10 Fitness Lead Magnet Ideas to Grow Your Email List

Offering fitness lead magnets is a fantastic way to grow your email list and attract new clients. It’s an effective way for gyms, personal trainers, and online coaches to build their customer base and generate leads consistently.

In this guide, we outline 10 fitness lead magnet ideas designed to attract clients and grow your email list.

As a specialist fitness marketing agency, we’ve created lots of lead magnets for clients. With 15+ years of email marketing experience, we’ve learned which opt-in freebies work best (and which to avoid!).

Top Fitness Lead Magnet Ideas

The most effective way to grow your email list is by offering freebies (aka lead magnets) in return. Entice people to join your email community with incentives like free workout planners, fitness challenges, or mini-courses.

But we don’t want just anyone to join our email list. We want to be picky. Because what you really want is people who are likely to become paying customers.

Attracting your ideal clients to subscribe is crucial if you want your email marketing to drive leads and revenue for your fitness business.

Email Marketing & Lead Generation Kit

So it’s crucial to offer lead magnets that’ll appeal to your target audience. You need to create opt-in freebies that address their specific problems and make them want to work with you.

We’ve found that the most effective fitness lead magnet ideas are…

1. Printable workout planners
2. Fitness challenges
3. Free trials & day passes
4. Fitness ebooks
5. Email courses
6. Fitness quizzes
7. Video courses
8. Fitness calculators
9. Meal plans
10. Healthy habit checklists 

Let’s explore each of these lead magnets in more detail (scroll to the end for one to avoid too)…

1 – Printable Workout Planners

Printable workout planners are customizable templates that people can use to plan and track their exercise routines. These planners typically include sections for setting fitness goals, scheduling workouts, recording progress, and noting any modifications.

They offer convenience, organization, and motivation to stay consistent with workouts. Examples include daily workout schedules, weekly fitness trackers, and monthly goal-setting sheets. Printable workout planners are a simple yet effective email opt-in for growing your list.

2 – Fitness Challenges

Fitness challenges are designed to help participants achieve a specific fitness goal within a set timeframe. They often incorporate workouts, nutrition guidelines, accountability, and community support to encourage participation and engagement. Examples include the “30-Day Squat Challenge” and “21-Day Clean Eating Challenge”.

Benefits include motivation, accountability, and the opportunity to achieve measurable results. They’re a great way to help poeple achieve a quick win and demonstrate that you’re able to get results for clients. Challenge participants have a high conversion rate into paying clients.

Learn more… about running successful fitness challenges and fun weight loss challenges.

3 – Free Trials and Day Passes

Offering free trials or day passes is a popular gym lead magnet but can work equally well for personal trainers, online programs, and fitness apps. It allows potential customers to experience your facilities, products, or services firsthand, before committing to a membership.

This approach attracts new prospects and gives them the opportunity to see the value you provide. It’s one that leads to increased conversions and long-term memberships.

Learn more… about email marketing strategies for gyms.

4 – Fitness Ebooks

Fitness ebooks are typically PDF guides that focus on one topic, such as glute training or marathon prep. They usually offer in-depth information, tips, and strategies to help individuals achieve their fitness goals.

Using an ebook lead magent enables you to provide valuable insights, establish credibility, and prepare the groundwork for your paid offering. You can also include affiliate links and earn commission for any 3rd-party product sales you generate.

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5 – Email Courses

Email courses are a brilliant way to build a relationship with new subscribers and convert them into loyal customers. They involve sending a series of emails (typically over 5-7 days) that include valuable content, tips, and action steps related to a specific fitness topic.

It’s not surprising that email courses that tee up your paid product result in the highest conversions. Examples include the “7-Day Fitness Kickstart Course” and “10-Day Mindful Eating Challenge”. People who complete these courses successfully are much more willing to continue with paid programs or training services.

6 – Fitness Quizzes

Fitness quizzes are interactive assessments that give people insights into their exercise knowledge, habits, preferences, or goals. They offer an engaging way to assess current fitness levels, identify areas for improvement, and receive personalized recommendations. Examples include “What’s Your Fitness Personality?” and “Are You Getting Enough Sleep for Optimal Performance?”.

