Learning ‘How to Get Your Fitness Business in the Media’ will greatly benefit you in the long, and could see a significant increase in your income and number of clients. This process isn’t as complicated as you may expect, but to help you get started we have created this beneficial guide.
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How to Get Your Fitness Business in the Media
In this article, we’ll show you 5 ways you can get your fitness business featured in the media through proven, actionable techniques we’ve used to get our brand featured in the press time and time again.
These are the exact approaches we take, that got us featured in the likes of the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the independent, Men’s health, women’s health, Muscle and strength and dozens of other mainstream media.
See here how our we are featured in the article by the Metro on “how much water you need to drink after exercise”:
And here how we got featured in Men’s health for their article on “6 ways to Improve your home workout”:
Personal trainers just like you have built their online reputation by doing this, see here online trainer, Scott Laidler including his features on his website from the likes of Sky News, the BBC, Men’s Health and FHM:
Why You Should Get Your Fitness Business in the Press:
Getting your Personal Trainer business featured in the press is great for several reasons:
Social Proof
It helps boost your social proof and you can include as featured in and then the name of the news outlet on your website, social bios and even your email footer, like we have here:
Social proof helps you and subsequently your fitness busienss in many ways:
- Increases Trust & Authority – Trust and authority ties into your level of social proof. By having press coverage for your fitness business increasing your trust as an authoritative expert within your niche that you know exactly what you’re talking about.
- Increases Sales – By advertising that you have featured in the media as a go to expert, increases your chance of getting more enquiries, and converting those enquiries into new paying clients.
- Improves your website rankings in search Engines – Getting a brand mention or a link back to your website from a major news site or magazine publication helps boost your website up the Google rankings by the website passing on link authority to your website.
Now we have established why you want to get your fitness business in the press, let me show you our proven techniques for how you can start doing this yourself.
Technique 1: Get your Fitness or Personal Training Business in the Media via Press Releases
The easiest way to get your fitness or personal training business featured in the media is to do a press release.
If you have just launched a new service like online training or, opened a gym, offered a new style of class locally or perhaps your business has done something charitable like giving free gym access to kids or free budget meal plans to those in low-income families.
This is local news-worthy content, and you can do a press release to notify the media about this.
For example, in January 2021 we launched into the republic of Ireland as part of our international expansion, so we did a press release to notify the local media with the aim of getting featured in articles by local news sites or brands.
This was picked up by the business site: Think Business, who wrote a news article on our about our expansion and growth:
This is How to Write a Press Release:
- Write out a concise headline – Ours was “OriGym announces expansion into Republic of Ireland”
- Write a short overview paragraph of what your press release is about
In our press release we said:
After almost 5 years of operating across the UK since their initial Liverpool launch, OriGym has encountered substantial growth and is the fastest growing training provider within the fitness remit. Now operating out of 14 locations in the UK, OriGym is announcing its leap into the Republic of Ireland, providing courses for aspiring fitness professionals across three locations; Cork, Dublin and Limerick.
- List how this might benefit the local community or a particular demographic
For example, on ours we say:
Students will benefit from unlimited free resits (despite the 98% pass rate), and guaranteed interviews with OriGym’s extensive list of corporate partners across Ireland and the UK on completion of their course.
- Include a quote from yourself highlighting the news and benefits further:
For example, ours said:
Managing Director, Luke Hughes said:
OriGym is delighted to announce that we will be expanding our horizons into the Republic of Ireland and will be offering a range of fitness and health qualifications to the Irish population.
Despite the negative impact of the Coronavirus on the fitness sector as a whole, the demand for online and home study qualifications has risen, and OriGym will be the first fitness provider in Ireland to offer almost exclusive home learning.
With the need in the Irish market to offer standardised fitness qualifications that meet and surpass the requirements of major employers, we feel our regulated and accredited courses will meet the needs of the sector
Once you have written your press release, you can send it via a number of different PR websites:
PR Busines Wire, Media HQ or Prowly.com with the aim that a journalist picks it up and finds it newsworthy.
