Creating content that doesn’t lead to engagement is just a waste of time. But how do you know what your audience wants, how do you deliver that, and how do you measure success? This article will explore these questions and give valuable tips on creating great content to engage your audience.

Why Create Engaging Content?

Creating engaging content is essential for personal trainers for the following reasons:

- Attract Potential Clients

- Build trust and credibility

- Increase engagement and interaction

- Boost your SEO.

Knowing your audience

The foundation of any content plan is establishing precisely who it’s aimed at. The more accurately you can pin down your target audience, the better you can tailor your content to them. Unsurprisingly, this can at first seem overwhelming.

Still, there are plenty of resources if you want to dig into it, such as our ulimate guide to content marketingand thispost from Hootsuite, but to make it easy for you, here’s a simple three-step approach to get started:

1. Assess your existing client base – Review the information you already have about your clients (age, profession, motivation, interests, time availability, etc.) and identify patterns to help you create a few typical personas. You could ask them directly about the kind of content they’d like to see, either through a questionnaire or an informal chat.

2. See what your competitors are up to – Identify some of your closest personal training competitors and examine their content. What format is it in, what tone do they use, how often do they post, and what sort of engagement does their content have? Use this research to narrow down the most successful approaches. You may want to do this in your niche or wider personal trainer community.

3. Try different things and measure them – Instead of making a rigid plan and sticking to it, try a few different things and see what works best. You’ll need to measure the outcomes and tweak them accordingly.

Choosing formats and subjects

The key to successful blog structure is to create valuable and relevant content that engages your audience and meets their needs.Here are some ideas for different topics and formats to try out when experimenting with content for your personal trainer business:

· How-to guides

· Quick tips

· Celebrating success (yours/clients)

· Sharing testimonials

· Fun stuff (e.g., polls, competitions, quizzes)

· Sharing/commenting on news stories

· Flagging up events (+ reporting back)

· Offers and promotions

· Product reviews

· Seasonal tie-ins

Always keep in mind the particular need that you’re aiming to fulfill. You might find it helpful to refer to this checklist of audience needs, which was initially devised by the BBC to engage younger audiences, but has been widely adopted by digital marketers:

1. Update me

2. Keep me on trend

3. Educate me

4. Give me perspective

5. Divert me

6. Inspire me

Measuring success

Measuring the success of your engaging blog content is crucial to understanding what works and what doesn't work for your audience. Here are some ways to measure the success of your content:

There are various ways of measuring successful engagement, depending on the content involved, for example:

· An increase in followers on social media

· An increase in newsletter subscribers

· An increase in likes, shares, and comments on social media posts

· An increase in web traffic

· And ultimately, an increase in inquiries and new clients

Set some goals, monitor progress, and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Tips for creating engaging content

Engaging content is the backbone of any successful marketing strategy, but creating it isn't always easy. If you're struggling to capture your audience's attention, don't worry - we've got you covered.

Make a plan

As discussed, trying different things is good, but this should still be planned carefully. Consider the types of content you might need (web copy, blog posts, newsletters, social media posts), the different assets you could use (text, video, audio, images, graphics), and how to source those assets. Consider how much time/money you have available for creating content, and focus on quality rather than quantity.

Be purposeful

Always have a clear purpose behind your content regarding both the need you’re fulfilling and your business objectives. Ensure your audience can quickly recognize the appeal of the content and easily understand how you want them to engage with it and what you want them to do next. Include a call to action wherever relevant, and signpost it.

Find a hook

Use titles, hashtags, first lines, intros, and descriptions to draw your audience in straightaway; work out how best to capture their attention and pique their curiosity. Always take care to deliver what you’re promising, though – there’s nothing more annoying (and disengaging) than misleading, clickbaity headlines that lead to disappointing content.

Hit the right note

Fine-tune the timing, type, length, frequency, and tone of your content so that it chimes with your audience’s needs and expectations. It will probably take a bit of trial and error, but delivering the right content at the right time, in the correct format, will increase your chances of engagement.

Play to your strengths

You should use your content to demonstrate your expertise and credibility, but playing to your strengths also means understanding what formats suit you best. For example, perhaps you don’t come over well in videos, but you have a great voice for audio. Maybe you can take outstanding photos but find it challenging to write content. Exploit your skills and get help to fill the gaps if needed.

Be professional

People are much more likely to engage with your content if it’s presented professionally. That doesn’t mean overly slick or corporate (which can be offputting), but just well formatted, accurate, relevant, authentic, and easy to understand. In addition, images and videos should be reasonably high quality, the text should be error-free and helpfully laid out, and sources (links and shares) should be trustworthy.

Be responsive

If your audience engages with you, acknowledge it. Then, respond to comments and shares, answer questions, ask questions, and follow up conversations. It doesn’t have to be an immediate response, but it should be reasonably quick – don’t leave them hanging. They should feel valued. This is how you turn engagement into meaningful connections.

Start Writing Today

Creating engaging content is critical to the success of personal trainers looking to attract potential clients, build trust and credibility, increase engagement and interaction, and boost SEO. Knowing your audience is the foundation of any content plan, and identifying their needs and preferences is key to delivering content that resonates with them.

Experimenting with different formats and topics, measuring success, and making a plan are crucial to developing an effective content strategy. By following this guide, personal trainers can create content that captures their audience's attention, builds a relationship, and ultimately leads to more inquiries and new clients.