This is one of the biggest mistakes trainers make when transitioning into online personal training;

They don't understand or know every single important detail about their perfect online personal training clients. 

I get it, it’s more interesting to dive straight into what your program is going to be about and the colour of your logo. Yet many trainers are wasting all of this time, effort and money, because they don’t really know who they are making it for.

But here’s the thing, many trainers think they know who they are making it for.

The most common profile I hear is ‘women aged between 30 and 40 who have tried all the diets before and now want a long term solution to fat-loss.’

It might even ring a bell for you too, because that’s the exact same demographic that you and every other online personal trainer is creating an online fitness program for.

I’m not saying that this is a bad target market, but that’s all it is, a target market.

In this article I’m going to show you how to transition from just having your target market in mind, to understanding and knowing every single important detail about your dream online personal training clients.

Because when you do this, your online program or service suddenly becomes glass slipper for your dream client. You stand out from the crowd and you can actually create something that people will want.

Only when you take the time to map out your exact online 'avatar', should you advance forward with your ideas, website design and program creation.

And it makes sense, right? To market a product or service properly, the first thing you must do is get clear on WHO your ideal client is, where they are hanging out, what their challenges are.

But the impact of taking the time to create and find your avatar goes beyond just creating a good program. It’s going to stem into every inch of your marketing and sales, which we know is literally the driving force to improving your online fitness business. 

You’ll know what blog posts, eBooks and social media updates to publish that ensure your avatar actually takes notice.

You’ll learn where your ideal avatar hangs out, how to find them and what targeting options to use to get in front of them.

Your website, blogs, adverts and sales pages will improve because you know who you are writing to and in a way that compels your avatar to take action.

And that’s just scratching the surface...

Any part of the marketing and sales process that “touches” the client (which is pretty much everything) will improve when you get clear on your client avatar.

After all, it’s a person that buys our products and services.

It pays to get clear on the characteristics of that person, so you can find and present them with a message that moves them to action.

Before digging in, as a valued reader of the blog, I’d like to extend you an invitation to my upcoming and totally free online training workshop - ‘How to Confidently Create and Grow Your Online Fitness Business’.

This workshop is for you if you want to finally create a plan that will produce real results to get you in front of your target market online and create more meaning by having the opportunity to impact more people with your expertise. This workshop is our most complete training on how to become an online personal trainer.

All you need to do to attend is click here to register your free spot.

The 5 Avatar Components

There are 5 major components to the client avatar.

In some cases, you’ll need to survey or have conversations with existing customers to accurately flesh out your client avatar. In other cases, you’ll be familiar with the characteristics of your ideal client.

Let’s make up an example avatar here together;

Meet Steve.

Let’s now look at each component of the avatar profile and fill them with our example Steve.

1. Goals and Values

You should begin with the goals and values of your ideal client.

Make note of the goals and values that are relevant to the products and services you want to offer.

Steve’s goals are to lose the stone in body fat he gained last year and to get his bench press to its former level of 100kg.

Steve’s values are that family comes first and that he fulfils the role of his job to his best ability. He also see’s himself as a leader, and wants to instill that into his 10 year old son.

Based on this information we know already about Steve, a Facebook advert calling out “men who want to re-gain control of their body”, would be perfect.

That will get Steve’s attention.

2. Sources of information

This section of the profile is critical to determining the “where” of your client avatar.

You will determine the best places to advertise and the targeting options you’ll use to reach your avatar by listing their sources of information.

At this point it’s important to think about what else your avatar is seeing, hearing, reading and listening to.

Let’s map it out for Steve:

• Books: High Performance Living by yours truly 

• Magazines: Men’s Health

• Websites: Bodybuilding.com

• Guru’s: Jamie Alderton on Facebook

Use the “but no one else would” trick when completing this section. You’ll simply complete sentences like these…

• My ideal client would read [BOOK] but no one else would.

• My ideal customer would subscribe to [MAGAZINE] but no one else would.

• My ideal customer would attend [CONFERENCE] but no one else would.

Are you getting the picture?

The idea is to find the niche books, magazines, blogs, conferences, gurus, etc. your ideal customer would be attracted to – but no one else would.

3. Demographic information

Applying demographic information will bring your client avatar to life.

While the usual demographics are critical, the exercise of filling in the ‘Quote’ field can be particularly helpful to “get inside the head” of your ideal client.

The demographics are another useful part of the client avatar when choosing targeting options in ad platforms like Facebook.

And, when writing content, email or sales copy it can be beneficial to simply write as though your avatar were sitting across the table from you.

Demographic information like age, gender and location will give your persona a look and feel.

Let's do it for Steve…

Steve is 40 years old, married with 2 kids aged 8 and 10 and lives in Manchester, UK. He works as an engineer, in a project management role and earns $75,000 per year. He’s university educated and enjoys fly-fishing on a Sunday.

4. Challenges and pain points

This section will drive your new program creation as well as the copywriting and ad creative you’ll use to compel your ideal client to action. If your program or service can speak directly to your ideal clients pain points, it’s going to get a response, and they will likely take action on it.

For Steve, his challenges are:

• Losing the body fat he is gaining slowly each month

• Finding time to get to the gym

• Staying up to date with the best nutrition and training advice to help him

• He feels alone in tackling this challenge

For Steve, his pain points are:

• His confidence is low because of how he looks

• He’s not getting any younger and feels the pressure

• He’s fears getting ill from poor health and not being able to support his family

Originally we created an ad for “men who want to re-gain control of their body”.

Now we can take this a step further…

"Are you tired of gaining weight because you lack the time to eat healthy and exercise regularly?

Then check out our Elite Body Program created specifically for men who want to re-gain control of their body."

Now we’ve really got Steve’s attention because it’s specific to one of his pain points and challenges.

If you need more help with planning or creating your online coaching program, check out our article "3 Proven Steps to Become an Online Personal Trainer". 

5. Objections

Why would your client avatar choose NOT to buy your product or service?

These are called “objections” and they must be addressed in your marketing.

You must also determine your avatar’s role in the purchasing process. Are they the primary decision maker? Are they a decision influencer?

Understanding your ideal clients decision making process is paramount to the success of your future marketing and sales campaigns.

Here's what Steve’s objections to the sale could be:

• Does this give him flexibility to eat with his family at night

• How long will each of the training sessions be and how often

And his role in the purchasing process:

Steve is the decision maker and has the funds to buy an online program when he wants to. He’s not worried about the price point but does seek value from his purchases.

Take Action

It’s time to do an initial deep dive on your own avatar for your online personal training program.

Start by building a single avatar. 

Remember to cover all 5 important elements of the avatar profile:

1. Goals and values

2. Sources of information

3. Demographic information

4. Challenges and pain points

5. Objections to the sale​

Ready to learn more on how to be an online personal trainer?

My team and I have just finished up creating a brand new training workshop called 'How to confidently create and grow your online fitness business (even if you hate tech!)'.'

Best part? It costs you nothing. This is your official invite - all you need to do to attend is click here to register.

This workshop is for you if you want to finally create a plan that will produce real results to get you in front of your target market online and create more meaning by having the opportunity to impact more people with your expertise.

Join me and I’ll walk you through the exact steps you need to take in order to get started online and my proven strategies on how to be an online personal trainer.