How to Build a Fitness Brand

Your fitness brand represents who you are. As an entrepreneur, building a fitness brand is about more than building your social media or marketing strategy. Establishing a brand makes you credible, trustworthy and sets you up for success. Fitness is one of the most competitive yet profitable industries. You need to cut through the noise and create a memorable brand if you want to stand out. 

Creating an authentic fitness brand is a multifaceted process. Various spinning cogs come together to build the kind of brand that is deserving of your business. Investing your time and resources into fitness branding is worth your energy. A strong brand is essential for growth, no matter what’s happening in the world. Here, we talk about how building a brand benefits your fitness business and nine steps to take to start your own brand. 

• How Building a Brand Benefits Your Fitness Business
• The Fitness Industry: 2021 Update
• 3 Qualities of a Strong Fitness Brand
• 9 Steps: How to Build a Fitness Brand

How Building a Brand Benefits Your Fitness Business 

It’s no secret that fitness is one of the most competitive industries. It takes roughly five to seven impressions for people to remember a brand. Throughout the day, people are bombarded with hundreds of brands. From TV and radio to social media, brands are constantly looking for ways to communicate with their ideal client. You can stand out in a sea of competition with a unique brand. Your brand is what gives your business a face, voice, and personality. It’s one of your most valuable assets. A company’s brand allows customers to identify your business, product, or service. Branding has a huge impact on customer awareness, loyalty and drives sales. 

A memorable fitness brand consists of your brand strategy, vision, style, and mission. Statistics show that 81% of consumers need to trust a brand before they make a purchase. No one wants to buy from an untrustworthy company. Often, new clients will make a split-second decision about your brand after first encountering it. This is why it’s so important to build a consistent, authentic, and transparent brand. On top of building your brand, you need to focus on building trust in your brand at the same time. 

The Fitness Industry: 2021 Update 

The global fitness club industry is over $87 billion. This includes all the gyms, fitness centers, and fitness clubs all around the world. Over the last couple of years, there has been a clear shift in the fitness landscape. People are becoming much more self-aware and interested in leading a healthy lifestyle. Fitness supports overall wellness and mental health. It’s no longer just for lifting weights or running on the treadmill; it’s an experience that boosts your physical, social, and mental wellness. 

More people are working out online and accessing fitness services than ever before. Going forward, hybrid business models will continue to drive the industry. Despite many businesses opening their doors and welcoming customers back, the adoption of digital fitness is evident. Fitness businesses are more determined than ever to serve their clientele with complete flexibility and convenience. 

Fitness continues to expand, with gyms selling more than memberships. A holistic approach to health looks set to continue with gyms increasingly tapping into more revenue streams. Services like nutrition, body scans, health checks, personal training services, and e-commerce will grow as fitness takes center stage as a form of preventive medicine. 

The Fitness Founders Podcast talks about using your brand to engage with customers and the current state of play in the fitness world. Steve Brauer is the owner of  WTF Gym Talk and  Urban MVMNT, a fitness studio in North Carolina. He discusses how to keep members loyal and provide value in an online fitness setting. 

3 Qualities of a Strong Fitness Brand 

Often, when you describe some of the world’s best brands, it sounds like you’re talking about a person. Terms like genuine, honest, and confident often pop up as a way to define some of the strongest brands. Here are three qualities of top fitness brands. 

Relevant and Consistent 

As consumers are more likely to purchase a brand they know, building brand recognition is key. Companies who have inconsistent branding run the risk of confusing potential clients and appearing untrustworthy and low-quality. Mixed messages get in the way of providing value and building brand awareness. Brand consistency is crucial in creating a memorable and powerful brand. Brands that continuously make themselves relevant to their target customer create better emotional connections. 

Excellent Strategy

A good brand has a solid brand strategy. They have all the elements of a great brand, but it’s what they do with that branding that sets them aside from the competition. The most successful brands know how to create a genuine and emotional connection with customers. They share the same values and ethics as their target audience. Your brand strategy not only gets your brand in front of people but directs your marketing strategy. The result is real connection, brand awareness, and customer loyalty.  

Powerful Visual Identity 

Visual branding creates an experience for the customer. How your brand looks is a crucial part of the larger success of your branding. It’s a tool that allows you to communicate with your target audience and visually reflect your brand. No matter how perfect your messaging or business is, your visual branding is often one of the most effective tools in capturing attention. Today’s marketing world is incredibly visual, and the look of your brand will support your long-term success. 

