet free Special Report and audio CD) here.

3. The Publicity-Pulling Irresistible Offer “Hook”

Last, but not least, is this killer hook for your next press release and “pitch” phone call to editors, producers, reporters.

What’s “top of consciousness” for everyone right now…what’s the #1 news story?

The economy – the recession.

So let’s piggyback on that news…leverage it…and ride the wave to get more clients. Here’s how.

A proven hook that’s been used time and time again for years is…

“Name Your Own Price!”

And now, because of the economy, that offer is a tight, perfect fit. Not just for potential clients, but also for the media. They are actively looking for ways to show their readers, viewers and listeners how to cut back and save big…because that’s what their audience wants.

Money-saving tips was the lead story on Yahoo News this morning. Look around you, these stories are everywhere. Which means their hot, their timely and their in-demand.

So why not crank out a press release on how you’re letting people “name their own price” for your services.

You need to do this in thoughtful way (there are definitely some best practices) so you don’t get “burned” by this. The bottom line is that it’s a compelling offer and, when done correctly, can stir up a whole bunch of excitement and interest in your services.

Tomorrow I’ll share the best practices with you, but for now start using at least one of these 3 great strategies. Get it going, then move to the next. I’ll be back tomorrow with more details on “name your own price.”

Until then, if you have any comments, thoughts or suggestions about this post and these 3 fast and cheap ways to get more personal training clients and more boot camp clients, I’d like to hear them. Post your thoughts below.

Be a fitness marketing maniac,
Eric Ruth

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