Introduction

As a fitness business owner, good marketing is the one key to success. A Personal training business is a service business involving a lot of marketing.

The problem is, with so much competition in a saturated market, it’s hard to rely on just one strategy and run with that.

You need to apply multiple strategies that complement each other to boost your placement and engagement.

The best way to go is a blend of traditional and more contemporary marketing solutions, hence the personal trainer business card.

One tried and trusted traditional method is, of course, the trusty business card.

In this article, I will introduce you to some amazing business card strategies so you always have an ace up your sleeve.

But before we get into that, make sure you take the quiz I made to help you decide which personal trainer certification is best for you if you haven’t already gotten one.

Personal Trainer Business Cards - The Complete Guide 4

What personal trainer certification is right for you?

We developed this critical quiz to help you find the best certification for you and your goals.

You can check on my page for the best personal training certifications and also find a specialization course to broaden your knowledge and create a niche which, in turn, increases the salaries of a personal trainer.

Without further saying, let’s get straight into it.

The Importance of Creating Business Cards for Your PT Business

Create a business card

By this point, you get the gist of it. I will show you how to create your very own business cards.

But why business cards in particular? Many other effective and proven marketing strategies are out there; don’t you care a little old school?

The reason is marketing is a numbers game. The more visibility you generate, the more sales you expose your business to.

As a freelance personal trainer, you must squeeze out all the marketing you can.

Business cards are ineffective on their own, but with a solid foundational marketing strategy, they can tie up loose ends as a quick, easy, cost-effective brand placement tool.

Another great thing about business cards is the message they send.

And I’m not referring to the literal message regarding text and images.

I’m talking about the message they send about your level of professionalism and expertise.

A business card symbolizes a keen sense of organizational structure and professionalism that offers reassurance and boosts value.

That’s the real reason business cards are great!

Top 19 Tips for creating great PT business cards

Great pt business card

1. Get To The Point

You want to avoid too much fluff and filler text for an effective sale.

Your fitness business cards should get straight to business as succinctly as possible.

The main thing people are looking for in gym business cards is to know your personal trainer’s business name, where you are based, what your company is called, and what you can do for them.

Anything beyond these three is a waste of time and a hindrance to the potential effectiveness of your personal trainer business cards.

2. State Your Credentials

You should always display your credentials when marketing your services as a personal trainer.

Credentials are imperative in this field both as the authenticity of your abilities and as a display of expertise.

Place your credentials together with your name so that recipients of your card can immediately glance at that information for quicker verification and, thus, a quicker response rate.

3. State Your Contact Details

It seems like a no-brainer, but I figured I would mention you should add your contact details.

Aside from your personal trainer business name, people also need to be able to reach out.

That includes your phone number, email, and business address, but in the age of social networks, including your handles and profile names.

The main ones you should be concerned with are phone and email, so make sure these particularly stand out.

4. Keep It Simple

The last thing you want your business card to do is confuse its reader.

Keep things simple and comprehensible. Avoid complex jargon, flowery language, or cryptic references.

Having a clean, bold design with good management of design elements is the way to do things when considering what to put on a personal business card.

Simplicity, however, doesn’t mean boring. Correct use of color and visual elements, as well as other creative components which I’ll get into, can make something simple look sexy.

Simple is smarter than smart.

Exclusive PTP CPT Offers


Gold Standard Cert
NASM Gold Standard Personal Trainer Certification - Save 25&percnt off
Most Popular Cert
ISSA - Most Popular Online Personal Trainer Certification 3 Certs for
Best Study Materials
TA - Trainer Academy - Best Study Materials for Personal Trainer Certification Online - See MVP discount
A Good Option
ACE Certification- A Good Fitness Course Online Option - 25&percnt off
A Good Option
NCSF Certification - A Good Option - Save 25%
Best CPT for you?
Best CPT For You? Take the Personal Trainer Certification Online quiz and Get a Personalized Recommendation Just for You

5. Use Proactive Copy

Proactive PT business card

Write a description of actionable outcomes from the services you offer.

Show a proactive stance in what you do.

It helps to refer to yourself in the first person, as in, “I will help you achieve healthy fat loss!”.

