A quality website is one of the most important investments a company can make. A clean and well organized online presence that effectively shares a brands core message and values cannot be overlooked.

A well-branded company has a website that:

• Generates interest
• Shows what it can do better than anyone else
• Proves that it is trustworthy and reliable
• Shows market authority and value

Successful Branding for Instagram Star Bella Falconi

Here at Fitness Website Formula, we have worked with several high profile clients to establish a strong personal brand message that is designed to attract their target audience. One of our clients Bella Falconi is a Brazilian fitness model with over 3.2 million Instagram followers. She needed a website that her large following could use to sign up for her online coaching service. We created a clean and easy to navigate website with a streamlined design and strong personal branding.

One brand marketing strategy that is commonly used in the fitness marketing world is making the reader feel like they are apart of something. The goal for Bella’s website was to make each visitor feel like they are the perfect candidate to join Bella’s fitness movement and purchase a plan from her online coaching business. The website is designed to evoke emotion with quotes that target the consumer and motivate them to take action and become apart of this inspiring group of people. Her new website brands her as an authority in the online coaching market with her catchy headlines, thoughtful testimonials, and consistent color scheme.

Personal Branding that Led to Location Expansion

You don’t have to be a high profile fitness star to benefit from personal branding and a well designed website. One of our clients OC FIT just opened their 6th location after working with us for over four years. We have used their website to help them develop a strong brand identity that is recognized throughout Southern California. Their website brands them as industry leaders in the Southern California fitness market and as a result, they have been very successful and continue to open new locations to meet the high demand for their services.

The brand marketing strategy we used is the creation of a “villain” or something that the brand can combat and beat. We branded OC FIT’s villain to be the extra pounds people want to get rid of, which gave them a competitive edge against other gyms in the area. Our goal was to make OC FIT the go to place in Orange County for weight loss, which was successfully achieved through their website’s branding.

Their growth to several new locations is a direct result of strategic branding and great website design. When customers go to OC FIT’s website, they can tell right away that they are a reputable gym just from their first glance. This encourages people to stay on their website and explore their deals – resulting in big sales!

Is your website in need of a branding overhaul? Call us today for a free consultation to see what our marketing and design team can do for you!

At Locus Marketing, we specialize in helping lifestyle brands thrive, and the fitness industry is one of our main type of businesses we work with. The fitness industry is one of the hardest industries to be successful in because there is so much competition.  Potential clients have many trainers and gyms to choose from when they decide they want to improve their health and wellness.

How do you, a fitness professional, convince people to try your services over the other gyms and trainers in your area? The answer is simple – you need to brand yourself as an industry leader.

Being an industry leader will help you to differentiate yourself from your competition, whether they offer similar classes as you or have a similar rating on Yelp. Potential clients will always trust a leader and authority in their local market that is on the cutting edge of fitness.

You want people to trust you and come to you when they have questions because they know you have the knowledge and expertise they need to reach their goals. Here are the top ways to brand yourself as an industry leader in your local market:

1. Innovation

Industry leaders are outside the box thinkers with risky and creative ideas. Think of classes that put a new spin on traditional workouts and host challenges with unexpected twists and incentives. Constantly try new things based on what your target audience is looking for and jump on it before your competition does.

2. Online Presence

A professional website is essential to be taken seriously. Stop managing your own website and hire a company to do it for you. You need interactive graphics, custom pages, HD videos, and strategic copy to be taken seriously as an industry leader. A professional and streamlined website presence cannot be compromised, especially since most potential customers compare gyms based on their website.

3. Consistently Share Your Knowledge and Insight

Updating your blog and social media daily are essential if you want to be viewed as a knowledgeable industry leader in your local market. Write articles on your blog that can be shared on social media about topics related to fitness, nutrition, and your company that are consistent with your brand. What does the latest research say about eating food after 7pm? What are your thoughts on going vegan? What did you eat for dinner last night after your workout? The possibilities are endless and the more interesting and insightful posts you create, the more you will be trusted.

Trusting an industry leading fitness website company is an efficient way to achieve all of these things. Fitness Website Formula will improve your online presence enabling you to increase leads, create a professional platform to share your innovative ideas with your current and potential clients, and link to your blog and social media pages to brand your business as an industry leader.  Contact us today for a free consultation and learn about how our website and marketing strategies will improve your business.

