79: The one page fitness marketing checklist. Just do these things.

In this episode Dan shares the one-page marketing plan he recommends to every fitness business he mentors, focusing on 11 proven marketing areas that consistently drive long-term growth without chasing fads.

Download a PDF version of the one page marketing checklist here.

Four things you’ll learn in this episode:

• How to simplify your marketing by focusing on 11 essential categories that actually work.
• How to build systems for storytelling, referrals, and reactivating past members to drive growth.
• The most effective way to run paid social media ads without wasting money.
• Why consistent, low-glamour marketing actions outperform chasing trends and short-term tactics.

 

---

Transcription:

I’ve spent 19 years in business searching for the magic bullet of marketing – first for my own businesses, and then for the hundreds of business owners I’ve mentored. And believe me when I tell you I’ve tried everything.

Spoiler alert, there is no magic bullet. And the more people search for it, the more they’re distracted from the tried and tested basics of marketing… the things that actually work.

There’s an exercise I’ve found myself setting for a lot of the business owners I mentor. I tell them to create a list of non negotiable marketing tasks. A one page marketing manifesto. A list of actions they need to regularly take to ensure they’re covering all bases of marketing. Then, as long as they’re ticking these boxes, I don’t have a problem with them running off chasing the shiny objects and short term trends that they hope will be the next big thing that promises to bring them 30 clients in 30 days. Almost always, this thing will be a waste of time and money, but if they’re incessantly doing the basics, at least they’ll experience the consistent, persistent, regular, steady growth that comes from doing the basics well.

So I thought I’d formalise this one page marketing plan, and share it with you guys so that in a world of distractions and broken promises, you’ve got something simple, tried and tested to come back to.

Here’s how I’m going to structure this.

First, I’ll give you a list of the 11 areas of marketing you need to focus on.

Second, I’ll give you a broad description of each, so you know how and why that marketing strategy works, along with a rough overview of what you need to be doing.

Third, for each of the 11 areas I’ll give you a very short and succinct, and HIGHLY actionable task list for that area of marketing. I’ll tell you what to do, and how often to do it, with no bullshit.

And finally, I’ll summarise each of the 11 areas into a weekly task lists to give you your one page marketing plan.

Two big caveats before we kick this off though.

Caveat number one:

The single best marketing strategy is to be so good they can’t ignore you. Without this, your churn rate will be high, and retention will be low. You can build a solid business with no marketing strategy other than providing a remarkable experience to your clients. By the same token,  even if your marketing plan is absolutely world class, you simply won’t be successful if the product and experience you provide isn’t up to scratch. You should combine this with a system to identify clients who are at high risk of departure, and a system to minimise the risk of this departure.

Caveat number two:

If you don’t know who you’re for, don’t waste your time starting the process of marketing. A marketing strategy needs to begin with an intimate awareness of your avatar – your target customer. You need to create highly detailed documentation of the avatars your business serves. This should include demographics, relationships, dwelling, occupation, education, values, personality, spending habits, content consumption, future goals, and roles in purchasing decisions. For each avatar, you should understand their level of awareness and summarise their pain points clearly. These avatars should guide your decisions about your products, services, and customer experience. Your marketing needs to be purposefully designed to speak directly to them.

Ok, with those two disclaimers out of the way, and remembering that a red hot customer experience and an understanding of your avatar need to come first, let’s jump in, we’re going to cover the following categories:

• Website
• Documentation and Storytelling
• Content Marketing
• Micro-Influencer Marketing
• Referral Process
• Email Marketing
• Customer/Member Reactivation
• Paid Social Media Advertising
• Paid Search Engine Advertising
• Offline Marketing
• Promotions and Tactics

WEBSITE:

Your business needs to have a professional, functional website with a strong user experience. It should act as the central hub for both current and potential clients, serving as both a marketing destination and an educational resource. The site needs to be optimised for organic search traffic and include dedicated landing pages with clear, low-friction calls to action for each service. The messaging should focus on who you help and how you help them, not just what you do. It needs to compel visitors to take meaningful action.