Having command statements or words in all caps and bold can send proactive energy through your business card.

This assures recipients that you mean business and will deliver the results they are looking for.

6. Play With Texture

When it comes to the actual physical properties of the card itself, you can score big with the texture.

Creating unique textures allows yourself and your business to stay in mind simply through touch.

Embossing important text, such as your name or logo, is a great way to do this. Using special finishes, metallic inks, and foil blocking.

Creating a contrast between rough and glossy is also a good way to give your cards an appealing tactile quality that will anchor your business in the mind of your prospective clients and partners.

Bear in mind that this will ramp up the cost considerably, but I personally think it’s worth it.

7. Experiment With Materials

Experiment with materials

Another good way to have your cards stand out regarding physical properties is to experiment with the actual materials they are printed on.

Regarding the aforementioned texture aspect, you may need to look at different materials anyways. Still, it will be great to get a handle on some different textures just from a design and originality perspective.

Materials can also be used to enhance durability. For example, using thicker cards or even plastic for your cards improves their durability, meaning they stick around for longer and are, therefore, more effective.

Just remember, the more durable your material is, the more expensive your cards will be to make.

8. Get Creative

Get creative with your cards.

By that, I mean get creative with your cards’ actual shape and even size.

You don’t have to stick to the standard rectangular approach; you can go as simple as rounding the corners all the way to more elaborate shapes.

A creative business card proves that you stand out, and so does your business.

You can also experiment with orientation.

Most people are used to a landscape orientation regarding business cards.

You can try out a portrait or vertical orientation to keep things fresh.

9. Make Your Cards Interactive

design your PT card

Another great tip you can use to amplify the punch your cards give to their recipients is to make them interactive.

Interactivity means your recipients can engage with the properties of your card to make something unique happen.

A great example is to have a foldable card or a holographic print.

Some cool personal business card ideas I’ve come across include pop-up-style cards and fold-out origami-style cards.

Another next-level idea is to create a USB card. A business card that has a retractable USB jack that your recipient can use as a handy file storage unit.

Doing something like this means the personal training business card becomes a daily accessory and will constantly remind someone about your brand and how to get in touch.

10. Maintain Visual Consistency

Visual consistency means keeping the same look and feel throughout all your design layouts.

Visual consistency includes a color palette, design elements, font, and logo layout.

You want your business card to match up with your website and any other branded infrastructure.

If you have multiple variations of business cards, you also want them to have familiar design features across the board.

11. Always Include Your Logo

I mentioned the logo as an important part of your visual consistency, but it’s just generally very important to have it appear on your business card.

Your logo is the face of your physical fitness business, even if you are the brains behind the operation.

Personal trainers’ logos, in my experience, tend to be relatively boring; I guess Fitness isn’t a very creative industry, but this is where your opportunity lies.

Get a professionally designed logo that resonates with what you do and who you are.

Make it stand out and make it present.

Personal Trainer Business Cards - The Complete Guide 5
Personal Trainer Business Cards - The Complete Guide 6

12. Make Your Design Somewhat Familiar

Make Your Design Somewhat Familiar

This one might sound a bit contradictory since I’ve been rambling on about having as many stand-out unique attributes as possible.

Exclusive PTP CPT Offers


Gold Standard Cert
NASM Gold Standard Personal Trainer Certification - Save 25&percnt off
Most Popular Cert
ISSA - Most Popular Online Personal Trainer Certification 3 Certs for
Best Study Materials
TA - Trainer Academy - Best Study Materials for Personal Trainer Certification Online - See MVP discount
A Good Option
ACE Certification- A Good Fitness Course Online Option - 25&percnt off
A Good Option
NCSF Certification - A Good Option - Save 25%
Best CPT for you?
Best CPT For You? Take the Personal Trainer Certification Online quiz and Get a Personalized Recommendation Just for You

But you want to balance originality with a healthy dose of familiar elements.

That’s because we seek familiar things for comfort, which gives us assurance.

When a client is assured by what you present, it means conversion is more likely.

You can boost familiarity by using popular icons and symbols associated with fitness, such as a dumbbell silhouette.

13. Use Color Psychology

An interesting strategy is using color to influence someone’s behavior subliminally.

