Aug 6, 2025
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
One-time tasks:
Every day:
Every week:
Every fortnight:
Every month:
Every quarter:
Every year:
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: