The fitness market is thriving at the moment. Demand is high, yet competition is also incredibly fierce. Because of this, you need to do everything in your power to make sure you stand out from the other personal trainers in the industry. One of the best ways to do this is by offering a fitness podcast.
A podcast can draw in a fresh audience while also helping to keep your existing customers engaged. You will show yourself as an expert in the industry and boost your brand name as well. The benefits are extensive.
However, this will only be the case if the podcast you create is a success. Considering that, let's take a look at 5 essential steps required to start your fitness podcast.
Step 1. Determine Your Target Audience
You may have realised that regardless of the type of marketing channel, the most critical step is to define who you want to address with your content marketing. Who are you going to be tailoring your content to?This matters because if you produce content that does not have any direction, you will less likely attract the right audience. Instead, it would be best to make sure that the content you produce resonates with people who would make great prospective clients one day.
The only way that this is going to be the case is by honing in your target audience. When you do this, you will have a sense of direction every single time you come to produce a podcast.
Step 2. Do Your Research
One of the biggest mistakes personal trainers make is diving right in without doing any research or figuring out what their ideal clients like to listen to when enjoying a fitness podcast. Just like with blogging, the best strategy with podcasts is to find topics that would be popular among the people you want to have as your clients.Spend some time listening to fitness podcasts directed at the population you work with. Take some notes on the quality of the information you hear, the way the podcast host talks. If it's an interview, focus on the type of questions being asked. Also, try to find answers to other questions affecting the listener. What areas did you enjoy? What parts lost your interest? Where can you gain inspiration yourself? If you got bored after 5 mins, likely many other people would. How can it be done better?
Survey your clients and audience. Do they listen to any podcasts? Which ones and what topics interest them the most? Why? How and where do they go to find new podcasts? How do they choose them?
Putting in some research beforehand will make a massive difference when it comes to creating your fitness podcast. You'd like to understand what topics to cover, whether or not inviting guest speakers would make them more engaging and where and how to promote them to reach the right audience.
Step 3. Name Your Podcast
Choosing a catchy name for your podcast might prove to be the hardest step. It doesn't have to be that way, though. If you did a thorough job with step #1 and created a super-specific niche, this step might not be hard at all. Working with a particular population or with people on a specific fitness goal might make this easy too.However, for most personal trainers finding the correct name is often a tricky balance between choosing something unique and fun yet keeping it simple and easy to remember.
You might want to be careful with humour with your podcast name, as you risk losing people if they miss your joke. However, if you are particular about having people in your audience that get you, it may be the ideal strategy for you. You should also make sure that the name you choose is easy to spell and easy to remember. You can always do some research and check out top fitness podcast lists on Google to see what else is out there.
Step 4.Choose Your Podcast's Format
The format of your podcast is more critical than you may realise. Not having a specified structure is one of the biggest mistakes some aspiring fitness podcasters make.When you don't have a set structure, it is easy to start waffling, and then you lose audience members because you might regularly go off track. There are many different ways you can break up your format and keep people interested, from interviews with additional guests to group discussions. The key is to keep everything structured so that it flows well.
Step 5. Time to Start Recording
Now that you have put all of the planning into place, it is time to start recording. This means you need to buy the right equipment. There are lots of great products on the market today, so much so that it can be a little bit overwhelming, so don't be afraid to ask for some help and assistance.One thing that we must stress, though, is that your laptop's in-built microphone is not going to be sufficient to do a quality podcast, so you should never rely on this. Here's a list of tech you might want to look into:
- Microphone
- Lighting Solution
- Software to Capture and Edit
- Streaming Options
- Background Music
- A Solid Internet Connection for Doing Live Interviews
- Camera If You Want Video Recording and Not Just Voice
Takeaway
To conclude, there are many different steps that you need to follow to make sure your fitness podcast is a success. There's no denying that there are many benefits associated with podcasts, from their broad reach to boosting your brand image.If you get this right, it can do wonders for your fitness business. However, it is not simply a case of building it, and the followers will come. You need to work consistently on marketing your podcast, but it's crucial that what you have to say hits the mark and provides something that people will be interested in.