That’s because, in nature, certain colors signal certain things and thus stimulate an individual to act accordingly.

Take warm colors like red, orange, and yellow.

In nature, they symbolize food sources such as fruit. These foods are high in energy, so seeing them can potentially trigger feelings of hunger.

You will also notice that many fast-food establishments use red, orange, and yellow palettes for their branding.

Now when it comes to fitness, you want to use bold colors that denote strength and a proactive, controlled approach.

Your cooler colors, such as blue and black, will work best for this.

14. Use Color Science

 Use Color Science

Expanding from the use of color psychology is the use of color science.

What I mean by color science is the practical approach to appropriately combining different colors for an effective design.

You want to use colors that go together and offer visual support to one another.

Evidence suggests that people don’t necessarily have a favorite color but rather a favorite color combination.

That’s because a single color on its own doesn’t send any particular message.

It is in the interplay with other colors that visual communication occurs.

Having a well-planned palette can go a long way in achieving a good, catchy design.

15. Have A Call To Action

Your card has a mission: to get people who receive it to reach out and book you as their personal trainer, plain and simple.

Now you might think it goes without saying that anyone who receives a card from you will specifically reach out since that’s why they accepted or asked for it.

But everyone needs a gentle nudge every once in a while.

Have A Call To Action

Perhaps, someone you didn’t specifically give the card to notices it. You can draw them in with a good CTA, making your card more versatile because it converts beyond just the recipient.

A compelling call to action is your chance to boost inquiries and conversions.

16. Offer An Incentive.

Another way you can get your phone ringing off the hook when you hand your business cards is by including an incentive together with the aforementioned call to action.

This can be a free trial, a discount, or the ability to redeem a special gift or prize.

If you want to take it to the next level, you can make your cards serve as access tickets or tokens.

Generate special unique codes that you stamp on each card, allowing your recipients access to free or discounted products or services on your online store.

Cards with coupon codes are absolute winners, in my experience!

Whatever the case, make it worth the recipient’s while so the draw-in is much easier for you.

It’s always good to have a win-win situation.

17. Have A Motivational Message

Motivational message

Having a short affirmation or motivational quote can go a long way toward putting your fitness business in favor of prospective clients.

If you can charge emotions with a relatable saying or profound outlook, you increase the agreeability of a card recipient and the likelihood that they will convert.

People who are potentially looking to get fit are looking to feel good about themselves, so if you can start that process by including a motivational message, you boost your odds of nabbing clients.

18. Target Your Preferred Audience

Your business cards should speak directly to those you want to speak to.

That means they should target your preferred client or clients based on demographic data.

Perhaps you’re running a women’s self-defense class or doing kids’ parkour training. Whatever the case, your cards should speak to this demographic effectively.

Suppose you have a diverse offering of training and coaching services. In that case, you might consider having a few business card layouts for the market demographics you wish to appeal to.

A big tip would be to position yourself within the small group training market.

Have your cards target small groups by displaying your service offerings and expertise in that field.

If you can use one card to score a small group of people, then you’re definitely winning.

19. Display Your Expertise

Aside from just your credentials, you can display your expertise in other ways, more visual ways.

One good way of visually displaying expertise on a business card is by, of course, having a picture of yourself on the card.

It could either be an image showing your pristine physique, or perhaps it’s you performing an exercise relevant to what you coach.

Showing that you practice what you preach immediately through your business card is one of the best angles in getting you recognized.

How To Go About Creating Business Cards

How To Go About Creating Business Cards

Now that we’ve gone through the basic principles of creating great business cards let’s look at how to do it.

Designing business cards is both an art and a science.

Art in that it is a personalized expression and a creative effort meant to captivate and inspire someone’s behavior. In spire it in such a way that they are compelled to call you and book you as a trainer.

It is a science in that gathering all the visual and information elements and laying them out in an accessible way is a calculative process. It requires a meticulous configuration of all the bits and pieces that will make your card pop.

For this, you will need the right tools. The tool I’m referring to is various and diverse in complexity and functionality.

The old-school way of producing a business card was using a desk to design applications like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator.

These programs allow for complete customization and originality, making them the best way to produce authentically unique business cards.

