Branding can truly set your fitness business apart, defining it while communicating more about your value and offerings. In fact, whether you’re launching or rebranding a gym, a yoga studio, a personal training business, or any other fitness or health company:
Poor branding can send the wrong message, fail to engage, or fall totally flat. That could make it difficult to get off the ground.
Good branding can capture the right voice, tone, and message while also being memorable. That can offer all new ways of connecting and building a customer base.
Great branding can unleash radical customer loyalty, with folks going out of their way to support a brand and the business it represents.
So, what does it really take to build and grow fitness and health brands these days?
It may take less heavy lifting than you realize, especially if you’re equipped with these fitness branding tips and strategies.
10 Steps to Building & Growing Fitness Brands
No matter what niche of the fitness business you’re in — or what you want to do with your brand — you can use these strategies to carve out your own space for showcasing your unique fitness brand.
1. Start with your vision and values.
Why did you start your business? Where do you want to be in a year, 5 years, or even 10 years from now? What principles or standards do you believe in — and which ones do you want to guide your business?
The answers to these questions will begin to shed light on your distinct vision and the personal values that have inspired and driven you. Those can serve as an excellent foundation for your fitness brand.
2. Know your target audience.
Who is your ideal customer? The answer to this question should be as detailed as you can possibly make it, defining specifics like:
Age
Gender
Occupation
Education and income levels
Marital and family status
And more
If you can dial into these details of your target audience, the next fitness branding strategies can fall into place more naturally while making it easier to keep your branding consistent across different mediums, channels, and marketing materials.
3. Name your brand.
Focus on a fitness brand name that is concise, descriptive, unique, and memorable.
Avoid fitness brand names that are overly generic, similar to existing brands, or just plain confusing.
The goal is for a total stranger to read your brand name and get a sense of what you’re about, meaning your industry, offerings, and/or voice. You may want to short list a few brand names and test them out with some folks you trust before greenlighting any if your options.
4. Craft a compelling logo and tagline.
Your logo will need to be eye-catching and reflective of your fitness business. Ideally, some combination of lettering and imagery will be used in the logo — and good fitness brand logos will generally have:
Stand-out colors with enough contrast
The ability to be shrunken down without distortion
With the logo, it’s also smart to create a punchy, memorable tagline. This can add some more context about what you offer and why you’re different. It can also include “fun” language elements, like rhymes or puns, that make them especially memorable, charming, or even humorous!
5. Choose your colors and styles.
There’s an entire psychology to colors and how different colors can evoke different feelings in us. While you don’t have to do a deep dive on that, consider what colors “match” the mood and overall feelings you want to inspire in your target audience.
For example, yoga and mediation brands that want to communicate a sense of peace, positive, and serenity may be inclined to choose brighter colors and lighter style elements.
On the flip side of the coin, strength training and boxing brands will probably want to inspire strength, power, and intensity. In that case, these fitness brands may be better suited for more vivid contrasts, sharper colors, and more dramatic style elements.
6. Get your fitness brand online.
Most folks turn to the internet when they’re looking for stuff — and that includes fitness studios, yoga classes, pilates studios, personal trainers, boxing classes, barre classes, CrossFit, and more.
So, if your brand isn’t online, there’s simply no way it can be found by folks who could be looking for exactly what you’re doing.
To launch your brand online:
Build a simple website to start.
Get your brand on social media.
Think about how fast you want to grow your fitness brand.
As you get into online spaces, make sure to use:
High-quality images of your logo
Professional headshots
Your tagline
7. Dive into fitness digital marketing.
These days, it takes more than just throwing up a website and some social media profiles to get real traction with brands. In fact, it can take a combination of efforts, including:
Content marketing
Email marketing
SEO
Special offerings
Networking
Social media marketing
Influencer marketing
Paid ads
Reviews, testimonials, and other social proof
As much as it can take to build a powerhouse fitness brand, remember, you don’t have to do it alone. You can turn to the fitness digital marketing pros at The AGENCY for custom plans, turnkey solutions, and better results.