Understanding buyer personas can be the difference in increasing your closing percentage and increasing your overall membership base. The question is, what is a buyer persona? It is typically a general characterization of your ideal member for your health and fitness business. Understanding these personas can shape the way you market to prospective members and ultimately help in four ways:
- Improve on your communication with prospective members.
- Craft better marketing messages.
- Understand potential member behaviors and tendencies.
- Retain more members.
In order to create various personas, give the following steps a try.
Step 1: Creating a Fictional Name
It is important to give a buyer persona a fictional name because it is more relatable to understand who they are. I would also argue in sales, one of the most important aspects to a sales cycle is to know the customer’s name. It is how you will relate to them for the entire sales process, so giving a fictional name is important. Knowing a customer’s name is one of the easiest yet most important aspects to building trust.
Step 2: Understanding Demographics
Identifying your demographics is important for when you are developing content for your website, email, blogs, etc. The greater the specificity, the greater and more detailed you can be when marketing. Understanding your community better will help you be more consistent with customers. These are some of the questions you want to identify when creating a buyer persona:
- Age
- Gender
- Marital status
- Occupation
- Location
Step 3: Setting Goals
If you do not identify a person’s goals, then it is hard to build value in your product or service. It also allows you to create more relevant programs and membership options. Understanding the very reason why someone would want to become a member is crucial so incorporating this into the persona is one of the most critical aspects to include. An example of a goal could be ‘lose X number of pounds’ and the reason is ‘wedding in six months.’
Step 4: Identifying Potential Objections
Identifying potential objections allows you to fine-tune your messaging to overcome them. When you understand buyer challenges in life, it makes it easier to come up with solutions.
Examples:
- Travel a lot for business
- Family obligations
- Money issues
Once you can create a buyer persona, you will understand your future customer better. It will also help you get better at motivating potential customers into action.
Below are two different buyer personas you may encounter within the fitness industry.
Bodybuilder Brian: We all know this type of customer in the fitness industry. Brian is 50 years old and has been training for the last few decades. His goals have always been to be as big as possible and to pack on muscle at all times. He is married with three kids but always finds time for the gym and views it as an investment so long as you have the right equipment. He is also willing to invest in nutrition, as well as the standard gym membership. Ultimately, he wants to stay strong and look good.
Newbie Nancy: Nancy is the type of potential member that is among the most common. A gym environment intimidates her mostly because she has never been a member at one. Nancy is in her 40’s and is married with two kids. She often uses “time” as a common objection, meaning she has no time because she is balancing work and family life. Stress and guidance are her overall motivating factors as to why she would want to join a gym.
Although these buyer personas are quite simple, they can help tailor the messaging for these types of clients. For instance, understanding “Newbie Nancy” needs guidance is vital to building value in having a personal trainer. Remember, these are common types of personas in the fitness industry so understanding how to deal with them will help you attract and retain more members over time.