Technique 2: Use the “Press Hijacking” Technique to get your Fitness Business in Magazines & Newspapers
This technique is called “press hijacking” and has gotten us featured in more news publications than any other method.
Magazines and newspapers are constantly looking for fitness experts to contribute to articles and posts and through this method you’re going to be that expert.
See here how I have contributed to the article by the Metro – “PT shares how to motivate yourself to work out even when it’s freezing”:
This was all done by using the “press hijacking” method and here’s how you can do it too.
There are several websites that connect brands to publications, including:
These websites are used by thousands of journalists working in the mainstream media and they use these websites to reach out to ask for expert help with articles.
Here at OriGym we primarily use Response Source and they email briefs from journalists about articles they want to get expert help, relevant to the fitness niche.
See here the email that hit my inbox from Response Source on behalf of Men’s Health:
They are looking for a Personal Trainer that can help Men’s Health readers with tips on improving basic weight training in a gym.
See another example here where the fragrance shop is looking for a nutritionist, PT or physiotherapist who has worked with athletes:
All you need to do is reply to the email and tell them you can help.
Here is how you construct the reply:
- Tell them you can help
- Tell them you have the credentials to answer their query e.g. you’re a qualified personal trainer
- Give them a time span of when you can get answers to their queries by
- Ask them if they are interested
PRO TIP: DON’T ANSWER THE QUERY UNTIL THEY RESPOND – You don’t want to waste your time writing out detailed tips for them to not actually publish what you write.
Here is a real example for you, of me replying to a response source request from a journalist called Becky, who works for the Daily Telegraph:
As you can see, I am telling her I can help with her query, have highlighted my credentials so she knows I am the right person to help her, and told her I can get answers over immediately and to let me know if she is interested.
Here is Becky’s reply.
I then sent over the answers to her questions as promised as quickly as I could:
As you can see Becky seemed to like my answers and my tips ended up getting featured in the Daily Telegraph:
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Technique 3 – Get your Fitness Business by Writing Guest Posts
As we have established, fitness brands and news outlets want help from fitness experts to fuel their online content.
In fact, many want contributors that badly they have dedicated pages on their website for exactly that.
For Example. See here how website Mom News Daily, which covers health and fitness for moms is looking for writers to contribute to articles:
And here, how fitness news outlet, Healthy Gym Habits, is looking for writers to contribute to their fitness network:
Finding fitness brands, magazines and news sites that want you to write for them is really easy, here’s how:
STEP 1 – Google is your Friend
Go to Google and search in inverted commas “write for us” or “guest post” followed by different fitness based words like “fitness“, “gym” or “personal trainer”.
For example, see here how I have put “write for us” in inverted commas followed by “gym” and it has pulled up loads of websites that are looking for guest posts, writers and contributors, including supplements companies, fitness blogs and publications:
Each company and content outlet will generally list their criteria of eligibility, like this one from JLL Fitness.
They tell you how you can submit an article, their quality guidelines which includes word count, whether you can include a link back to your website and whether you need images:
Be aware that every company or publication has slightly different criteria or guidelines.
For example, this write for us page by Women’s Fitness Mag has a criteria of a minimum word count of 500 words, whereas JLL Fitness’ minimum word count was 300 words:
One thing they all have in common though, is that the content must be unique and not published elsewhere, which you can see is clearly stated on both of their websites.
How to Get Started with Fitness Guest Posting to get your Fitness Business in the Media
All you need to get started with guest posting to your name or fitness brand in the media is to find a selection of topics you know a lot about and start writing, making sure to stick to the guidelines specified.
Once you have finished writing your article and proof read it, just submit it for their consideration.
Give them a week or so to come to you and ensure to follow up with your submission. If they reject or don’t come back to you, you can simply re-submit to a different publication.
You can also find guest post opportunities by typing into Google “Guest Post” fitness list, like I have done below, which brings up websites that have lists of fitness related websites that accept guest posts.
