7 Actionable Content Marketing Tips For Gym Owners

In today's episode, Josh Kennedy and Andrew Wallis have an insightful discussion that every gym owner needs to hear. If you're looking to elevate your gym's online presence and attract more clients through effective content marketing, this episode is your goldmine. Join us as we dive deep into seven actionable tips that are not just theory but practices that have been tested and proven in the fitness industry.

Timeline Summary:

• [00:00:05] Focus on SEO
• [00:02:25] Know Your Audience
• [00:03:51] Swipe Competitors' Best Topics
• [00:06:11] Optimize for Search Intent
• [00:07:35] Create a Content Calendar
• [00:09:37] Promote Content Across Channels
• [00:11:14] Quality Over Quantity in Word Count

Key Takeaways:

1. SEO is Crucial: Start with SEO to ensure your content gets found. Focus on what people are searching for, not just what you want to write about.
2. Understanding Your Audience: Tailor your content to meet the specific needs and challenges of your target audience. This approach helps in building authority and rapport.
3. Leverage Competitor Insights: Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to understand what topics are working for your competitors and model (not copy) their success.
4. Search Intent Matters: Align your content with the intent behind search queries to improve visibility and relevance.
5. The Power of a Content Calendar: Planning your content in advance with a calendar helps streamline your workflow and ensures consistent content production.
6. Cross-Promotion is Key: Amplify your content's reach by promoting it across all your digital channels, including email newsletters and social media.
7. Focus on Content Quality: Don't obsess over word count. Shorter, high-quality content can be just as effective as longer pieces.

Websites and Links Mentioned:

• Strength Matters
• Free Strategy Call

Quotes:

"SEO isn't just about being found; it's about being found by the right people." - Andrew Wallis

"In helping everyone, we're helping no one. Specificity is key." - Andrew Wallis

"Don't steal, model. There's a blueprint for success in your competitor's strategy." - Josh Kennedy

"Your content calendar is your roadmap to consistent engagement." - Andrew Wallis

"Quality over quantity will always win in the content game." - Josh Kennedy

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Chapters

• 0:05 Focus on SEO
• 2:25 Know Your Audience
• 3:51 Swipe Competitors' Best Topics
• 6:11 Optimize for Search Intent
• 7:35 Create a Content Calendar
• 9:37 Promote Content Across Channels
• 11:14 Quality Over Quantity in Word Count

Transcript

[00:00:00] Andrew Wallis: Strength Matters Media. Video. Print. Podcasts. 

[00:00:05] Josh Kennedy: Today we're talking about seven actionable content marketing tips for gym owners. I am back with Andrew. Andrew, thank you for joining me again this morning. Um, tip number one, let's dive straight in. It's all about focusing on SEO again. We spoke about SEO, but we'll reiterate the point.

[00:00:22] Why 

[00:00:22] Andrew Wallis: is SEO important? Hey, it's a big mistake I've made in the past. I've always understood the importance of creating content, uh, to be found, but I went along the lines of, Hey, I fancy writing about this particular topic. Spend significant, a number of time, hours putting the content and getting it published only for to tumbleweed not being found.

[00:00:47] So that's why we need to focus on SEO first. SEO as a reminder. search engine optimization. And essentially it's what keywords or what phrases of people's typing into [00:01:00] Google or Bing, you know, to find out, uh, how to achieve something, how to overcome an obstacle or challenge. It's what 

[00:01:08] Josh Kennedy: people are actually searching for, right?

[00:01:10] Not just what topics you love to talk about in fitness, that. Nobody else cares about 

[00:01:14] Andrew Wallis: potentially that's it. And there is a time when we can write about particular content, but we need to get what we call our pillar pieces of content in place first. You know, what, what are these topics that people are actively searching for?

[00:01:29] And if we do that, we've seen that with, with a number of our clients who were. You know, this year we're focusing on pillar content with our VIPs and already within days of getting something published, they're, they're appearing in the first position or first three positions for that particular topic, um, on Google.

[00:01:52] And why is that important? Well, they're seeing a significant surge of additional traffic. To their, to that [00:02:00] page on their website, they did live a great value. And then ultimately, then there's a good chance that they're going to search around, download, um, a free lead magnet on that pet. And they're in the pipeline then to potentially become a client.