Read our Fitness Marketing page to learn how Locus Marketing may be of your assistance.

Locus Marketing is excited to announce that it has added Facebook Ads to its list of our digital advertising services. Facebook is continuously adding more monetization tools to make ads even more effective at driving sales.

Facebook likes are nice, but leads are even better! Try out these strategies:

• Send your traffic to a high converting landing page
• Test impression bidding vs CPC bidding
• Test radius vs. zip codes for local targeting
• Take advantage of ads that work well with Lookalike audience

Strategically creating Facebook Ads will improve their client’s marketing consistency and effectiveness. Ads allow businesses to target specific markets based on demographics, behavior, and contact information to guarantee more leads and exposure to potential customers.

Businesses who personally handle their Facebook Ads spend tons of money experimenting with different demographics and types of content. People with little experience in online advertising lose time and money trying to figure out what methods are the most effective.

Locus Marketing’s years of experience in online marketing has taught them what works and what doesn’t so there is no trial and error period for their clients. Their knowledge will optimize ad campaigns with quick results and high lead generation.

Locus Marketing will also provide detailed ad tracking to monitor impact. Their analysis of these reports will allow them to continue to provide their clients with top-notch services and improve future campaigns.

Contact us today about starting or improving your Facebook Ad Campaign!

Your website can be your one of your most effective assets to generate new customers and gain interest in your community. It is vital for the growth of a fitness business to establish a strong online presence so it can be seen by the community it exists to serve.

Typically, the fear that keeps fitness professionals from pursuing a strong online presence is the concern that the work involved would be too technical.

A common theme is that companies have a website but don’t know how to maximize its potential. They know the potential is there but just don’t know where to capitalize on it.

So the problem for fitness professionals is that they can see where they can take their business but don’t know how. They have limited options to do it alone:

• They could attempt to learn how to create their own website but learning those skills could take months or years.
• They can use free web design templates, but this is just a frame that anybody can use.
• They could ask their friend the web designer to build a site for them, but they have no experience designing a site for a fitness business.

On the surface, an aspiring fitness entrepreneur can take many routes to bypass his lack of technical knowledge. But how well would the resulting site perform? Would the fancy design be enough to translate passion for fitness into business success?

Designing a fancy website that is not designed to be a marketing tool is like opening a five-star restaurant but neglecting to construct a kitchen.

As fitness entrepreneurs, you face a dilemma when creating a website. You want a website that showcases your passion and care for what you do. At the same time, you need a website that can be your greatest marketing tool when growing your business.

With poor and limited options available to do it independently, fitness professionals are disillusioned at the idea of moving online with little technical knowledge and no easy means to acquire more.

A fitness expert could have a lot of knowledge to share but no means to get online. A web designer might be able to create a website, but a good design isn’t going to make it successful on its own. And a generic web design is not going to make your website stand out amongst the crowd.

Here at Locus Marketing, we have seven years of experience blending these two seemingly different industries: fitness and web design. We design you a great looking site, but underneath it functions as your greatest marketing asset.

Not only does your website need to look professional but it needs a marketing platform where potential consumers go to learn more about you. You only have one chance to make a first impression on them.

We implement the necessary additions to our websites that give higher results on search engines and are designed to generate and convert leads.

Our solutions involve designing your website using our time-tested formula that is proven to improve:

• Site traffic
• Lead generation
• Search engine ranking

Not only do more people find their way to your site, but your site is actually designed to make sure those visitors are intrigued and want to learn more by getting involved.

We take the internet marketing load off of your shoulders, and we make it easy for you to take your business to new heights.

We feel confident in our ability to make it possible for anyone to take their fitness business online no matter their technological skill level. We have mastered the art and science in selling fitness online and designing websites for fitness businesses. It has taken us years to develop our best practices to navigate the complexities we encounter every day, so we love being able to share it with you.

Check out our portfilio and our web design services!

At Locus Marketing, our mission is to make it possible for you to build, improve, and sustain your business. Every service we provide ensures your website’s strong online presence.