Here I have clicked through to Linkio’s website, which lists out hundreds of fitness websites that accept guest posts:
If you filter by “DA” which stands for domain authority, like I have above, you can bring up the websites with the strongest online presence, which brings up some huge brands like Bodybuilding.com, Shape magazine and Mind Body.com.
You can filter through these websites one by one and start submitting your articles.
We have done this exact strategy to get our fitness business in the press. See here our approved guest post on PT Minder, one of the world’s largest fitness software companies:
Pro Tips when submitting guest posts:
- Never send plagiarised content to a publication, they will delete it faster than it took you to send it.
- Don’t send the same article to different publications. Wait for them to accept or reject it first, and then you can re-use it if it was rejected and submit it elsewhere.
- Tell them your credentials when sending, so that they know they should take your article seriously and that you have the expertise to be writing on this topic.
Technique 4 – Use Your Clients Success to get Media Attention
Everyone loves a success story, especially one that overcomes the odds! Media outlets love these types of stories as positive news shares well via social media.
All you need to execute this type of success story is to highlight one of your clients’ that has achieved something really impressive with their fitness goals, such as losing a substantial amount of weight, overcoming a traumatic event or maybe they have won something particularly impressive since training with you.
You can either approach media outlets direct and give them the story to feature or write the feature up yourself and publish it on your blog. The latter of the two options increases your potential reach as more than one media outlet can feature it.
See here how we did an customer success article on one of our students, Ryan Wetton-Byrnes:
Ryan overcame cancer and once recovered, turned his passion for fitness into helping others through personal training.
PRO TIPS:
- Get consent from your client first
- Performing interview style content works best for this type of article
- Include quotes from your client that the news publication can refer to
- Include the role you played in their success, so your brand gets mentioned
- Make sure to outreach to as many local news sites as possible to increase your chance of it being featured.
Technique 5 – Get your Fitness Business in the Media by Publishing Content on Your Own Blog
This method is arguably the most difficult to execute for many fitness professionals as it can be time consuming, but for us, it helps us get our fitness business in magazines, mentioned on major brands blogs and newspapers all year round.
This technique is where you’re going to publish a unique and interesting article on your own website’s blog and then outreach via email to media contacts and journalists to let them know that you have this amazing new article and that its worth them covering and sharing with their audience.
There are 3 types of blog post content structures that magazines and news publications like to cover that you can do yourself for your fitness business:
Expert Tips Articles
Expert tips articles are very popular forms of content and media companies love to reference actionable tips from experts within their own articles.
For example, see here our article here on running tips in hot weather:
This article was picked up by the Metro after we outreached to them to let them know about it and they used our tips within their article:
How to Write a Tips Article:
- Find a topical or trending topic. For example, our “Running in hot weather tips article” was published in July, during the heatwave, which makes it very topical.
- Research your topic using multiple sources thoroughly on your given topic
- Give readers actionable tips that they can implement, and break them down step by step.
- Don’t be afraid to offer your opinion on the subject
- Outreach your article to news sites and niche specific journalists, which we’ll show you how to do this shortly in this article.
Write “How to Guides” to get your Personal Training Business Media Coverage
If you’re looking to get your fitness business in the media, creating how to guides is a proven way of doing this.
See here how our how to guide on “how to jumping jacks” has been referenced by Holland and Barrett in their article on “How to exercise indoors”:
Or here how business media giant Vocal Media has done an article on best sports careers to pursue and referenced our statistic and linked to our article “how to become a sports nutritionist”.
“How to guides” are a great way of being the expert and as you can see, even huge brands will reference you as the source.
Here at OriGym write a lot of “how to guides”:
In fact, this very article is a “how to guide“, “how to get your fitness business in the media“. We know that not just do our audience like them, but most importantly, they might get referenced by a big media outlet.
Tips on writing a “How to Guide“:
- Pick a topic that you feel comfortable writing about that is relevant to what you sell and know about or have done yourself. Whether that’s a how to do a certain type of exercise, sharing a busines insight like how to get more PT clients or how to improve a certain discipline of fitness like “how to run a 5k”, or “how to start weight training for beginners”.
- With “how to guides”, make sure to explain and include every detail of how they can achieve what they are looking for.