[00:02:15] Josh Kennedy: Exactly. All about getting the traffic to your page. Tip number two. Knowing your audience again, we've spoken about this before, but why is it important to understand your target audience? 

[00:02:25] Andrew Wallis: Again, you know, there's a big mistake I made in the past. I wanted to be, to help everyone. Uh, but in helping everyone, we're helping no one essentially, because our content in this instance is just vanilla.

[00:02:38] It's not really. Resonating with if somebody even finds it, it's not resonating with them. But if we're clear on who our audience is, then we start to understand the problems and challenges when it comes to the health and wellness, what those, what those challenges are, what's keeping them up at night. So we're addressing that [00:03:00] in our content, then it's going to.

[00:03:02] Hit the point, they're going to be engaged. They're leaning in reading, um, or viewing if it's video content or listening, if it's podcast, of course, but they're, they're consuming the content you're creating. That gives you the chance to showcase your skills, uh, show your authority on that particular topic.

[00:03:21] And, and starts building a rapport and relationship with them that next time they see your content, they want to jump into that, or they might already be contacting you for the strategy call or visiting your website to find out more about the services that you offer, but it all trails back to knowing who your target audience is.

[00:03:41] Josh Kennedy: Yep, exactly. Exactly. Really, really important. Tip number three. I love this one. Swipe competitors, best topics. Why not? Hey, everyone steals from everyone nowadays. 

[00:03:51] Andrew Wallis: Yeah. And it's not about stealing, it's, it's modeling. Um, so don't go copying. We're not telling you to go and find your competition and [00:04:00] copy word for word.

[00:04:02] But if you know, and you should know who your perceived competition is locally and online, if you're doing a hybrid style online training program, you know, we want to be keeping an eye out what they're doing, you know, our phrase is, if they zig, you zag, but, Equally, if they've got, and there's tools out there that we can use to find this information out, like hrefs or similar web or uber suggest or SEM rush, they all allow you to type in your, um, Your competitor's websites, and it will pull the data to tell you what are their best performing blog posts, uh, pages and that, and you can have a look at them to see what that content's about.

[00:04:53] You can find out how much traffic, roughly, That that page is, is generating [00:05:00] and then model that so that you can, I remember Russell Bronson, uh, from, um, ClickFunnels, expert Secrets. He always talked about, uh, a hose pipe and it's, it's firing the water out, but you can put a, um, a, a piece into. Have some of the water coming out your way, so you can extract some of that traffic from from your client from your perceived competition.

[00:05:29] So, if they're talking about, um,

[00:05:36] fasting, uh, they've got them and that's generating significant traffic. Well, how about you create your an article on your take on. on fasting or high intensity interval training to put my teeth in or any topic that your, that your clients are interested in, then that's going to be optimized. And then you're getting a portion of [00:06:00] that traffic that was originally going.

[00:06:02] To your competition. 

[00:06:03] Josh Kennedy: Absolutely. Talk about optimizing. That is tip number four. You've gotta optimize for search intent. Again, you've gotta know what people are searching for, right? 

[00:06:11] Andrew Wallis: Yeah. And a good way of doing this is when you type in a particular phrase or keyword into, uh, Google, and then it pulls up the results.

[00:06:20] You can see if it's, um, let's, let's say that you were looking for, uh, uh, a pair of, uh, some footwear for, for going to the gym. If you type in a brand name, for example, then it generally would display shopping links to that particular brand of footwear. But if you were looking for, let's say, what types of footwear you should wear for whatever sporting activity you want to do.

[00:06:54] Josh Kennedy: Is that like something like, I don't know, best footwear to wear for CrossFit or weightlifting or, yeah. [00:07:00] 

[00:07:00] Andrew Wallis: So that's two different search intents. You know, you've got somebody who already knows they're going to buy the next Nike pair of trainers, but equally then you might have, hey, somebody's interested in joining CrossFit and they want to, they want to know what type of footwear is best.

[00:07:15] For that. So there's, there's, there are more than differing options, but that that's two examples of why we need to be aware of that and optimize accordingly. 

[00:07:25] Josh Kennedy: Fantastic. Tip number five, create a content calendar. Something we, again, we've just spoken about. Why is it important for creating content calendars?

