10 Fitness Lead Magnet Ideas For Gyms & Trainers (+Templates)

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.

This guide outlines 10 fitness lead magnet ideas designed to attract clients and grow your email list (plus ready-made templates you can use).

We’re a specialist fitness marketing agency that creates lead magnets, email newsletters, sales funnels, and automated sequences for fitness, wellness, and nutrition businesses – learn about our email services. 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.

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.

Top tip: Connect your lead magnet to a low-ticket ‘tripwire’ offer to get new subscribers into the mindset of paying for things (and not expecting everything for free). This increases conversions to your paid offering.

We offer email marketing services and DIY solutions for fitness businesses. You can hire us to create your email strategy, set up automated sequences, and write impactful email content (get in touch here). Or you can purchase our Email Marketing Kit, which includes pre-written templates, guides, and done-for-you lead magnets.

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

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

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

1 – Printable Workout Programs & Planners

Printable workout programs give subscribers a taste of what it’s like to train with you. By providing a plan for a single session or one week, people get an idea of the exercises and commitment involved.

We wouldn’t recommend offering anything longer than that, as month-long or 6-week plans are ideal paid products. You don’t want to give away the farm, just entice people to upgrade to a paid membership, coaching, or program.

Alternatively, you can offer blank workout planners, which are customizable templates that people can use to plan and track their exercise routines. They often include sections for setting fitness goals, scheduling workouts, and recording progress.

Printable fitness planners help people stay organized, motivated, and consistent. Examples include daily workout schedules, weekly fitness trackers, and monthly goal-setting sheets. Planners like these 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’re a great way to help people achieve a quick win and demonstrate that you get results for clients. Challenge participants have a high conversion rate into paying customers.

Free fitness challenges typically combine workouts, nutrition guidelines, accountability, and community support. Including these elements encourages participation and engagement, so more people complete the challenge successfully.

Examples include the “30-Day Squat Challenge” and “21-Day Clean Eating Challenge”. We have an entire article full of fitness challenge ideas here.

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 it 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 allows them to see the value you provide. It typically results in more conversions and long-term memberships.

Learn more… about email marketing strategies for gyms.

4 – Fitness Ebooks

Fitness ebooks are 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 magnet enables you to provide valuable insights, establish credibility, and prepare the groundwork for your paid offering. You can also include affiliate links and earn a commission for any 3rd-party product sales you generate.

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 & Assessments

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 great thing about using quizzes as fitness lead magnets is that they’re interactive and engaging. You can also segment leads based on the quiz results, then tailor your future emails and offers to their specific needs.

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 product is most suitable. Quizzes are also ideal lead magnets for fitness supplements as they can help match products with nutritional needs.

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 great thing about using them as a lead magnet is that they’re a super-simple way to provide accountability.

8 – Fitness Calculators

Fitness calculators are online tools that help people calculate 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.

Fitness calculators make excellent lead magnets for gyms and health clubs because they help people realize that they need to exercise. Seeing a BMI result of ‘overweight’ or ‘obese’ can be a wake-up call that prompts members to join and start working out.

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.