Small business owners know that harnessing the power of social media to advertise their products and services is not optional in any contemporary marketplace.

What could every business (regardless of whether they're B2B, B2C, or nonprofit) use more of? Leads and customers, of course! That's where marketing and digital marketing come into play, but in today's crowded market, it's getting harder and harder to differentiate yourself and stand out. So, in order to continue to increase the number of leads in your pipeline and the number of active customers that your business services, you have to get creative. You need some digital marketing ideas to spur growth.

As a successful fitness business owner (and we know you are!), you know that you want to grow your business. I mean...when you're passionate about helping people achieve their health and wellness goals, there's nothing too big and there are never too many people, am I right? But what's the best way to go about growing your business? Where should you focus your efforts in order to see that growth and be able to help more people? Well...if you've landed on this blog, you probably already know that digital marketing is a great way to do both of those things.

Unfortunately digital marketing is not easy and it does require a lot of thought, work, and experimentation to get it right. It's really easy to invest a lot of resources and money into digital marketing and not see any tangible return or not understand whether you're seeing a tangible return or not. In fact, a study by Smart Insights found that 47 percent of businesses are doing digital marketing without a clear strategy. That said, you really can't afford to just throw some random content out into the world and hope it sticks! That is not the most effective or efficient way to go about marketing your business. Instead, you want to be strategic about your efforts. And being strategic means starting with a solid strategy that you can use for all of your digital marketing. 

Still not convinced? Here are 6 reasons you NEED a digital strategy for your fitness business.

Since we began working with HubSpot as a Partner Agency, our eyes have really been opened to the power of establishing well thought out and reliable buyer personas. We all want to target and talk directly to our target market, but in general, most business have not yet created buyer personas.

If you read one of my recent blog posts titled Creating Personas: What Are They and How Do I Develop One, you should now understand what a buyer persona is and how we create one. If you haven't read that and you don't already understand buyer personas, taking a look at it before reading any further here would probably help you understand these theories a little better.

If you already have a good understanding of what they are and how to create one, now you might be wondering why buyer personas are important for you and how they can help your business. At it's most basic, understanding your customer will help you better understand how to sell your product or service. By understanding who your customer is, what they value, etc. you will understand them and how you can fit into their life. There are five overall ways that developing a buyer persona for your ideal customer can help you better sell to them. Let's look at each item separately and then address how they can all work together.

One of the biggest benefits of digital marketing is the ability to target and segment your audience. Gone are the days of posting a billboard on I-25 hoping you are reaching your target audience. Instead, say hello to the days of robust targeting where you can narrow down the types of people you want to talk to not only by age, location, gender and HHI, but also by their interests and behaviors. 

Take Facebook, for example. Facebook has some of the best audience targeting capabilities of any platform. If you're looking to find men ages 20-26 who live in Denver, CO, drive a Subaru, ski every weekend in the winter and love superhero movies...you can find those guys! And then serve an ad to them. Take that, billboard advertising!

All of these increased targeting capabilities are great, but how can you ensure, from a marketing standpoint, that you're going after their right people and developing content and materials that will speak to their needs and wants? Two words for you: buyer personas. Creating personas will help you understand your ideal customers and help make sure that everything you develop falls in line with their wants, needs, goals and challenges.

Let's talk about what a buyer persona is and how you can develop one for your brand...