The Trackster

The Trackster is online software that helps Personal Trainers communicate with and motivate their clients.

Do you want to improve your email marketing? Do you know how to even get started email marketing? Today we talk with Natalie Giddings from Pollen Marketing. Natalie just wrote an ebook on email marketing called Effective Email Marketing Guide.

Natalie talks about why PTs should get into email marketing, how to build up our database to send emails to and goes over some of the software out there to help Personal Trainers get their email campaigns started.

Here are some fun facts about Natalie -
Favourite Book – Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
Favourite Movie – Mission Impossible (the first one!)
Favourite Band – The Killers
Favourite Website – Marketing Profs
Hero/Role Model – Hillary Clinton

Some links mentioned in the interview -

www.mailchimp.com

www.constantcontact.com

You can follow Natalie on Twitter @nataliegiddings and Natalie’s website is www.pollenmarketing.com.au.

Updated: Below is the full transcript of the interview with Natalie.

Craig Millman: Hi Natalie! Thanks for joining me today. You’ve just released an ebook about email marketing specifically for small businesses. In terms of email marketing, what’s the biggest benefit and why should Personal Trainers get into email marketing?

Natalie Giddings: [beeping noise] Okay, well my phone’s just gone off – sorry! – but I turned it off.

All right, so with email marketing essentially the reason why I think it’s an important one, more than anything else, I guess, is the dollar per spend. So, if you do take the time to build up your own list not only do you get the benefit of the return investment – so, the numbers are all there and I’ve seen the statistics over and over again – but if you do take the time to build that marketing list you can then even onsell additional services, you can perhaps even begin to do successful events, all the type of marketing that builds your core base and has a greater impact on your bottom line.

And if you get into a relatively good habit of creating news stories, even press releases and all those types of things that engage people, it just builds your brand overall. You can repurpose that content, all that type of thing that make that bottom line process, because we want to get people in with the intention that they’re going to buy your services.

We can automate that buying process, even quicken it so that people make decisions about whether they want to use your services, your Personal Training services, or not, in a really short period of time. Even just following up and making phone calls to one client, as you know, takes a lot of time. If you can start to get that in an automated, online process that is one publication but delivered to many, you can start to see a terrific turnaround in the way that people reflect upon you and even just log-in or purchase your services.

Craig: So, for a lot of Personal Trainers they might not have a massive database of people to contact so what’s the best way to start an email marketing campaign. I mean, what’s the best way to get our list going?

Natalie: Okay, the best way to start a list is to ask permission of current or past clients. Don’t automatically assume that because they’ve used you once that they want to start receiving email newsletters from you, but it can be just a really informal, introductory email saying: By the way, we’re going to start publishing news. So, get that email out to your current database list, no matter how big or small, and just get their permission. Just say: We’re going to add you to this marketing list. Please let us know if that’s not okay. So then you can start with people that you’ve previously serviced and had a relationship with, and then you’re not starting from zero, which will probably boost your confidence.

And then the next thing you should definitely do is think about having a resource of some description that’s useful. So, if we’re talking about Personal Trainers there’s a whole myriad of tips and cheat-sheets or, I don’t know, warm-up activities that people could do, homework that they could do when they’re not being personal trained. Basically offer that up as a report or a PDF or a Word document or a PowerPoint presentation. Offer that up on your blog or website as an incentive for people to include their email address.

Personal Trainers, we know that they’re obviously geo-specific, so you want to make sure that not just email address but a post code would be relevant because we know that you need to be present to train them. So at that point have that on the top, right-hand side of your website, which is the most visually present place, so to speak, on your website.

And then people, basically you’re exchanging a valuable piece of information for the responsibility, because it’s a responsibility, also the permission to contact, to have your news go out to them. So it’s something that, look, it doesn’t have to be….

Don’t overthink it; just something really quick and something really simple that you know people continually ask you about. Answer that question in one PDF. Or, I know that it’s really hard to remember all the steps that my Personal Trainer has told me about warming up. I forget them every single time and I have to go and find out where I wrote it down. Maybe having that as a useful tip to start with would be a great incentive, and no doubt you’ve got a useful and unique way of warming up if you’ve done your job well. So, just something like that. Think of it as an exchange for value.

Craig: So in terms of getting started, again, do you have any recommendations for email marketing providers? I mean some software that you recommend specifically?