[00:07:35] Hey, creating 

[00:07:35] Andrew Wallis: content's hard. And at times, you know, we, uh, we block some time out to think, right, I need to, I've not posted on my socials for a while. And then tumbleweed starts going, you think, Oh, what am I, what am I going to do? What am 

[00:07:51] Josh Kennedy: I going to post? What am I doing? 

[00:07:53] Andrew Wallis: I've had that experience many times in the past.

[00:07:56] And the big thing for me was when I realized that if I had a [00:08:00] content calendar for the year. And each year, each month I set a designated theme for that particular month, then it made it easier for me to focus on what topics I might utilize for, for my socials, for my blog post, and so on and so forth. So.

[00:08:19] That's how I've found I've been able to do that. And then equally, we're able to then make sure that we use a system. We use ClickUp, uh, within Strength Matters. So we can make a list of topics that we're going to do, much like we do for the podcast. Then with the team, we can then assign particular tasks that we need to get that episode or that blog post out there.

[00:08:43] Who's writing it, who's gonna, uh, grab any images that you, that you need to add to it? Um, what's the call to action? Um, uh, all of those parts have their place to play and we can assign them. If you're a one person operation, which I know a [00:09:00] number of folks will be, then obviously it's all down to you to do.

[00:09:03] But again, you can manage it within a, a system like Clickup or, um, Trello or Asana. Um, or anything like that, just, or even just a notepad, if need be an Excel spreadsheet. But, um, having that content calendar is important to manage, um, uh, your, and, and streamline your workflows effectively. Yeah, 

[00:09:26] Josh Kennedy: exactly. It just helps manage the workload.

[00:09:28] Doesn't it get, even if it's, as you say, if it's just down in a notepad, at least, you know, your tasks and what you got to do, uh, tip number six, promote content across your channels. 

[00:09:37] Andrew Wallis: Yeah, this is a big one. I think, cause I know that again, I didn't do this historically. I would be posting something on Facebook and then, Oh, let me do something on Instagram and I'll do a blog post or I'll do a podcast or whatever it might be.

[00:09:50] Um, But then they were all isolated, um, incidents. Whereas if we, uh, are more proactive in our approach, then [00:10:00] we can course post our, our content on our socials, but then magnify the impact that has by mentioning in our weekly emails. If you were doing a, a weekly newsletter, for example, you can say, Hey, by the way, we talked about.

[00:10:20] the importance of creating a content calendar for fitness professionals for gym owners. Hey, you can go and listen to that latest podcast episode. Click here. So we've, we've highlighted an important topic to our list and we've, we've encouraged them to go and check out that latest podcast episode. And what that does, YouTube then see that we've had a surge of traffic, um, come from our list.

[00:10:45] So that amplifies the message out then to, to the masses. further because they can see that it's a popular content. So we just want to be mindful that don't do work in isolation. Look at how we can, [00:11:00] you know, get people over from our socials to our blog post or get people from our email list out to our socials and so on.

[00:11:08] Josh Kennedy: Awesome. And finally, tip number seven, don't sweat the word count. Quality over quantity, perhaps. 

[00:11:14] Andrew Wallis: Yeah, this is a big one as well, because I, I've always been in the mindset that you've got to give great value. And if you're doing a blog post, for example, then that blog post has to be of a significant word length.

[00:11:28] So, typically around 2, 000, 2, 500 words per blog post, which, of course. Takes a significant amount of time to put together. But now because of the, I guess the tick tock age, you know, everybody likes to consume, um, snippets, then, uh, the experts are showing, uh, through data that it doesn't necessarily, we don't always need to do these volumous, um, uh, [00:12:00] pieces of content they have their place.

[00:12:02] Don't get me wrong, but equally we can mix it up with. You know, 400, 500 word pieces or. You know, 20, 30, 40, 50 seconds shorts that we see on YouTube and, you know, Instagram reels and so on. So don't, don't be fixated on a, on a word count is what we're trying to say here. It's quality over quantity. Uh, essentially, uh, is, is the key, uh, piece 

[00:12:35] here.

[00:12:36] Josh Kennedy: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Andrew. I hope you guys found that useful. That was seven actionable content marketing tips for gym owners. And if you do want any help with your content and your marketing, uh, you can speak to us of course, if you want help getting more clients or patients as well, you can book in for your free 15 minute strategy call with us by going to strength matters.

[00:12:54] com forward slash strategy.