First impressions are everything, especially when it comes to your fitness brand.
In fact, it takes only 10 seconds for a consumer to cement his or her first impression of your fitness brand.
Fitness is a crowded industry with many similar-sounding and similar-looking brands. It’s easy to get lost in the crowd.
Want to make an impact on potential customers? Then, you must create a fitness brand that is memorable and stands out from the rest.
The following are eight tips to help you build a successful fitness brand from scratch.
Identify your target audience
Audience is everything. Who you’re targeting, as well as what their needs and wants are, is the first step to creating your fitness brand.
However, it’s important to be as specific as possible.
This can be challenging because it’s tempting to want to target “everyone” because that will lead to more customers and greater success, right? Not so fast.
When your brand message is broad and directed to “everyone,” it usually resonates with no one and falls short of delivering the results you want.
Again, don’t be afraid to get specific:
- Age, gender and other demographics
- Lifestyle
- Behaviors
- Challenges
- Needs
- Interests
For example, you could target new moms between ages 25 and 35 who have limited time in their day and crave connection with a supportive community of other new moms.
Whatever it might be, nailing down your audience niche will go a long way to shaping your specific fitness brand.
Research your competition
Who else is targeting your ideal customers? What is their niche? How are they raising awareness about their fitness brand? What are they doing well? What are they lacking?
These are just some of the questions you need to ask yourself in a competitive analysis. The more you can understand your competition (especially for your target audience), the better you can decide what to do with your fitness brand so that you can stand out and appeal to potential clients.
One way to find similar competition is through Google searches. Type the queries you would want people to use to find your fitness brand.
Set your mission
Once you understand your specific target audience and know what else is out there competition-wise, it’s time to settle on your mission statement.
A mission statement explains what your company’s passion is and the values you offer to your clients. It’s your company’s reason for existence. Remember that the more you can relate to the wants and needs of your clients, the more likely they’ll choose you over a competitor.
This is an important step in creating your fitness brand because your mission will help inform all future strategies and marketing messages.
Your mission statement also will inform your logo and tagline.
Determine your unique benefits
As part of your fitness brand, you must decide on the benefits you can offer that no one else can. Think about your audience research, your competition analysis and where the two intersect.
Where can you fill in the gaps?
For example, this could tie into the type of exercise equipment you feature, the affordability of your rates, a unique training environment, etc.
These benefits are integral to your fitness brand and should be thought through as part of your brand development.
Then, you’ll want to make sure that you highlight these both in writing and visually (images and videos). The videos especially will play into consumers’ first impressions of your fitness brand.
Pick the best name
This could be an obvious step (and maybe you already have a great name in mind), but nonetheless, you’ll want to consider all the key factors before settling on a permanent fitness brand name.
In addition to thinking of a word (or words) that accurately speaks to the services you’re providing and the clientele you’re targeting, be aware of:
- Simple spelling
- Easy pronunciation
- Uniqueness (not sounding like everyone else)
- If a domain name is available online
Especially when it comes to domain names, check out our beginner’s guide.
Once you’ve brainstormed and settled on a few top choices, run them by friends, family, colleagues, strangers, anyone.
Are they as easy to spell and pronounce as you think? Do they convey the right idea without any other information? This feedback will help you narrow your list down.
Design your logo
Whether you’re designing your logo or you hire someone else to, the fact remains that your logo is critical to your fitness brand.
About 75 percent of people recognize a brand by its logo, with 60 percent by its visual style, 45 percent by the brand’s signature color, and 25 percent by its unique voice.
Your logo will be used on your website, social media accounts, print materials and any additional advertising.
Start by developing a specific and distinct color palette, with consideration of color psychology and how different colors impact us. For fitness, think about what colors (and color shades) will drive motivation and/or energy.
Of course, this also is the time to decide on your branded fonts, iconography, photo styles, overall web design and any other visual elements that can come into play.
The best visual branding will be recognizable after seeing it a few times.
Again, you’ll want to run your drafts by others for feedback, which is invaluable to going with the best possible visual combination for your fitness brand.
Discover your voice
Think of your voice as how you express your fitness brand and communicate with others. You’ll want to consider the wording, expressions and tones that can be brought together to create your style.
For fitness, ask yourself if your brand should sound motivating, authoritative, friendly, informative or even something else entirely.
Check out our eight tips for finding your voice and reflecting your brand’s personality.
Once developed, you’ll want to use it consistently across all platforms and in all instances.
Build your fitness brand personality
All of the above elements should come together to inform your overall fitness brand personality.
Ideally, this personality is a reflection of you and your own personality, whether that’s high energy, exclusive, educational, fun, so on. Build on your strengths and allow all the pieces of your fitness brand to stand on their own.
No matter what direction you go in, remember that brand currency online is authenticity and trust, where authenticity leads to trust from your target audience who eventually can convert into clients.
Never lose sight of the opportunities to connect in meaningful, honest ways.
In fact, common mistakes you’ll want to avoid while building your fitness brand in general include (but are not limited to):
- Focusing on yourself and not others
- Inconsistency in branding, messaging and/or visuals
- Ignoring feedback
Your brand being a reflection of you is a great thing, but your mission is about improving the lives of others. That’s what will resonate most.
In conclusion
Once you’ve developed your fitness brand, it’s time to launch your website, strategize and promote. Consistent brand presentation across all digital platforms increases revenue by up to 23 percent.
See our seven tips to level up your content marketing.
While you’re working on promoting your new fitness brand, consider DailyStory. Our digital marketing platform integrates with Mindbody and RhinoFit to better serve fitness studios and gyms and offers such features as SMS text message marketing,
