Research shows that businesses that have consistent branding can earn approximately 23 percent more annual revenue than those that are inconsistent.

Have you ever thought about the visual branding for your fitness business? Have you considered how it might be affecting your ability to attract new personal training clients?

If you’re not happy with your current visual branding or don’t know where to begin when it comes to changing it, you’re in the right place. Explained below is everything you need to know about branding your online fitness business.

What is branding?

Branding goes way beyond having a logo or using specific colors in your marketing materials—but that’s an important first step! Branding is both your visual representation of your brand as well as your vision, mission, goals, target audience, and service offerings. It’s all about giving meaning to your online fitness business by clarifying what it is and isn’t and shaping the way people view it.

The goal is for people to be able to quickly identify your brand, separate it from others in the fitness industry, and choose it over your competitors’. When you accomplish this goal and have a strong branding strategy, it’ll be easier for you to attract and retain loyal personal training clients.

Aside from your logo, here are the main elements you’ll need to build out a strong branding ecosystem:

• Build out a colour palette—one dark, one light, and a few neutrals. Try to align this with your logo (more about logos below)
• Choose your fonts–ideally a simple font that can be styled in different ways, or one simple font and a secondary font that’s more elaborate for headings
• Choose your text treatments & build a style guide—do you use ALL CAPS or italics? Do you use outlines or drop shadows? Choose a few treatments for your fonts and decide how you’ll use the different treatments
• Build a few social media templates—one for quotes, one for client testimonials, one for definitions, and a few for educational carousel posts. This consistency will help your clients recognize your posts in their newsfeeds

⚡️Learn more about digital assets for Instagram in The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Marketing for Fitness Professionals!

Why does branding matter?

There are lots of reasons to make branding a priority when you’re running an online fitness business. The benefits extend far beyond the potential for earning more revenue and increased customer loyalty.

Here are some of the greatest advantages you’ll experience when you start focusing more on building your brand:

• Easier marketing: It’s easier to promote your business and see results from your marketing efforts when you use consistent branding practices
• Increased credibility: A solid branding strategy increases your credibility and makes it easier for current and potential clients to trust you
• Targeted client acquisition: When you focus more on the specifics of your branding, you can make sure your marketing materials are helping you attract your ideal clients

Good branding can help you save time and money in the long-run, too. It minimizes the amount of trial and error you’ll have to go through and decreases the need to use other, more costly measures to try and attract clients. Templates and consistent colours and text treatments also make it easier for you to create marketing materials and simplifies the creative process.

Tips for branding your online fitness business

If you offer online personal training, you need to take branding seriously. If you had a studio, you’d want to make sure your branding was clear both outside and inside. For online, you need to do this as well. Here are some specific steps you can take to do a better job of branding your fitness business:

Know your target client

A good starting point for your branding is to think about your target client. What kind of client are you hoping to attract to your business?

Don’t just say “everyone”! Get specific about who you want to help. How old are they? What is their gender? What fitness challenges do they experience?

The more you know about your target client, the easier it’ll be to create marketing materials that appeal to them. After all, the type of logo design or marketing content that appeals to someone in their 20s will likely be different from the content that appeals to someone in their 50s.

Update your logo

Good logo design is another important part of a good fitness branding strategy. Your logo is one of the first things that comes to people’s minds when they think of your business. A well-designed logo can increase brand recognition and help you ensure that people remember you when they’re considering hiring a personal trainer.

When you’re creating your logo, think about which colors and fonts best reflect your business’s mission and values. Make sure your logo design looks good in different sizes, too. Especially if you’re an online-only business, think digital. Does your logo work well on your social media platforms? Does it work on your website?

Use high-quality images

A picture is worth a thousand words, and the right pictures can also make or break your branding strategy. If you’re using low-quality, blurry pictures or boring stock photos to brand your business, you’re going to have a hard time standing out, gaining recognition, and being taken seriously.

Whether you’re using professional images as part of your logo or part of a specific piece of marketing content, make sure the image is clear and easy for people to make out. On social media, people are attracted to high-res, well-lit, beautiful photography. If you don’t have good photos of yourself and your business, get some.

Improve your marketing materials

Make sure all of your marketing materials are of the highest quality.

Everything you produce to promote your business ought to feature your branding. Remember to include details that appeal to your target customer, too! Use language and images that will resonate with them and help them see why your fitness business is the right one for them, too.

Be consistent

Remember to be consistent with all of your marketing and promotional materials as well. Whether you have a branded fitness app or business merch that you’re trying to sell, your business’s logo and messages should be visible and look the same across all materials and platforms. Use the same profile photo or logo for all of your digital channels. Further, always use the same colours and fonts to communicate with your leads and clients.

Remember, it takes repeated brand exposure for people to start to recognize your business. The more consistent you are, the easier it’ll be for them to separate you and your brand from others in the industry. If they like what they see and find that it resonates with them, this, in turn, will increase your credibility and help them to trust you and get excited about what you have to offer them.

That’s a wrap on our guide to branding your fitness business. If you develop your branding with your customers in mind and keep consistent, you’ll reap the rewards of strong branding!