The benefits of using quizzes as fitness lead magnets include interactivity, engagement, and the opportunity to segment leads based on quiz results. Segmentation was one of the strategies Life Time Fitness used to generate $600,000 using email marketing! If you offer several different paid fitness programs, then quizzes can help people identify which is most suitable.

7 – Healthy Habit Checklists

Healthy habit checklists are simple tools that help people track daily or weekly habits. They can be related to fitness, nutrition, hydration, sleep, stress management, or self-care. Examples include “Daily Wellness Checklist” and “Weekly Self-Care Tracker”.

Habit checklists offer a visual way to monitor progress, stay accountable, and make positive lifestyle changes. The benefits of using them as a lead magnet include simplicity, accountability, and the ability to identify areas for improvement.

Fitness Marketing Ideas Mini-Guide

25 fitness marketing ideas for your gym, studio, or online business. Attract new members, get more PT clients & boost your fitness blog.

8 – Fitness Calculators

Fitness calculators are online tools that help people calculate various fitness-related metrics, such as body mass index (BMI), calorie needs, or target heart rate. They offer quick and convenient ways to assess health status, set goals, and track progress.

The downside of calculators is that they can require some tech know-how to set up. Unlike the other ideas on this list that involve PDFs and emails, you’ll need to install a website plugin to offer fitness calculators. But putting in the effort might just set you apart from your competition by offering something they don’t.

9 – Video Courses

Video courses make idea fitness lead magnets, especially if your paid product is a course too. They typically involve a series of instructional videos, tutorials, demonstrations, or presentations that help people achieve an outcome. Examples include “Progress Your Pushup From Zero To Hero” or “Yoga for Beginners: Master 5 Poses In 5 Days”.

The great thing about video courses is that they offer visual demonstrations and step-by-step instructions. This is ideal for the fitness niche as it can help viewers to learn new exercises, techniques, or concepts.

10 – Meal Plans

Meal plans are curated menus that provide recipes, grocery lists, portion sizes, and nutritional info. Examples could include a “7-Day Clean Eating Meal Plan” and “Plant-Based Meal Prep Guide”.

Meal plans offer guidance, convenience, and inspiration to help people make healthier food choices and meet their dietary goals. They’re ideal lead magnet for fitness programs that have a nutritional component, such as those focused on weight loss or physique training.

Email Marketing & Lead Generation Kit

One Fitness Lead Magnet To Avoid

Having worked in fitness marketing for 15+ years, we’ve also seen what doesn’t work when it comes to lead magnets. There’s an art to creating opt-in freebies that will have high signup rates, attract your ideal clients AND convert well into paid customers. It’s this last part where many fitness brands struggle.

In our experience, the least effective email lead magnet is the workout guide. These are structured plans that outline specific workouts, exercises, sets, reps, rest periods, and progression strategies. They’re awesome paid products, but terrible opt-in freebies.

Why? Because they’re self-contained solutions that don’t leave the client wanting more. Examples include things like the “Total Body Strength Training Guide” or “Beginner’s Guide to Running”. They give people everything they need to solve their fitness challenge themselves, so why would they pay for your program or training services?

Basically, workout guides have excellent sign-up rates but terrible conversion rates. So they’re great for growing your email list, but not for generating qualified leads. So we recommend using one of the 10 fitness lead magnet ideas listed above rather than a workout guide.

Email Marketing & Lead Generation Kit

Generate leads & sales using email marketing with our step-by-step playbook & done-for-you templates...

Is Your Email Marketing Driving Revenue For Your Business? Email is one of the most effective marketing methods for driving sales…

• 60% of people have bought something because of an email compared to just 12.5% for social media.
• Email generates $42 for every $1 spent.
• 80% of businesses say email marketing is their most important customer retention tool.

So we put together this email marketing kit that makes it easy to generate leads and sales revenue. It includes a step-by-step playbook, done-for-you email templates, and resources to help you get results.

Email Marketing & Lead Generation Kit