Introduction
Businesses of various sizes and types have been using leaflet distribution in London to market their products and services for decades. Small one-man-band operations as well as multinational chains regularly use leaflet distribution campaigns all over London.
Personal trainers however fall into a category that sometimes gets overlooked when it comes to leaflets. Many trainers tend to focus on being a part of a gym or moving a lot of their marketing efforts online.
Let’s have a look at how one can approach leaflet distribution for personal trainers who work for themselves.
What are the challenges of online ads?
Personal training is a very competitive business. Much of the fight for new clients has now moved to Instagram and other social media platforms. Instagram specifically is an obvious choice as it is such a visual medium.
Using Instagram and other social media sites can be beneficial but they tend to be crowded with some serious competition. Everyone in the world is on social media and competing for organic reach is very difficult.
In order to be effective in that environment one might need to combine content creation with targeted local paid ad campaigns. This is doable and we do touch on the topic in our blog about How to advertise as a personal trainer in London.
However, if you are not a used to digital marketing you might still find it challenging to compete with everyone, pushing ads in the same channels. In comes flyer delivery.
Leaflet distribution
Leaflets have some serious advantages over other marketing methods.
Reach everyone
The first one is that leaflet distribution allows for a personal trainer to get their marketing materials to every household in a given area of London repeatedly and reliably.
Being able to get your marketing into every single home in the areas that are most crucial for you business is a uniquely effective form of building brand recognition.
With good design and area selection this can be a great tool to arrange for a steady stream of new clients.
A good flyer delivery company will be able to arrange for repeated deliveries to the same households in a structured way. Over a longer period of time these kinds of campaigns can help make you a household name in your most important area.
You can find out more about repeated drops in this blogpost.
Targeting
Leaflet distribution allows for some important forms of targeting. If you have a stable place where you do your training sessions regularly (like your personal gym) you can focus on areas surrounding your location.
This area would generally be within walking distance from you or within easy reach via public transport and car.
Another obvious place to target are areas close to parks. Many people don’t feel comfortable going to a gym but are willing to exercise in their local park.
If the types of exercise you specialise in allow for working out outside, focusing on homes within walking distance from larger parks is a great way to reach out to a clientele that would otherwise not be responsive to visiting a gym.
To have a look at different options for the targeting of your flyer delivery campaigns you can see this blog dedicated to the topic.
What should personal training leaflets look like?
So, what should your personal training leaflets look like?
In general we recommend you stick with basic formats like a simple A5 flyer on decent paper (200gsm+)
It is important that you use high quality graphics or photos. Leaflets are a visual medium and using an excellent image can turn a bad leaflet into a good one.
You want to spend some time on deciding which images you are using and why. They should represent the type of personal training that you do as accurately as possible.
If you largely focus on callisthenics, make sure to include an image of someone doing these exercises. If you like using kettle bells make sure that you can see a kettle bell being used in the picture you choose.
Don’t settle for a generic image of a person exercising. Put some extra effort into sourcing the image that will communicate what you do clearly.
Try to consult your leaflet distribution company before you print your flyers. Ask them what they think about your designs.
Do they speak to the right demographics? Do they clearly communicate your message? Is the picture right? Should you make any changes?
A good leaflet distribution company will be able to answer these questions for you and give you some extra insight. Maybe you will find out that your flyer should be redesigned from the ground up.
These conversations can help you save large amounts of money you could throw away on campaigns handicapped by an ineffective design.
Your flyers should also include any certifications that you hold. Whether it’s your relevant academic education, industry specific accreditations or anything else.
The last thing you want to include on your flyers is a link to your website. This can be done via a URL that has been written out or a QR code.
You can find more information on QR codes and how to create one for yourself in this blog post.
We believe it is better for trainers to have a simple website where you can gather all the relevant information about your business. However, if you don’t have one, you can at least send people to your social media channels.
You will find that your well-designed personal training leaflets can become a real driver of traffic to your online channels.
Since many people are working from home now leaflet distribution is becoming an even more powerful tool.
Many people have more time to look through their mail carefully and will take any excuse to get up from their desk and see what has made it’s way through their letterbox.
Personal training leaflets and delivery strategy
We’ve already discussed the fact that you can target your flyer campaigns depending on the nature of the training you offer and your target clientele.
The timing of the deliveries of your personal training leaflets is equally as important as how you target your drops geographically.
There are some obvious timings throughout the year you can choose for your drops. January is an excellent time to step up your advertising as many people are looking to get back into shape after Christmas.
When you get people through the door at the right time as a personal trainer you can truly help them change their lives around.
September is another great time for leaflet distribution for a personal trainer. At this time you can catch people coming home from vacations while they are getting back to organising their schedules for the year.
The reason we are mentioning these timings is because you should be planning your campaigns at least a month ahead of these important times of year.
Getting your design right, your print done and the flyers through the door can take a while. You don’t want to be trying to rush your flyers at the last minute. If you plan ahead and communicate with your leaflet distributor your campaigns will go smoothly with no drama.
This can save you a lot of energy that you can spend on training your clients and developing your business. Try to plan your campaigns ahead of time to avoid last minute panic and rushing through important steps.
When you plan ahead, design the right flyer, target the right areas of London, hit the right time of year for your campaign and work with a reputable distribution company you are setting yourself up for success.
Personal training leaflets can be an effective tool that can help you make your way through any difficult time as a business no matter what is happening in the world.
We hope that this article about leaflet distribution for personal trainers in London has been helpful. If you have any questions or if you’d like to book a campaign please feel free to get in touch with us here.