One of the biggest challenges holding back a lot of the companies we encounter is a lack of a strong online presence.

Having a strong online presence is crucial to a long term success of your company. You know that this industry has a lot of opportunity and growth. But, because of these low barriers of market entry, there are so many fitness businesses arising that the level of competition is fierce even among the large companies.

The top 4 fitness corporations earned less than 19% of total industry revenue in 2015:

Source: www.IBISWorld.com

This division of wealth is a lot smaller than what you might see in other industries. It shows that the fitness industry is a lot friendlier to smaller businesses. Most gyms only service a 15 mile radius around their location which limits the impact the large companies can have. Which allows for a lot of new entrants into the market.

So with so many players coming into the fold what do we do to make your gym, studio, or box stand out amongst the crowd?

We drive traffic and visibility to your website by creating specific content in the form of:

• Blog Articles
• Newsletters & Marketing Funnels
• News & Press Releases
• SEO keywords

People typically use the internet to do their research about any number of things before they purchase it, no matter how they learn about it. If someone receives your flyer or hears about you via word of mouth, they will search for your website, social media presence, and online reviews. If they can’t easily find you, they WILL move on. You cannot pass their screening process if they can’t find you!

Some business owners feel that simply having a website is enough, but this is the bare minimum.

Your website should be the marketing platform where prospective clients can go to see your offerings and be able to sign up with no hassle. Your website needs to be able to:

• Perform well across different platforms (especially on mobile devices!).
• Have the ability to generate leads for your business.
• Market your services in a professional way.
• Be navigated easily or they will lose interest.

One of the best ways that your website can benefit your business is by optimizing it for search engines. We are experts at ensuring your website is among the highest results. This immensely improves your online presence and change of converting leads.

Our tested, easy to implement website design formula is proven to generate high levels of growth and visibility for our clients.

Establishing a website for your fitness business that gives high results on search engines and generates reliable leads will  provide you the requisite tools to build your business and take it to the next level. Locus Marketing is here to provide that service. You are very busy people; let us worry about your website.

These days it’s not just a good idea to have your site include mobile optimization, it’s crucial for your business!

We highly recommend upgrading your website to be mobile-friendly – ASAP.

We can help you!

I know, I know… you’re probably thinking, “I have a website that looks cool on a desktop, why should I care it’s optimized for mobile devices?”

Well, Here are 3 Things You Need to Know about Updating Your Website to Include Mobile Optimization:

1)  If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re missing out on potential leads and ultimately your business will suffer! Websites that don’t work well on smartphones will not perform well from the latest Google algorithm update. Google updated it’s algorithm in favor of websites that look and perform better on mobile devices. Ultimately, these sites are ranked higher on Google’s search results. You need to think about if your site is readable, responsive and if it uses non-mobile friendly software (e.g. Flash).

More people are using their mobile devices to search on the web. According to the latest data from eMarketer,  Americans in 2013 were using their mobile devices the same number of hours as they were using their desktops and laptop. Now, that number has gone up to 51% of mobile time verses 41% of time used on laptops.

These days, more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in most countries.

Wow!

So… knowing this, it’s time to make sure your site is up to code with Google’s requirements for high quality mobile optimization.

2) Our Sites are “Mobile” Smart for Conversions. We implement Google’s standards into our clients sites so they get high search rankings. All of our client’s sites LOOK GOOD and PERFORM WELL on mobile devices. That’s why our client’s sites are ranked highly on Search Engine Optimization.  Some of our features are shortening long content and mobile specific tracking.

These elements factor into your search ranking on Google

• Are your web pages loading fast?
• It is easy for leads to sign up?
• Is there a good flow of content?
• Is your site user-friendly?

Is your site mobile-friendly?

Check it with this test: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

3) Don’t delay – Take action now! We recommend that if your site fails to function on mobile devices, according to Google’s standards, you upgrade ASAP. The longer you wait, the longer your business suffers and less leads will convert.

