Is Anyone Searching For Bootcamps?

There is no denying that boot camps are the revolution of our industry over the last 5 years or so, but I think we are making things hard for ourselves when it comes to marketing our boot camps.

Whilst I believe there is a niche which likes to get a military style bootcamp beasting 3 times a week, this is not necessarily what a majority of the population are looking for in a training program.

Like many personal trainers, coaches and other fitness professionals have done over the last few years, I was attracted to creating a “boot camp”, the lure of solid profits and short working hours seemed to make sense. The downside of all this was, i didn’t want to run a “boot camp”, I hated the concept and the kind of people it would have attracted.

I had a venue, I had the programs written, and I had the marketing systems and website all in place, but I was struggling with the name. Every time I said the name “boot camp” I would cringe. And having tried to run something before I didn’t believe in, I knew it would a struggle to run from the outset.

Doing some tests on google for what people are searching for also brought up some interesting results, and confirmed in my mind that “boot camp” was not necessarily the best thing to try to market with. Google has a very powerful tool that I believe everyone should use to figure out what they are going to have set as their keywords for their site… It is all well being ranked no.1 on google for the keyword phrase “boot camp your town” if no one is searching for it, and this tool will tell you exactly this information!

Google Keyword Tool

Yes people are searching for bootcamps, but is there really enough to justify spending the time and money on search engine optimisation for these keywords! Is there other organic search terms that people are searching for more?

I have used the keyword “tempe” as an example, I have used this location in the state of Arizona as one of my myfitgeek clients runs a bootcamp from this town, so I thought it would be an interesting real world example.

Search Term                               Monthly Search Volume

boot camp tempe                     210
bootcamp tempe                      22
weight loss tempe                    170
workout tempe                         36
personal training tempe       210
exercise tempe                         73
pilates tempe                             320
gym tempe                                 1000
fitness tempe                             4,400

Whilst not conclusive evidence to warrant changing your website just yet, I would be very tempted to get the keyword phrase “fitness tempe” in to my website and online marketing efforts as well as including “boot camp tempe”.

Note the surprising difference with NOT having a space between “boot” and “camp” warrants a dismal return per month!

My guess is most trainers have not really thought about this side of marketing their group training programs. My advice use the tool and figure out what is better for your site… If it turns out that most people are NOT looking for boot camps I would remove it from your marketing and create a fitness group training program that will net more people…

that is unless you love giving a boot camp style beasting )

As ever I’d love to hear your feedback, use the tool and tell me how you faired in your area.

The Group Training Success System is a completely different approach to marketing and building your bootcamp business, this is not one of those usual products that is full of 100′s of exercises you already know. It is a step by step guide to building a massive group training program, what ever your niche.