Video marketing is kind of a big deal right now. In fact, there has been a big hype around it for the last couple of years and everybody’s trying to get in on it. From thirteen-year-olds to start-ups or even established brands, everybody is marketing on social.
There are more than 400 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every single minute. How do you compete with that? Is it even worth the effort to go against that kind of competition? Well, apparently it is. The guys over at Wyzowl did a survey and the outcome was mind-blowing:
- 63%of businesses are using video as a marketing channel.
- 83%of businesses believe that video gives them a good ROI.
- 74%of the consumers have been convinced to buy a product or service after watching a brand’s video.
It looks like everyone, from a CEO to a housewife, watches a product or service video before making the decision to purchase, or not. If all these numbers don’t convince you, here’s a practical example from the fitness industry. There are a ton of fitness influencers that made their way to the top by using videos, so it's a great way to get personal training clients.
So if you have already obtained an industry leading personal trainer certification or have taken a fitness business course, this post is right down your alley.
How do you create videos?
There are a couple of reasons why people hesitate to get into video marketing. For starters, creating videos is a lot of work. It all takes so much more time than just writing an article, for example. Then there are the technicalities such as what camera to use, how to film, what lights to use, video editing and so on.
If you get wrapped up on all of these technicalities, you are never going to start producing videos for the simple fact that you will never be ready to film and edit the perfect video. So the best thing you can do is to simply start.
You will benefit a lot more by stating right now, even if the quality of your videos is not where you would want it to be. Use these first videos to start developing your skills and on screen comfort level rather than starting 2 or 3 months later after you have supposedly done all your research.
AFAA actually has a pretty great article on how to create fitness videos. You can utilize it as a starting point. But it will take a lot of practice!
Video production
Like I mentioned above, you want to start now. So just take out your iPhone, find a spot with good natural lighting and you are good to go. Don’t worry about expensive equipment at this point. Get used to being on camera, build a small following and then upgrade to better equipment.
The most important thing to consider is the lighting. If you are filming outdoors you probably will not have an issue. Avoid filming in super bright light though – most cameras have tiny sensors that have the tendency to overexpose the shot, and everything will look blown out.
If you are filming indoors, like in a gym, the best thing you can do is stand in front of a window so there’s a lot of natural light. (Note: You should be facing the window and window behind the camera, not in the frame.) Or, if that is not an option, invest in some cheap studio lights or even LED lights that can be attached to your camera.
Whenever you are filming an educational video which is packed with information, it helps if you write a good video script beforehand. It will make your speech much more organized, coherent and easy to understand by your audience.
Video post-production
Once you’re done filming you are actually just half-way through your video production process. The editing can take a tremendous amount of time, especially at first, when you don’t really know what you are doing.
Now, the raw footage, as it will come out of your camera or phone, will not look like much. Don’t worry about it though. That’s perfectly normal. With the right tools and a little bit of practice, you can make your videos pop and stand out from the crowd.
Adding nice background music, cool transitions between different cuts and using color grading techniques will drastically improve the quality of the final cut.
YouTube has its own royalty free music channel which you can use to get your music from. Other popular music libraries you may want to check out are Epidemic Sounds or Premium Beat. Both have huge libraries of great sounding music, covering pretty much any style you can think of.
Use things such as lower thirds for your name or the name of the exercises in a video. Add text overlays to reinforce important things or use B-roll footage whenever appropriate.
Types of videos to create
As a personal trainer, you might think you are limited to only creating workout videos, which can be a real drawback if you think about it. After all, how many different workouts can you create and film?
The truth is that there are a ton of ideas that work great in the fitness vertical. You just need to put some thought into it. Here are just a few examples.
Recipes
Eating clean is an important part of your life, right? Well, most of your potential customers are likely to be interested in recipe videos as well. Try to include recipes that are targeted specifically at your audience, such as vegetarian or high protein recipes and so on.
Grocery shopping
Teach your audience what foods to pick. Show them what foods you buy on a weekly basis and where you get them from.
Challenges
Challenge videos are very popular on YouTube, so you will be very likely to go viral with this type of content.
Q & A videos
Once you get some traction on YouTube, you will start getting many questions from your viewers. Doing a Q&A video every now and then is a great way of engaging with your subscribers.
Product reviews
Have a new piece of gear that you just bought? Tell people what your opinion is on it. Product review videos tend to do really well on YouTube, especially when there’s a lot of interest in the product you are reviewing. So keep that in mind. 
How to videos
Teaching people how to perform specific workouts, exercises or movements is the core of your business at the end of the day. These kinds of videos should represent the foundation of your video content.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5h6OOK7wTg
Client testimonials
Having clients in your videos adds more credibility to your services as a personal trainer and it is likely to bring in new business. If you decide to do this kind of videos, don’t script them at all. Just let your client talk freely about his or her experience.
This will make the video sound much more natural than those cheesy sales videos where people are just reading a script. Be sure to have them complete a testimonial and video release before you post.
Show/competition videos
Are you getting ready for an upcoming show? Documenting your prep through videos and showing your audience what you do, step-by-step is another video idea you can easily implement.
Vlogging
Lastly but not least, there’s vlogging. Show your audience how a day in your life looks like. You would be surprised to find out how many people are interested to get to know you outside of your personal training life/career.
What platform to use
There’s no argument that YouTube is about the best one because it can get you a ton of views.
With YouTube, there’s one key factor that will determine your success: consistency. You need to put up videos regularly in order to take off. It can be just once every 1 or 2 weeks if that’s all you can do, but do it consistently.
Obviously, no one knows exactly how the YouTube algorithm works but keep an eye out for the “Watch Time” parameter. That basically means how much time people spend watching videos on your channel, and it is thought to be YouTube’s number one ranking factor.
The ideal length seems to be 5 to 10 minutes. So I would say to keep your videos over 5 minutes, but don’t worry if you go past 10 minutes if needed.
Then there’s Instagram which I like to look at as a platform you can use to re-direct your audience to YouTube. Instagram currently only allows you to post videos that are under 60 seconds which can be very restrictive in producing a valuable content rich video.
So your best course of action would be to simply promote your YouTube videos on Instagram. Give your followers a nice, catchy overview of what the full video is about and right before the 60 seconds mark tell them to go check out the entire video on your YouTube channel.
The thing with Instagram specifically, and social media in general, is that people’s attention span is very, very low so you need to make your intro really catchy. You literally have just a few seconds to hook them. Otherwise, they will scroll down and watch other people’s videos.
Lastly but not least, there’s Facebook, which is a little bit funky when it comes to video content. Here’s what I mean. Even though Facebook doesn’t clearly admit this, it will not promote your video content that much if it is hosted on a different platform (such as YouTube). So if you want to maximize your reach, you will need to upload all your videos to Facebook too.
How do you monetize your videos?
If you manage to reach enough people and build a large enough audience, there are tons of ways to make money off your videos. Here are just a few examples:
- 1-1 training sessions
- Online coaching
- Consultation calls
- Affiliate marketing
- Make your own clothing line
- Write an eBook
- Create a paid video course
… and the list can go on and on.
Don’t expect to make money off your video marketing efforts fast though. It takes time, effort and consistency. Build your audience first. Give them free content, show off your results and prove to them that you can offer a solution to their problem. Only then should you present them with a paid product.
Video marketing can be a great additional revenue stream to tap into as a fitness expert.
Over to you
This post probably just scratches the surface of video marketing, but hopefully, it has opened up your appetite for creating videos and learning more. Consuming and producing video content has become much more convenient and so many people prefer video content over any other form of content.
In summary: start simple, use your iPhone and don’t worry about fancy equipment until later down the road. Make YouTube your primary platform but make sure to leverage other channels as well.
Works Cited
James, Josh. “Data Never Sleeps 4.0 | Domo Blog.” Domo.com, 28 June 2016, www.domo.com/blog/data-never-sleeps-4-0/.
“49 (BRAND NEW) Video Marketing Statistics for 2017.” Wyzowl, www.wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics-2017/.
McDaniel, Scott, and Steve Beger. “Inbound Marketing: How TigerFitness Has Grown Its Fan Base through High-Value Video Content.” MarketingSherpa, 7 Jan. 2016, www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/tigerfitness-content-marketing-strategy.
Robertson, Mark R. “Watch Time: Optimization Guide for YouTube Ranking Factors.” Tubular Insights, 18 Dec. 2015, http://tubularinsights.com/youtube-watch-time/.
Watson, Leon. “Humans Have Shorter Attention Span than Goldfish, Thanks to Smartphones.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 12 Mar. 2016, www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/12/humans-have-shorter-attention-span-than-goldfish-thanks-to-smart/.
