Steal These High-Converting Health and Fitness Copywriting Strategies…

… designed for personal trainers, gym owners, and studios looking to book more classes, sell more sessions, and make more money.

Let’s cut to the chase – you know how the body works and want to make money with your knowledge, but you also want to change lives.

Whether you’re a gym owner, a naturopath, a personal trainer or you sell supplements, working in the health and fitness industry means you know how to help people achieve their health goals. 💪

But selling your services can sometimes feel like tackling leg day on an empty stomach, right?

In other words, it’s waaaay harder than it should be.

That’s because your potential clients might not know the gym is a solution to their problems. They might have tried a PT before without results. Or, fad diets and weight loss gimmicks might have left them cautious about spending money on the gym.

So, how does an honest, experienced, and trustworthy personal trainer or gym owner like you convince people to throw on a Gymshark singlet and make a booking?

With health and fitness copywriting.

We’ve helped PTs, yoga teachers, gym owners, and fitness thought leaders generate tens of thousands of leads and millions of dollars in revenue over the last decade using the power of copywriting.

Here’s how you can enjoy the same results.

Fitness Copywriting Strategy #1: Know Your Audience

You can’t sell your classes or PT sessions unless you know who you’re selling to.

When you understand your client’s goals, anxieties and fears, you can identify and write a solution that’s tailor-made for them. On the flip side, if you don’t know what makes your client tick, your copy won’t connect.

For example, if you help people rehab injuries, you’ll have a different approach to someone who helps athletes prepare for competitions or photoshoots. You can (and should) take this personalisation a step further.

Do you help clients lose weight? Get shredded? Workout from home?

Each one of those specific audiences will have their own obstacles and aspirations.

That’s why knowing your audience is copywriting 101.

When you understand your client’s specific problems, they’re more likely to trust your solutions.

ACTION STEPS

• Identify your audience before you write your copy: Research before revenue. Take the time to get to know your ideal client until you understand their greatest fears, #1 goal, and what’s preventing them from spending money on the gym.
• Spend half a day (or more) defining who your ideal customer is: How old are they? What are their health and fitness goals? Why haven’t they stuck with the gym in the past? Learn everything you can about what makes them tick.
• Put together 20-30 questions designed to get to know your clients: Send out your questions to your client list, or friends who fit your target demographic, and ask them to answer your questions. These answers should be weaved into your copy to ensure you know your clients inside and out.

Fitness Copywriting Strategy #2: Get aspirational and evoke emotions

Quick question…

Deep in their souls, would you say a client’s big picture goal is to lift more weight each week for the next 6 months… or to wake up loving their reflection, feeling confident at the beach and sexy in the bedroom?

Most people do the former to experience the latter.

Lifting heavy, running on the treadmill, and eating a balanced diet is the process. But the reason is to feel more confident, or sexier, or happier.

You aren’t selling PT sessions. You’re selling the feeling clients get from being healthy and active.

We’ve whipped up two examples of the same weight loss service to show how this can look in your website copy. The first has a focus on the process. The second has a focus on the experience.

FITNESS COP VERSION #1	FITNESS COPY VERSION #2
Lose 5 kilograms in the next 12 weeks	Lose 5 kilograms in the next 12 weeks
Together, we’ll work through a custom weight loss program built around a healthy nutrition plan, with easy-to-hit macro targets, and workouts designed to help you shed unwanted weight.	WARNING: This program may result in compliments from friends, looking sexy in your favourite pair of jeans, and feelings of happiness and confidence on social media, at home, and in the bedroom.

Put yourself in your client’s (comfortable Nike training) shoes.

Which style of copywriting do you think will be more effective at getting people excited to start their health and fitness journey?

Both versions are well-written but with over a decade of experience as a direct response copywriting agency, we KNOW that the version two approach will drive higher conversions.

This is a super simple example, but the version built around emotions (i.e. version #2) feels more authentic, relatable and engaging.

And since emotion inspires action, this approach helps you book more clients and sell more classes.

ACTION STEPS

• Speak your audience’s language: You might know a lot about macronutrients and branched-chain amino acids… but that’s not what connects with your clients. Use simple words that echo the way your audience speaks to build a connection.
• Use emotional trigger words: Certain words can help provoke an instant reaction. Depending on your goals, words like ‘Confident’, ‘Reclaim’, ‘Overcome’, and ‘Empowered’ can help stir your target emotion (in this case, a positive one!).
• Leverage emotional attachments: Everyone is emotionally attached to something. Whether it’s their friends or family, their job, or even a past version of themselves, draw a line from where your clients are to where they want to go or who they want to change for.

Fitness Copywriting Strategy #3: Sell benefits over features

OK, harsh truth time. ⏰

Too many personal trainers and gym owners only focus on selling the features of their service (you might be doing the same, sorry!).

We’re talking about things like…

• 25-minute workouts
• Custom nutrition plans
• One-on-one training sessions
• Progress tracking from your phone

These features are great but they don’t tell a potential client why they should care (or pay you their money).

The best fitness copywriting focuses on the benefits of your service. In other words, what your clients get, not what you provide.