Stuart Brauer, micro gym owner, and fitness business consultant, talks about the importance of storytelling when it comes to building a brand. He talks about some of the biggest mistakes he sees when companies rebrand and explores the topic of influencer marketing. 

9 Steps: How to Build a Fitness Brand 

Building a memorable and unique brand takes time. From the beginning stages of figuring out your business concept to creating your visual branding and implementing a strategy, there’s a lot involved in creating a brand. Here are nine steps to take to start building a brand that your members love. 

Determine Your Niche

The first step in building a great brand is finding your niche. Most small business owners already know their niche, but you can refine this by the solution you’re providing and your target audience and demographics. Your niche will depend on your goals and your expertise. When you identify your niche, you can research your competition and analyze the fitness market demand. You can then start to develop a brand that aligns with your goals and strengths. 

Figure out Your Target Audience 

Defining your target market will play a crucial part in the success of your business. When you know who you are talking to, you can craft the right messaging and create a brand that aligns with your target customer’s values. Continue to test your brand proposition with various groups so that you can find out as much information as possible from the people that represent your target audience. When you know your customer’s pain points, you can design content and branding more effectively so that your brand resonates with your target audience. 

Evaluate Your Competition 

In order to stand out from the competition, you need to know who your competitors are, what they do, and how you can do it better. Your competition analysis will allow you to take advantage of your competitor’s weaknesses and improve your own branding. Your brand shouldn’t duplicate your competition. Instead, it should be unique and make you stand out from the crowd. To create a comprehensive and effective brand strategy, competitor research is crucial. It will set the foundation for building a successful brand. 

Nail Your Mission Statement 

When crafting your brand’s messaging, your mission statement explains what you do and why you do it. Your why is key to providing value and bolstering your brand proposition. To create your mission statement, think about the reasons that you’re starting a business and what you want to accomplish. It’s the transformation you’re looking to achieve and how you will be helping your members to achieve that. Your business’s core mission will guide your brand strategy and help you make better decisions when building your brand. 

Choose a Powerful Business Name 

Naming your business is a simple yet tough decision. A lot of thought goes into the name of a business. It has the power to propel you to a higher level of success or confuse your target audience. Your name is just a part of your overall branding, but it will seep through into your logos and visual branding. A powerful business name is memorable and unique. Your business name and tagline should have meaning for your services and your customers. Try to be different from your competitors. The name should be easy to say, spell, and remember. 

Leverage the Power of Social Media 

There are almost 4.2 billion users on social media worldwide, an increase of 13% over the past year. For a savvy marketer, a well-planned social media strategy can be very rewarding for a business. Marketing channels like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube can offer a ton of growth opportunities. Your social media plan will form part of your greater brand strategy. Social media is an excellent place for your brand to create high-quality content, build authority, work with influencers, and engage your audience. You can spice up your social media content strategy with videos, memes, Reels, images, and infographics to keep your membership base engaged. 

Create a Visual Identity 

Developing your visual brand identity is a key part of building your overall brand. When done right, your visual brand identity will convey your offering, personality, mission, and values without using any words. The first visual element you will focus on will likely be the logo. Other elements to consider are your color palette, imagery, typography, and graphic elements. Brand identity and brand visuals are intertwined. One doesn’t quite work without the other. So, you must convey the right message whether you’re using an image, color, or copy. 

Find Your Voice and Personality 

Your brand’s voice is the specific personality of your business. It’s the tone you use, your words, and the personality you use to create the member experience. For example, take Nike; they are inspiring and positive. They develop a sense of urgency in their tone yet remain motivational, inclusive, and encouraging. When deciding what type of brand personality you have, think about the words that you would love for someone to describe you with. Do you want to be fun, exciting, and innovative? Or maybe, you want to inspire with a calm yet informative tone? Your brand voice and personality will guide your messaging throughout your entire business. 

Craft Your Branding and Marketing Strategy 

Once you have gathered together the different elements of your brand, you can start thatcrafting your branding and marketing strategy. Your fitness marketing strategy is shaped by both your brand strategy and your overall business strategy. Your branding strategy encompasses the experience that customers take from being a prospect to a fully-fledged member. To achieve your business goals, you need a successful fitness brand. Your brand strategy is all about evolving your brand into a successful name so that you can hit those goals. 

In Summary 

Whether you are just beginning your fitness entrepreneur journey or looking to rebrand an existing business, you need a strong brand. Your branding is what allows you to compete in a saturated market. It’s what will make you stand out and be better. From this, you can create a loyal following that will allow your business to experience real growth.