- Use bullet points, imagery and clear step by step instructions to show what is done in what order.
- Outreach your guide to let relevant brands and newspapers know about it
Articles with Original Research
The last structure to getting your personal trainer business featured in the media is creating your own research.
This is the most powerful technique as news outlets love to reference newfound data and studies, especially within the health and fitness remit.
For example, we created this article: Gym-timidation, which is a blog post based on a survey that we ran to female gym goers to see if they have ever felt intimidated when going to the gym and what type of intimidation they have felt:
This was picked up by numerous media outlets including magazine, “myweekly” who wrote an article referencing our blog post, see how they are referencing our statistics:
See again, the same article being featured in fitness magazine sustain Health:
Here’s another example with another blog post we created on the UK’s fittest cities, which ranks 20 cities in order of fitness against a set criterion:
This was picked up by local news outlets from regions towards the top and bottom of our list referencing their city as one of the “fittest” or one of the “unfittest” as that’s what makes gets their readers engaged. This was even picked up by National Newspapers such as the Sun:
Tips on How to Create Original Research:
- Brainstorm ideas of posts that are topical or trending where data would be useful or you can run a survey on, for example, here’s one we’re working on right now – “how many women in the UK have taken steroids”.
- Create a survey using tools like type form as seen here:
- Get participants by posting in fitness Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, down your socials and email your database asking people to take part.
- Analyse your results and write out your findings. Use graphs, tables or graphics to show your results.
- Tell the audience what it is showing and why it matters.
- Outreach your article to news sites and journalists, which were going to show you next how you can find journalists and newspapers and how is best to approach them
Finding News Sites and Journalists
Before publishing any of your content, you want to define a list of niche specific journalists and publications you want to notify about your new article.
This is actually easier than it sounds as journalists want to be found as their entire livelihood is based on correspondence with the general public.
There is a couple of ways you can find news outlets and journalists.
Finding News Outlets
The internet is full of ready-made lists. Simply go to Google and type in “list of news publications uk” like I have done here:
You will see a ton of websites listing news outlets that you can reach out to, like this one by Feedspot.com:
Start collecting the email addresses and social media handles in an excel document ready to email for when your post goes live to notify them about the article. You can also re-use your the list for other articles you do.
Finding Fitness Specific Journalists
On virtually all articles and news stories there are author bios or references, giving credit to the writer.
If you search something really generic like “how to run fast” or “how to get fit” or “lose weight“, followed by the name of publication you can find journalists that write on those sort of topics.
For example, I have typed into Google “how to get fit Metro” to find a journalist that write about fitness topics for the Metro:
Which pulled up this article by journalist, Natalie Morris:
I then clicked through to her profile, and hey presto, I have her email address, which I can add into my journalist excel sheet for once my article is live to outreach to:
You can then repeat this process for every fitness specific magazine and news site to create a targeted list that you can email about your new article.
Here’s how to construct your email….
- Subject Line: that spells out what the article is about
- Make the email short and sweet
- Tell them why its relevant / important -Use bullet points
- Personalise your email to the journalist
- Track your responses, which you can do in Microsoft excel, follow up on your email and build relationships.
By collaborating with fitness writers regularly, not just can you get your fitness business in the news now, but through building relations you can get easy features later down the line.
See her how fitness and wellbeing writer Emma Pritchard is emailing me directly for quotes for Women Health magazine for a number of different articles:
This is because I have developed a relationship with Emma, and she knows I’ll give her a quote that she needs in a super quick timeframe.
In fact, I have contributed to 13 different Women’s Health articles over the past 2 years and as you can see here this relationship has helped me get my name and OriGym in the press:
Before You Go!
That wraps it up for our top 5 strategies of how to get your fitness business in the media.
It’s important to continue improving your fitness business and increasing brand awareness, both through the media and word of mouth. The best way to do this is with specialist courses, including our online Sports Nutrition courses. You can then market yourself as both a personal trainer & nutritionist to gain more clients.
Find out more by getting in touch today or download course prospectus here.