Think about the last time you were looking up a restaurant or activity online. Did you read reviews from others to determine whether it was worth the money and time? You most likely did. In today’s world, the Internet opens up many possibilities to communicate the benefits or drawbacks of services or products. In a business, such as fitness, where the service is not tangible the use of customer reviews is of the utmost importance. According to a Bazaarvoice survey, 76% of consumers regularly or occasionally use online reviews to determine which local business to use. Customer testimonials are a huge driving force behind successful fitness companies and fitness web design because they prove to others that the results of your clients are possible for them.

Telling someone you can change their life and give them the results they are looking for is great, but seeing results and hearing them from another customer is much more influential. Potential clients will always be more persuasive than the business itself. Creating a strong level of social proof helps people to make decisions more easily and trust the business they are beginning to work with. Minimizing skepticism and maximizing social proof through customer testimonials is a guaranteed method to bringing in a constant stream of new clientele.

Let’s talk about three main factors in determining how much influence social proof has:

1. Scale
2. Similarity
3. Ambiguity

Now let’s break each of these down and explain their impact.

• Scale: This requirement is all about the power of numbers. People are more likely to do or buy something if a large quantity of individuals tell them it provides benefits. Hearing the positive results of 15 people has a greater impact hearing from five. Our fitness web designs provide ample space for customer testimonials and proven methods to organize them.

• Similarity: We are more inclined to connect with someone’s experiences if they are similar to us. Similarities can be anything from gender or race to hometown or career. This means it is important to incorporate testimonials from a wide variety of customers, to increase the chance of potential clients connecting with at least one of them. It is important to appeal to many potential audiences and not limit your testimonials by featuring customers that are all similar to one another.

• Ambiguity: A lack of familiarity causes potential customers to stray from deciding to buy a product or sign up for a service. The most surefire way of combating ambiguity is to create a strong sense of social proof. Customer testimonials are the most effective way to create undeniable social proof. It is harder to argue against the success of a company if they have multiple convincing customer testimonials.

We believe fitness web design and customer testimonials go hand-in-hand to ensure the long-term success of fitness professionals and their facilities. We place a high level of importance on utilizing testimonials as a main focus of our web designs because of the huge benefits they provide.

Make Your Testimonials “Benefits-Driven:

Customer testimonials need to be solely focused on the benefits of your fitness practice. It is great to have customers speaking highly of you, but they need to highlight the direct benefits of your service to be successful. Testimonials that are benefits-focused are hard to argue with, and leave potential clients without reason to doubt your validity.

Now that we have gone over the reasons customer testimonials are important, it is time to discuss how to make them as effective as possible.

1. We recommend keeping customer testimonials on the shorter side, but also not short enough that information is left out. It is important to maintain the attention of the reader or viewer while getting all of the benefits of your service across.
2. Video testimonials or testimonials that incorporate images are much more successful than text by itself. Social proof is increased with images because results are visually understood and leave little room of skepticism.

Within the text or video, it is important for your customer to emphasize the benefits and values that your business was built on. These are suggestions on important elements to include in a benefits-driven testimonial:

• Backstory and what they wanted to change about their bodies or physical fitness
• The tangible results the fitness studio has helped them achieve through before and after photos
• The culture or environment of the studio
• Other studios or plans they tried that did not produce the same results
• How their lives have been changed

Each of these components gets across the benefits of working with your studio while providing ample opportunities for potential clients to connect with current ones. It is important to have testimonials that are personal and express emotions so that the testimonials do not seem like commercials. The benefits of your business should be heavily implied, but while keeping the testimonial about the customer’s experience and their results.

Overall, benefits-driven customer testimonials improve businesses because they:

• Increase social proof
• Limit skepticism and ambiguity
• Are not directly trying to sell something
• Are easier to connect with
• Directly explain and display the benefits someone has had as a result of joining
• Endorse benefits and values without being an advertisement
• Bring in new audiences and demographics

Here at Locus Marketing, our marketing services are dedicated to helping you create and promote customer testimonials in a proven and effective manner. Our web designs portray your testimonials in a logical way and provide ample opportunities for potential clients to learn more and sign up for a free offer. In addition, our WordPress plugin Awesome Fitness Testimonials, assists with the creation of testimonials that follow all of the suggestions listed above. We understand the power of customer testimonials and want to help you reach your maximum potential by utilizing them. Grab your free copy of the Awesome Fitness Testimonials plugin today and reap the massive benefits we have to offer.