The tradeoff is that these types of software generally have a high entry barrier due to how complex they are and difficult to learn how to use.

Most people can figure out Photoshop and some of the other Adobe apps. Still, to fully take advantage of them for a professional product, you will need hours of training or hire an experienced graphic designer, which will cost you extra.

Your next option is to use a web-based application, which usually allows you to choose your very own personal business card template.

You can get some free ones, but the paid ones definitely have a higher quality assortment and more options.

I suggest using a paid platform like Envato, Placeit, Wix, or Canva.

They offer enough diverse options that you can still have a unique style to your card all while having crips, clean design elements, and layouts you would expect from a pro graphic designer.

So now that you’ve designed your card, you need to get it printed.

Printing techniques vary according to the scale of the complexity of your card and the type of material.

For a simple run-of-the-mill business card, you can get away with a home office print, provided you set up the print settings to allow for correct alignment and adherence to principles of paper-based printing.

Suppose you’re taking things up a notch, getting your cards printed on more robust materials, and want to include special finishes. In that case, you’ll need to go industrial and have your prints done by a company specializing in all sorts of printing.

You could skip printing altogether and go digital.

What Are Digital Business Cards? Are They Important?

What Are Digital Business Cards? Are They Important?

Digital business cards, as the name suggests, are pieces of visual content that serve the same purpose as a physical business card but just through a digital medium.

But being digital means a whole doorway of exciting features and interactive opportunities open up.

First of all, they cost much less, both to your pocket and to the environment.

An average of 88% of all business cards handed out are in the trash.

Secondly, the multimedia opportunity to include visually engaging content such as audio and video certainly freshen things up and will likely leave a more lasting impression.

Lastly, a digital personal trainer card allows you the opportunity to immediately connect with the recipient and boost your odds of conversions and sales.

Through a digital business card, you can tell a story worth more than just handing out a piece of paper or plastic.

One of the best platforms I’ve come across for getting things done with a digital card is Switchit.

The Switch app allows you to design and create multimedia business cards that help you connect more effectively with prospective clients and collaborators and also allows you to gather and store contact information.

As part of an ambitious online business in health and fitness, I strongly suggest having a digital component to your business card game.

Conclusion on personal trainer business cards

conclusion

Business cards have existed for a long time, perhaps even centuries.

They are a tried and trusted method of reaching out to potential partners and clients.

Using these pro tips will allow you to get the most out of this marketing opportunity.

You must also realize that business cards in their traditional form have a low success rate in terms of converting clients.

You should consider adding digital business cards to the mix.

Tyler Read - Certified Personal Trainer with PTPioneer

Tyler Read


All Posts

PTPioneer Editorial Integrity


All content published on PTPioneer is checked and reviewed extensively by our staff of experienced personal trainers, nutrition coaches, and other Fitness Experts. This is to make sure that the content you are reading is fact-checked for accuracy, contains up-to-date information, and is relevant. We only add trustworthy citations that you can find at the bottom of each article. You can read more about our editorial integrity here.

Ask me a question and I will reply ASAP

Find the best Cert for you

Get The Sectret Cheat Sheet For The ISSA Exam

18749

Before you spend your money on the wrong personal trainer, nutrition, or other fitness certification. 

Which Certification Is Best For You?

18749

Get The Sectret Cheat Sheet For The CSCS Exam

18749

Get The Sectret Cheat Sheet For The ACSM Exam

18749

Get The Sectret Cheat Sheet For The ISSA Nutritionist Exam

18749

Get The Sectret Cheat Sheet For The NCSF CPT Exam

18749

Get The Sectret Cheat Sheet For The NASM CNC Exam

18749

Get The Sectret Cheat Sheet For The NASM PES Exam

18749

Get The Sectret Cheat Sheet For The NASM CES Exam

18749

Get the top 5 Tips for Passing the ACE CPT

18749

Get the top 5 Tips for Passing the NASM CPT

18749

Get The Sectret Cheat Sheet For The NSCA CPT Exam

18749

Get The Sectret Cheat Sheet For The ACE Exam

18749

Get The Sectret Cheat Sheet For The NASM Exam

18749