Actions to take:

• Build a one page website that has just five sections. A description of who the business is for and how you solve their problems. A brief description of the services offered by your business. Social proof through testimonials and success stories.  A call to action. And then, at the top of the page, a maximum 25 word summary of the entire website, so people can learn everything they need to know without scrolling.

DOCUMENTATION AND STORYTELLING:

You need to consistently document the life of your business on social media through tools like Instagram and Facebook Stories. These should offer potential clients a window into your business and help build a strong, authentic culture. You should regularly share client success stories using a structured narrative (e.g. a five-act story) to highlight their journey.

Your business also needs to share real-time, day-to-day content and repurpose short-term content into longer-form storytelling. These posts should feature clients who match your target avatar and clearly show how your business helps them solve their problems.

Actions to take:

• Every week, post one client story to all social media platforms (post to feed, not stories). Use the five act narrative: The Dream, The Obstacle, The Mentor, The Path, The Arrival. Ideally, this will be a video story, but a series of five carousel images with text is also great.
• Every day, post to ‘social media stories’ (Instagram and Facebook) at least five times. Feature videos and photos of clients who match your target avatar, having a good time, using your business to overcome their problems. With the text on the video/image, either tell a story (using the five act narrative), or teach people something. Tag every client who appears to encourage reposting.

CONTENT MARKETING:

You need to regularly create and distribute high-quality, valuable content across multiple formats — written, video, image, and audio. This content should be repurposed across several platforms including social media, YouTube, Medium, and LinkedIn. It needs to position you as the go-to expert in your niche and directly solve the problems of your target avatar.

Actions to take:

• Every week, solve the problems of your avatar by posting educational material. Choose one topic each week, and leverage this content into as many different media (article, carousels, video, podcast) and platforms (Your website, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, Podcast Player etc) as possible.

MICRO-INFLUENCER MARKETING:

You need to have systems in place that encourage your clients to share their experiences with your business. This content should then be featured through your social media channels, helping build social proof and trust with others who match your avatar.

Actions to take:

• Build a program that rewards clients for sharing their experiences at your business – every post gives an entry into the draw to win a prize worth $200-$300 every two months.
• Every week, distribute something about this micro-influencer marketing program either through online private members groups, in-house signage/announcements, or face-to-face (e.g. before a group class).
• Complete everything in the ‘documentation and storytelling’ section.

REFERRAL PROCESS:

Your business needs a structured and consistent referral process. You should make it easy for clients to refer their friends and provide both incentivised and non-incentivised options. Every client should understand how the referral process works, how to use it, and what their friend’s experience will be. You also need to run ongoing messaging that keeps referrals top of mind.

Actions to take:

• Build a referral reward program where you make a donation to a charity on behalf of your referring client for every referral.
• Every week, distribute something about this referral reward program either through online private members groups, in-house signage/announcements, or face-to-face (e.g. before a group class).

EMAIL MARKETING:

Your business needs to maintain a well-organised email database of current, past, and potential clients. You should be sending regular newsletters that focus on solving client problems, not just promoting your services. While some sales messages are fine, most of your communication should add value. You also need to use your email list to create targeted social media audiences for social media retargeting.

Actions to take:

• Send an email every fortnight to all clients, and anyone in your wider network. Include any content marketing you’ve done in the previous fortnight, any client stories, and one mention of both your referral reward program and your micro-influencer incentivisation program.

CUSTOMER/MEMBER REACTIVATION:

Your business needs a system to track and reconnect with past clients. You should know why they left and be able to reach out with personal, timely, and relevant messages. These reactivation efforts need to be warm, low-pressure, and connected to seasonal or life-stage triggers. Clients should return because they feel remembered and understood.

Actions to take:

• Build a system to alert you of your three clients who are at highest risk of departure each week.
• Every week, do something to improve the value of the experience you provide to these three high risk clients.