Want to learn more?  Read the Customer Testimonials Part 2 on the design of testimonials on your website and options to obtain testimonials from your customers next month!

Recently, many of you have been asking us how to use pixels in Facebook. This article is dedicated to helping you understand what they are, their importance and how to use them to track your audience and conversions.

First of all, there were two types of ad pixels Facebook offered: custom audience pixels, which were used to create website custom audience and conversion pixels, used to optimized ad campaigns while tracking conversions. Now there is only ONE pixel to do BOTH functions.

What we recommend you use:

• View Content – to see who looks at your website
• Complete Purchase – to see who buys your service or product online
• Lead and Complete registration – these will help you track sources and behaviors of leads

Cool, but how will it help me with my business?

This new pixel provides you with more effective conversion tracking which will help you understand leads to redesign your strategy for a higher ROI.

Awesome! How do I install it?

1) First you are going to find your Pixel ID.

• Go into your Ads Manager dashboard
• On the left column click “Audiences”
• Click into the name of an existing Website Custom Audience (if you don’t have one, create a new one)
• Facebook will then open a new window
• On the right you’ll have an info box which will show your pixel ID

2) Next you are going to learn how to track your generic Audience and Conversions on all your Facebook pages.

You are going to click on your “Appearance” tab on the left column of your WordPress account (highlighted in blue in the photo below). Scroll down to “Theme Settings”. Once you are there, you are going to copy and paste your Facebook Pixel ID into the textbox labeled “Custom Code for <head> tag”, located at the bottom of the page.  Hit “Publish” or “Update”.

3) Thirdly, you are going to learn how to track conversions on a specific page. In this example, we are going to show you how to do it on your “Thank You” page.

After you have found your Pixel ID, login into your WordPress Account. As the picture below shows, you will click “All Pages”, scroll to the bottom of the page, then copy and paste your Pixel ID code into  the text box labeled “Conversion Pixel”. Make sure you also check “Insert Facebook Conversion Pixel code on this page”, as the picture shows. Click “Save”.

Cross-Device Reporting

After installing the pixels you will be able to be able to track conversions of leads from their different devices.

For example, a lead might see your Facebook ad while they are away from home on their mobile device. It is doubtful they will convert right then and there, but it likely they will think about and remember your ad, then on convert later on their tablet or desktop computer.

Why is this Important?

Facebook reports that 32% of people who showed interest in a Facebook ad on a mobile device converted on a different device within 28 days.

It is becoming increasingly more common for leads to show interest in a mobile ad and then convert using their tablets or computers. Knowing this information about leads can help you better plan and strategize your marketing campaigns.

To View Cross-Device Tracking

After installing the Facebook pixels, go to your Facebook Ad Reports. Click Edit Columns and select Cross-Device on the left side.

Takeaway:

We hope this step-by-step instructional guide for setting up Facebook Pixels was useful to you. Implementing Facebook pixels can help you optimize your Facebook ads, track audience and conversions to help you shape your marketing campaigns accordingly.

If you would rather hire someone to manage your ads, learn more about our Digital Adverting solutions.

Landing Pages are the bread and butter that draw in clients. They’re informative, direct, and can really tie a website together. Many times it’s the first impression of your site that a potential lead will see. So it’s crucial to have one that motivates them to learn more about your services by entering their information and becoming a full lead.

Here at Fitness Website Formula, we understand how crucial a great landing page is for our clients. We feel driven to create pages that not only stand out, but drive in sales; turning leads into loyal clients. 

Ultimately, a good landing page should encompass these eight aspects:

1. Catchy headline
2. Compelling offer(s)
3. Informative videos and tips (i.e. weight loss, etc)
4. Strategic placement for subscriptions/sign up forms
5. Scarcity factor (e.g. limited time offer)
6. Social proof (e.g. testimonials)
7. Mobile optimization
8. Strong call to action (flow of copy itself)

Below are examples of landing pages we have recently created for our clients.

But what’s the difference between a “good” landing page and successful one? Maybe you have some or all of these eight tips already on your website but still aren’t turning a profit. With our Fitness Website Formula, we utilize all eight aspects and turn our clients into successful business owners through our compelling landing pages we tailor make for their business needs.

