87: How to plan a marketing photoshoot for your gym

Summary: In this episode I explore how a professional photoshoot can transform your fitness business marketing, with practical steps to plan, capture, and use high-quality photos that attract the right clients.

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5 things you'll learn:

• Why professional photos are one of the most effective marketing tools for fitness businesses.
• How to choose photo subjects that reflect your target clients and build connection.
• The types of scenes and interactions that create powerful, versatile images.
• Why staged photos deliver better marketing results than spontaneous action shots.
• How to plan and run a photoshoot that maximises time, efficiency, and usable photos.

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Done well, a photoshoot can be one of the most powerful marketing tools for your gym. The right type of photos can give potential clients a glimpse into your business, and can transform both your website and your social media presence.

Great photos are an important part of all the websites I build for fitness businesses.

This guide will cover some of the considerations for a photoshoot, including examples of the sort of photos you're looking to acquire from a photo shoot I ran for my business (you can find these at the bottom of the page).

Firstly - it's highly recommended that you use the services of a professional photographer with professional equipment. The difference in quality is noticeable, and brings a new layer of professionalism to your business. If you're using a professional photographer, this guide might help to give them some direction on what you're looking for.

Photo Subjects:

The subjects of your photos should match the types of people you're looking to attract to your business. We're not looking for perfect, airbrushed models here - we want real people. We want your target customers to look at the photos and think 'those people look like me'.

Well in advance of the photoshoot, you want to contact some of your current clients to ask them to appear in the shoot. We're looking for at least 12 people.

Make sure you've got a broad representation across different ages, nationalities, skin colours, shapes, sizes, genders, sexualities etc.

You want to get any staff you have to be available for the shoot.

If the shoot is for a website, it's also important to get photos of the people who you'll be featuring in testimonials and client feature stories.

Photo Subject Matter:

As mentioned, the photos themselves should be of people who match your avatar (target customer).

They should be working with your staff (ideally in a one-on-one capacity, like hands on technique corrections etc). They should be smiling, laughing and having a good time - while still working hard. The more interaction the better (between staff and client, and between client and client (if you have multiple clients in each photo). Fist bumps, high fives etc are great.

We want photos of all the services you provide. If you offer one-on-one coaching, get photos of that. If you offer small group training, include multiple people in you photos, but there should be one person who is featured in the image - the others are just there for context. If you offer any sit-down consults, make sure you get photos of them.

Photo Composition:

As tempting as it it to have a photographer roam around during a class, or following a PT around during their session, these 'action shots' never come out as well as staged photos. With this in mind, the best approach is to stage the photos, and take multiple shots of each 'scene' - each being slightly different. This will give plenty of options to choose the best shot. 

We want these photos to have as many uses as possible. To help with this, the subjects shouldn't be shot from too close. We don't want them filling the frame. This will allow use to 'cut in' the photo to get both portrait (vertical) and landscape (horizontal) images - based on what we need to use them for.

Lighting is really important - we want the photos to be light and bright, with natural lighting being ideal.

Be aware of what else is in the scene. We don't want busy, untidy backgrounds. Keep things clean, simple, minimalist.

Planning the shoot:

To ensure as many uses as possible, plan to have around 12 subjects, with three to four scenes each. For example, one scene might be pushing a prowler, one might be doing a deadlift, one might be doing a dip. Getting 10-20 photos of each scene should result in a choice of