PAID SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING:

You should complete the latest courses from Meta to learn the up-to-date best practices. Your business needs to run social media ads that match the customer journey. Cold leads should see helpful content, and warm leads should see testimonials or direct calls to action.

Use batching. Run short, high-spend campaigns, then pause to review and reset. Ads should blend into the feed, with strong visuals and clear messaging.

Target three groups: people likely to be interested, people already familiar with you, and people similar to your best clients. Test, refine, and make decisions based on performance. Ads should support your broader marketing system and move leads to act.

Actions to take:

• Spend five hours doing Meta’s ‘Facebook Blueprint’ courses.
• Find a way to justify a $500 monthly paid social media advertising budget. Run a social media ad for two weeks with a $500 budget, then run no ad for two weeks. Repeat.

PAID SEARCH ENGINE ADVERTISING:

You should complete the latest courses from Google to learn the up-to-date best practices.

Your business needs to run search ads that appear when people are actively looking for your service. These leads are warm and highly motivated.

You need clear messaging that matches what people are searching for and reflects your unique value. Ads should target your local area and link to relevant pages on your site.

Your business should test different ads, track conversions, and improve over time. Google Ads should support your wider marketing system by capturing intent-driven leads ready to act.

Actions to take:

• Spend five hours doing Google’s ‘Skillshop’ ads courses.
• Run Google search ads year-round.

OFFLINE MARKETING:

Your business needs to be a visible and valued part of the local community. You should show up at events, cafés, sports clubs, and community hubs, proudly representing your brand. You need to form real relationships with local businesses and professionals and support them publicly. When people say, ‘I see you everywhere’, that needs to be true — because consistent community presence builds trust and word-of-mouth.

Actions to take:

• Do three offline things every week to make you and your business famous in the local community.

PROMOTIONS AND TACTICS:

Your business needs to avoid relying on short-term promotions or reactive marketing tactics. Instead, you should have a proactive, long-term strategy that builds brand value over time. Occasional short-term promotions can be used strategically but must never replace a strong foundation of consistent marketing.

Actions to take:

• Every quarter, promote and run some sort of promotion to get a bulk influx of new clients.

 

Ok, so that’s the overview, and here’s your one page marketing checklist.

One-time tasks:

• Be so good they can’t ignore you.
• Define your avatar.
• Build a really good website.
• Build a program that rewards clients for sharing their experiences at your business.
• Build a referral reward program.
• Build a system to alert you of your three clients who are at highest risk of departure each week.
• Spend five hours doing Meta’s ‘Facebook Blueprint’ courses.
• Spend five hours doing Google’s ‘Skillshop’ ads courses.

Every day:

• Post to social media ‘stories’ five times.

Every week:

• Post one five-act client story to all social media platforms.
• Create problem-solving content and post it in as many forms as possible to as many platforms as possible.
• Distribute one piece of information about your micro-influencer marketing program.
• Distribute one piece of information about your referral reward program.
• Every week, do something to improve the value of the experience you provide to your three highest risk (of departure) clients.
• Do three offline things every week to make you and your business famous in the local community.

Every fortnight:

• Send an email to all clients and your wider network with all the content marketing and storytelling from the previous fortnight, as well as one mention of both your referral reward program and your micro-influencer incentivisation program.

Every month:

• Run a paid Meta Ads campaign for two weeks and at least $500.

Every quarter:

• Promote and run some sort of promotion to get a bulk influx of new clients.

Every year:

• Run an ongoing Google ads campaign.

 

Do these things, and it will be almost impossible for you not to achieve persistent growth.

---

If you enjoyed this, you’ll also enjoy the following, they’re some of my most popular articles and podcasts on topics similar to this one:

• Your missing marketing strategy. The power of storytelling.
• 20 Strategies to become locally famous.
• Struggling to get clients? Try these 19 strategies.
• A gym advertising guide for every budget.