How do we do this?

• We use our direct-response driven web designs to draw in leads for our clients
• We are experienced in sales copy writing so our client’s leads take action
• Our client’s websites have a high rate of traffic conversion
• We have a proven sales funnel for our client’s websites
• Last but not least, we constantly measure and improve our process

We know how challenging it is to create a website on your own that brings in sales. You are running a business and you need all the help you can get.

Do you need a professional help? Let us help you with our Website Design services!

Last month, we covered the purpose of customer testimonials for small businesses and how to ensure they are benefits-driven. This month, we want to go over the integration of testimonials on your website and ways to obtain testimonials from your customers. It is awesome to have testimonials, but if they are not displayed correctly the purpose is diminished. In addition, it is one thing to say you want to use testimonials and another to figure out how to get them.

We are here to help you achieve successful testimonials that accentuate your web design and continually drive in new clients.

Testimonial Placement

It is important to display your customer testimonials in a manner that will attract people to view them, not turn them away. It is easy to crowd testimonials on your page or have them look scattered and unorganized. Although you want to place as many testimonials as you can, placing them without a plan defeats the purpose.

We constantly test our web designs to ensure testimonials are being portrayed and organized in the most efficient and results-proven way possible. By doing this we have some suggestions for testimonials on your website:

• Place testimonials in a central location on the main page of the site
• If you have many testimonials, list them below the key information on the front page or create a separate area on the site for them
• Incorporate long and short testimonials
• Video testimonials
• Geo-target testimonials
• Images
• Source of testimonials

The Locus Marketing service incorporates all of these ways to obtain testimonial value on your site. We have a proven design for testimonials that achieves constant traction and we believe you should incorporate long and short testimonials. All of our sites are SEO based and geo-target testimonials to potential clients. Images are important for testimonials to further social proof, and we also encourage videos to provide a deeper personal element. Lastly, the source or name and location of your testimonials furthers the value by continuing to prove credibility and limit skepticism.

Obtaining Customer Testimonials

As you can see, testimonials are an amazing way to increase social proof for your business and drive in new clients, but how exactly do you get these testimonials. There are more ways than you probably knew to achieve testimonials from your happy customers.

The most common and arguably easiest and best way is to reward your customers for their testimonial. Offering a free personal training session or another incentive will cause many of your customers to want to help out. Sometimes though, simply asking a thrilled customer is a good way because they could want to promote their success working with you.

Social media and other online sources are another way to obtain customer testimonials. Some examples are:

• Facebook reviews
• LinkedIn recommendations
• YouTube video reviews
• Local search directories
• Niche review sites
• Google alerts and social mentions

All of these sources are great ways to find leads to testimonials and require little effort. Social media is a powerful tool that can help your business grow and succeed in more ways than engagement and promotion.

Call to Action

One of the best things you can incorporate along with customer testimonials is a call to action. It is strategic to place “Free Consultation” or “One Free Week of Group Classes” buttons next to testimonials on the web page so it is simple for potential customers to get started. This diminishes the time or effort between deciding you want to try something out and taking the step to actually sign up for it. Placing testimonials in different areas of your website allows for  more call to action buttons for customers to decide to click on.

All of our web designs take advantage of call to action buttons placed prominently on the site. We have found that call to action buttons for a “Free Consultation” or “Free Week of Classes” are the main driving force for getting new leads.

Accompanying customer testimonials with call to action buttons makes an easy transition for people to take the next step after deciding they want to try your service. Making the process simple erases any leftover hesitation people may have before deciding to try your business out.

Last Words

Our goal is to ensure you have all of the tools necessary for a successful fitness business and that you consistently are increasing your clientele. We have top notch web designs that place you at the top of the game and above your competitors.

We understand the power of testimonials and the importance of their placement on your site. As we explained in part one of this post, our plugin Awesome Fitness Testimonials will cover all the bases of creating and presenting customer testimonials on your site. The purpose of testimonials is to generate solid and strong leads every month, and we are confident we can make that happen. Let us help you take your customer testimonials to the next level and use them to their highest power. Sign up for the Awesome Fitness Testimonials plugin today!