Natalie: Look, really we’re spoiled right now. We’re in a place where there’s a whole heap of different solutions out there. My personal favorite is mailchimp.com. I don’t actually use that for all of my clients. It depends on what their needs are. It does seem to have all of the generic uses whilst keeping the cost right down, things like sign-up forms so you can create a sign-up form to your mailing list or automatically plug that into your website. And it’s just very intuitive and easy to use. I mean, there’s nothing better than something that’s easy to use. There’s lots of great videos. But any of them – Constant Contact – oh, any of them at that top tier, they all copycat each other anyway to get your services.

Craig: Yeah, and they’re all easy to use. Like, for someone who might not be that confident on a computer they’re pretty easy to use still.

Natalie: Yeah. The other thing: you mentioned that some of your interviews and part of the reason you do the series is to be useful and helpful, so what you could possibly do, and like you do, you put it on YouTube. Go to YouTube. The technical stuff, if you get stuck, I always go to YouTube and say “how to do,” and there’s just about how to do just about anything.

So, MailChimp does tend to be just that much simpler, if you ask my opinion, so that’s why it’s usually a good starting point. If your database starts to really grow and you need some really serious features then you might want to explore some of the other ones.

Craig: Yeah. I think it’s one of the cheapest, too. Off the top of my head I think you can send out to 1,000 people before they start charging. Is that right?

Natalie: Yeah, absolutely. It depends on how many times per month, or it’s limited times per month, but even just the way that you manage, because part of a great email campaign is getting profile information about your target audience and perhaps sending out some snippet questions, and all of that is relatively easy to do straight out of MailChimp.

Craig: Right. Okay, so just to finish up today, what’s one tip that you can give a Personal Trainer today that wants to get into it? What’s the one tip that you can give us today just to get started?

Natalie: Look, it’s not necessarily directly related to email marketing as such but it is definitely one of those traits that will work well with any email marketing, and in fact any marketing, and I think that’s the keyword of Personal Training – it’s personal, it’s people. So, personality: I would set up a campaign to be directly from the person who runs and owns or trains the clients so that they’re already introduced to that Personal Trainer, if they sign up for the mailing list, well before they sign up for the services. They can get to know the personality and what’s expected and some of the benefits before they’ve even signed up for a session. They can come to love that person well before they sign up.

And it’s really all about trust in people and connecting, so have photos of your trainers on the messages. This includes all of your marketing channels. And really think about personal branding all of your marketing channels in that way.

Craig: Excellent. Thanks a lot for your time today, Natalie. I really appreciate it.

Natalie: No problem! No problem at all, a pleasure. Thank you, Craig.

Craig: Thanks a lot.

Have you got all your information backed up?

This past week a Melbourne based hosting company was subjected to cyber-attack and lost all its data, which included over 4000 websites! Those websites included many many small to medium size businesses that lost all their data, without any backup.

It’s probably a good time as any to investigate your own back up systems in place for your business. Why don’t you check with your web developer or IT guy and check that there is back ups of your website. What would happen if your business happened to be hacked? How quickly could you be back up and running as per normal?

What about on your own computers? What systems do you have in place to make sure all your data is backed up and secure? A good back up system should have all your data in three separate places. A good suggestion would be to have an online back up system like Mozy or Dropbox. Add to that some sort of hard disk that is backed up onsite, and then another hard disk which is kept offsite (or at least away from your first hard disk).

This might seem a little extreme but it certainly is better than losing all your information and having to start from scratch. A little bit of peace of mind is certainly worth paying for.

This week we are talking to Mike LeBoss. Mike has been in the fitness industry for 35 years and is the Founder and Owner of MeFit Fitness Centres, which have three studios in Portland, Newport and Sheridan in Oregan, USA. He is also the Executive Director for NAFC which is a fitness certification company.

Mike gives us some great insights into his career and some tips to becoming a successful Personal Trainer.

You can find out more about Mike here -

www.mefit2.com
www.nafctrainer.com

We’d love to hear what you think about the interview in the comments below.

We talk to a few Personal Trainers, and this is especially true for new PTs, that don’t quite understand the importance of keeping a good record of your financials in your business. It can lead to a lot of problems down the track with the government in terms of taxes, and also in terms of getting home and car loans from banks.

Today we talk to Heather Smith from Anise Consulting about the basics of bookkeeping and accounting for your Personal Training business.  Why it’s important and some simple things that you can do today to make big improvements.

Heather’s business is Anise Consulting, and you can follow her on Twitter @heathersmithau.

Although there is some Australian centric information in here relating to GST, a lot of the tips that Heather has provided can work in any country.

Let us know what you think, and if there is someone you’d like us to interview than please let me know.