How To Successfully Build A Fitness Brand

Your fitness brand is what separates you from others.

It’s what people say about you and your work when they are talking to their friends about it.

With a successful fitness brand, you will save money on acquiring new clients since they will come to you by word-of-mouth referrals.

Also, if you maintain a clear brand, your customers will stay with you longer.

So, it is important to invest in the brand-making and planning phase as it will have a much bigger return on investment.

So, how to build a fitness brand, you ask?

Here are 5 aspects of creating a fitness brand.

Finding your fitness niche

Imagine two personal trainers who offer the same or similar exercises.

How will clients decide which one to choose?

Their branding makes all the difference.

The starting point for your branding will be determined by your fitness niche. At this step, you need to focus on what differs you from others, what makes you unique.

To do that, you need to decide on your fitness niche (like yoga, HIIT, running…).

When deciding on your niche, pay attention to:

• Type of fitness
• Target audience
• Core proposition – the main feature of your business (fresh technology, friendly, demography-specific…)
• Your competition

You need to think about the problem you are trying to solve and what makes you different from others.

Understanding your target audience

If you have already defined the problem you solve, then your target audience is people who are dealing with that problem.

But, you know, there are many different personalities out there, so it’s not that simple.

That means that you need to think about some of the characteristics of your ideal customer, like:

• Gender
• Age
• Education background
• Consumption habits
• Purchasing power
• Favorite online platform
• Personality
• Food preferences

If you already have social media accounts, you can start by checking out who are the people who like, comment, and share your posts. Find out what else they like, but also what they don’t like.

Find out what they struggle with. And then, try to solve that with your fitness program.

Developing a brand that can communicate the core of your business starts with knowing who you are communicating with.

Researching the competition

If you want your brand to stand out, it can’t look like anyone else’s. So, you need to check out your competitors to know what to avoid. Maybe even to find a gap in the offer which your brand can fill in.

There are a few steps to take when you analyze your competitors:

1. Identify competitors

Your competitors are those who offer similar services to yours to the same target audience.

2. Gather information about competitors

Think about several aspects of their business:

• Products and services – check out their exercise plans, meal plans, the way they motivate clients, etc.
• Pricing – how they charge their services
• Branding – check out their website, app, e-books and figure out what their core selling proposition is
• Reviews – find out the reputation of your competitors by checking their reviews

3. Strengths and weaknesses analysis

Analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors will show you what not to do and what to do better.

To do that, you will need to enroll in their programs, so start downloading other fitness apps, and start using them. Write down the app features, what you like, and what could be done better.

Also, if you notice that many of your competitors have the same weakness – well, that’s your entering point!

Positioning your fitness brand

Once you are done with analyzing your competitors, you can identify your competitive advantage or, in other words, your core proposition which will position your brand relative to others.

That shouldn’t be the weakness of your competitors, because they might improve their weaknesses so your brand wouldn’t stand out.

Being better than your competitors is a great starting point, but you need to think about what makes your fitness brand unique, what is your competitive advantage, and what can appeal to your target audience.

For example, your position could be professional, friendly, challenge-oriented, etc.

The easiest way to find your position could be through a table with information about your competitors, for example:

Bold or highlight with your favorite color the cells of the table that include the features of your fitness brand which overlap with your competitors.

Now, you know what your brand position is. For example, it could be a fitness brand that provides running on-demand videos for men and women from 25 to 35 with a friendly atmosphere and with a monthly subscription.

This step is important because you will need to communicate this with your designer who will create a visual design of the fitness brand for you.

Also, when designing the marketing strategy, knowing your brand position and what makes your brand different from others is the thing you will use to communicate with potential clients.

Creating the visual design of your brand

The visual design you make for your brand needs to communicate the core values, core proposition, and your uniqueness.

If you aren’t a designer, at this point, you should probably hire someone to do this part, so you get top-notch branding.

There are a few things you need to consider when designing the visuals for your brand.

• Logo

A logo should be simple, clear, memorable, and therefore recognizable. The logo will be applied to almost all other brand material, so it should be easy to incorporate.

Always have a few variations of your logo, for bright and dark backgrounds, and one in black and white.

• Color

Ask your designer what certain colors represent and what effect they have on people. Use the colors that match the way you want your brand to feel like.

• Letters

The style of the letters you use can also communicate your brand values. But, you don’t have to write everything in one font, quite the opposite.
Nevertheless, you will need to choose a font, or even make a new one, for short messages you want to stand out from the rest of the text.

• Branding guide

Don’t skip this step, because a branding guide will define how you use the branding in various situations.

Once your designer makes a branding guide, you will know how to use your branding for social media posts, merchandise, in your app, on your website, etc.

That way, you will have a cohesive visual identity that will be recognizable wherever your clients follow you.

Final thoughts

You are already on a good path to create an awesome fitness brand.

We know that because you are here, researching how to do that in the best way possible.

And don’t worry, the invested time and energy in researching, planning, and creating your fitness brand will return in the form of new clients that will stay with you for a long time.

And the most convenient way for your brand to become recognizable is through a branded fitness app. It is going to become an inseparable part of your clients’ day which you can use to engage with those clients, motivate them, check their progress, and celebrate their goals being achieved.