It goes without saying that utilising social media is a great way to increase sales online. This is the first in a series of posts that will give you insight into using Facebook to optimise your personal training business.

Let’s assume that you have set up a Facebook page and created some ads. It’s obvious that you want your ads to reach the right people – people who will eventually sign up for personal training sessions with you. So how do you ensure that your ads, posts, etc reach the right audience? In one word: segmentation.

Segmentation will increase your Facebook response rates. It’s as easy as this…

Define your target audience. Include aspects such as geographic location and interests. For example, target people in your local area who are interested in fitness. Geotargeting is fantastic because it allows you to reach people who are located in your specific area. Interests can be really broad, or very specific, so give some careful thought to the interests that potential clients would have.

Facebook will tell you the size of your audience, based on your segmentation. For example, it can show you how many people who live in your city ‘like’ #fitness on Facebook. This will let you know exactly how many people will be seeing your adverts, posts, etc.

The best way to use segmentation is to divide your larger target audience into smaller, well-defined subgroups. Then use different adverts, posts, etc that will appeal to each different subgroup. For example, you might want to have subgroups such as body builders, professional athletes, or new mums who want to lose their baby bump. This is the beauty of segmentation on Facebook. You can define a very specific audience and direct very specific marketing in their direction. Sending the right material to the right people is key when it comes to increasing sales online.

Segmentation is just the first step. Once you’ve defined your target audience and ensured that your Facebook marketing is reaching them, you need to convert their clicks and ‘likes’ to sales. We’ll cover this in the next post…