Online personal training is more important than ever in this pandemic period. Offering training services online is a pivot to stay profitable and necessary to continue serving clients. One couldn’t have imagined how outright essential online training would become a couple of years back. Fast forward to 2022, we have learned how important it is for fitness trainers to take their businesses online.

Whether you are looking for how to start a personal training business or expand an existing one online, there’s a lot to understand about what’s involved.

How does online personal training work?

When it comes to personal training online, there are different approaches you can adopt. The one you choose must be according to your business goals and your target audience.

Creating personal workout programs

Offer custom workout programs, where the clients will guide themselves through workouts with your videos and tutorials.

Offer advice on nutrition and health

Besides workout programs, a personal trainer must be knowledgeable in many health and well-being areas. For example, consider helping clients analyze areas of their health like nutrition intake, stress levels, sleep patterns, weight loss plateau. This helps in supporting client goals by suggesting healthy dietary and lifestyle choices.

One-to-one live sessions

Offer one-to-one classes remotely, just as you would offer in the studio. The only difference is that you provide training over video calling services. This type of personal training comes at a premium price, but it works as the closest thing to an in-person workout session- including all the motivational help that comes along with it.

Group-based online personal training

Besides one-to-one personal training classes, you can also consider offering live streaming training sessions to a large group of clients. For example, you can conduct group fitness classes and live stream them or make on-demand workout programs and make them available to clients via subscription plans.

Now let’s decide on the steps you need to follow to get started as an online personal trainer.

Decide who you want to train online

The secret of running an online personal training business is selling to the right target audience. You just need the niche where you have a clear advantage.

When deciding which niche is right for you, think about your professional skills and interests, personal experiences, and whatever else defines you. You must also balance live training and pre-recorded workout programs. The best approach is to integrate both pre-made workout sessions and virtual training. Balance out training sessions with a mix of live sessions that clients can do whenever required.

Set up your virtual training space

You can indeed train your clients from anywhere remotely. But, it is always good to have a dedicated space that allows you to be as organized and efficient as possible.

Before choosing a training space at your home, consider the following things.

• Do you have enough space to demonstrate workouts to your clients?
• Is the space enough for keeping all equipment?
• Is the environment clean, professional, and free of distractions?
• Does the space have enough natural light, or does it require lighting set up?

Ensure the training space you choose has plenty of lighting and space between your camera and the training areas. Make sure you set all the equipment in the space so that you have everything handy.

Choose your personal training software

You can use Facebook Live, Instagram Live, or even Zoom to conduct online workout sessions when you are just beginning. However, as your client base grows, it becomes difficult to manage everything from scheduling classes to handling payments.

If you are highly dedicated to growing your online personal training business, you can consider investing in training course management software to make the process simpler and efficient. Pinlearn is one such tutoring software to host self-paced online training sessions and live one-to-one sessions. Being a self-hosted solution, you gain 100% control over the script to customize it according to your unique business requirements.

Leverage additional revenue streams

If you want to really scale your online personal training business, it is important to expand your revenue streams. Think about different areas you can level up to help you sell personal training online to your clients.

For example, you can use video libraries, online PDF eBooks, personalized nutrition plans, etc. As you begin to integrate these additional revenue streams, you will start getting more clients as well.

Monetizing your personal training business

Depending on the type of classes you can offer, you can implement different types of monetization models. Also, you can price one-on-one live training sessions high when compared to group classes. Here are some of the monetization strategies you can implement in your online personal training platform.

Upfront payment for individual sessions

If you are implementing one-day fitness programs, allow your clients to pay upfront for individual sessions. You can also consider offering individual training sessions, for example, for Yoga or CrossFit training, for which clients can pay for.

Membership plans

This is one of the most popular revenue models most fitness businesses follow. Clients pay either monthly or for, say, 3 months, 6 months, or even 1 year to gain access to either one-to-one or group classes along with other perks. Other perks you can include are custom diet plans, weightless transformation, phone consultations, email support, online assessments, accountability services, etc.

Market your online personal training services

Indulging in marketing activities is one way to improve the exposure of your personal training to get more clients. You must also use existing relationships like word of mouth to popularise your service. Besides, you must also leverage social platforms to reach out to your potential clients and talk about your services and how they can benefit from them.

Create short workout videos that would compel your target clients to check out your personal training website and social profiles. In addition, consider leveraging email marketing to bring exclusive offers and training packages to the attention of your potential market.

Conclusion

The world is moving towards tech-based personal training. Some fitness studios have already started virtual classes and online fitness coaching, but not everyone has started embracing it. There will always be a demand for in-person personal training experience among clients. Get into online personal training along with studio workout programs so as not to miss out on opportunities for business growth and fall beyond the competition. Online personal training is here to stay for long!