Here’s a simple tip to help you turn features into benefits when you sit down to write your website copy or sales page. All you need to do is recognise that your potential clients will ask one important question…

“So what?”.

Answer that question and your copy magically shifts from feature-focused to benefit-focused.

Don’t believe it’s that simple?

Check out this example to see the magic in action.

You: “I offer 25-minute workouts”.

Client: “So what?”

You: “So you can workout on your lunch break, or focus on your fitness goals without spending hours at the gym and sacrificing your social life”.

Boom.

You just found a benefit to replace your feature.

Instead of writing about your short workout options, you could talk about how short workouts can be done during lunch breaks, or after work, without getting in the way of family time or weekend activities.

Features tell. Benefits sell.

ACTION STEPS

• Make a list of your audience’s pain points: You can’t address the benefits of your service until you know how they relate to your client’s problems. Write out a list of problems your audience is looking to solve.
• Address how your services or classes fix these problems: Maybe your audience is frustrated trying to track their calories, or can’t afford expensive gym memberships. Make a clear connection between these problems and how your services solve everything. For example, a free calorie tracking app, or at-home workouts that don’t cost a cent.
• Say “you” as often as possible: Writing in the second person (i.e. “Hit your target weight and free yourself from the shackles of fad diets for good”) pulls the reader into your copy. When you speak directly to your audience, you can stay focused on what they gain from your service (not what you offer).

Fitness Copywriting Strategy #4: Back up your claims with proof

No one wants to sign up for the gym or attend a 6am boot camp without some belief they’ll see results.

The most successful health and fitness copy will use your past results as a form of powerful social proof.

When potential clients see what you’ve done for other people, they’re more inclined to believe you can do the same for them.

For example, let’s say you’re looking to lose 10 kilograms before beach season. You jump online and find two personal trainers in your local area. You don’t want to waste your hard-earned cash, so you check out their websites in a couple of browsers.

One website talks about the PT’s qualifications, love of fitness, and has a bunch of photos of the trainer flexing and looking buff (good for them, not much help for you).

The other website has twenty ‘Before’ and ‘After’ case studies from people who lost weight. Oh, and you can scroll through plenty of video reviews and written testimonials from past clients talking about smashing their weight loss goals.

Easy choice, right?

Most clients will choose the PT who can prove their approach works.

The fact is, the health and fitness industry is filled with misinformation.

For the average Jane or Joe, it’s hard to know who or what to trust. If you can back up your claims with proof, you’ll build trust and go a long way towards landing a consultation or booking.

ACTION STEPS

• Look for eye-catching accomplishments or results you’ve achieved: This could be the number of clients you’ve helped, total amount of kilograms your clients have lost, reviews from clients – anything that shows your methods work.
• Sprinkle these metrics throughout your website: The closer to the top of the page (above the fold) the better as this will catch immediate attention when potential clients come browsing your site.
• Let your past clients become your best advertisers: The most powerful key on your keyboard can be the quotation mark. A review in quotes becomes testimony from someone who’s kicked their goals. Reading these reviews makes clients more likely to trust and work with you.

Fitness Copywriting Strategy #5: Give away freebies

Before you toss a dumbbell at us, we’re not suggesting you give away free sessions.

You’ve worked hard to become the expert you are and that expertise deserves to be recognised and rewarded.

The problem is, that not everyone who lands on your website or scrolls through your sales page will be ready to make a purchase. To help nurture those people and keep them interested in your service, you can give away small freebies instead.

You can go with something tangible like a free eBook that helps people better understand their health and fitness problems. Or, give away free knowledge in your website copy.

For example, you could include a short workout people can try at home to save time. Or, a calorie calculator to help people stay on top of their diets. Or, an exercise breakdown to help people bench press with the correct form.

You get the idea.

The goal is to give away a piece of your knowledge to build trust and get people curious to learn more, without giving away all your secrets.

ACTION STEPS

• Shift your mindset: You need cold, hard cash to pay the bills and put protein powder on the table. But attention is its own type of currency. Your potential clients have SO many options that giving away free knowledge can keep you top of mind when they decide to open their wallets.
• Focus on educating your audience: A simple way to cut your knowledge in half is to educate people on what they need to do, but charge money for how they should do it. For example, a free eBook on the ‘5 Dieting Mistakes That Are Killing Your Weight Loss Goals’. But they’ll need to pay for your nutritionist services to find out how to achieve their weight loss goals. 😉
• Create one and publish everywhere: The most valuable knowledge you have is inside your head. If you’re an expert on building bigger biceps, write a blog explaining how. Then turn that blog into an eBook. Then turn that eBook into YouTube videos.

Let’s wrap up this session…

Too many PTs, gym owners, and studios think of copywriting as an afterthought. The problem with this approach is you end up invisible among a sea of competitors without a strategy to attract leads, land consultations, or drive bookings.

Use the health and fitness copywriting strategies in this guide to help make sure your results in business are as impressive as your results on the gym floor.

Are you ready to save time and trust your coaching business’ copy to a team of direct response superstars with a track record of success? Book a strategy call below to chat with a Savvy Copy expert.

Let’s Chat About Your Copy (It’s FREE and Only Requires 15 Minutes of Your Time)