How Can You Move Your Fitness Business Online?
The outbreak of COVID-19 has catalyzed the digital transformation of the entire fitness industry. With fitness studios across the globe shutting down, fitness businesses are adjusting fast by moving their studios online. People who work out regularly are also getting accustomed to online workouts using fitness platforms and apps. According to Forbes, consumers of online workouts say that they would make virtual fitness classes a regular part of their routines even after the studios reopen after the pandemic.
With people preferring home exercises during the pandemic, most fitness studios are planning to make a switch from offline to online workouts. If you are one of those who want to start online fitness business, this blog will guide you through the process of transitioning offline to online.
Also, Read – How to Lose Weight in Your Face?
Starting an Online Fitness Business
Making the switch from offline to online workout takes more than deep passion and expertise. It must be accompanied with the right business plan and preparation. Now, let’s look into the steps you need to follow to start an online fitness business.
Choose your niche
When you are planning to shift your workouts to online, never try to be an all-in-one personal fitness trainer. You must find a niche to stay competitive in the market. Even if you are an expert in a few niches, you can choose one or two amongst them as your area of expertise when offering your services online.
When choosing your niche, you must also consider your target audience and their interests. Think of niches that will work as additional income streams for your fitness business. By determining your niche and target audience, you can make the whole process easier. You can create your workouts specific to your target audience when crafting new fitness plans for your customers.
Determine your unique selling propositions
To find out your USPs, you must ask yourself what makes your fitness business unique. Is it the type of workout you offer or the additional perks you offer to your customers along with the package? By finding out your USPs, you will be able to market your fitness business better. Along with your USP’s, make sure your personality shines through your offerings. Your unique personality is what makes your customers come to your online fitness classes in the first place. They don’t just need a fitness trainer, they need a coach who can support them and keep them motivated through the fitness journey with the workouts tailored according to their needs.
Select a business model
The most important aspect of starting an online fitness business is choosing a business model. A business model is nothing but the revenue model you will follow to generate revenue. It includes the pricing of your fitness classes and the value you are offering to your customers for the price they pay.
The most basic business model to adopt when you are starting out is the pay-per-view model where you offer your individual fitness classes. It is quite similar to buying a fitness DVD where users get access to a few videos in that session. Another business model you can adopt is the subscription model where you allow your customers to access your online training sessions for a recurring subscription fee. Along with the membership, you can offer additional perks like exclusive offers, regular promotions, bring a friend along with a get a free subscription for a month, etc.
You can customize your fitness business model according to your business requirements and goals. When starting out, you can also offer a free trial to your customers so that they can try out your fitness classes before actually signing up for your classes which will help you get the initial exposure you require.
Be a trainer instead of a coach
What you used to do offline in your fitness studio doesn’t translate directly to online. Regardless of how you used to run your offline fitness classes, you must re-engineer your training sessions in a way you deliver value to your customers when moving to online.
If you want to be successful in the online fitness industry, focus on becoming a coach instead of an ordinary fitness trainer. The difference between a trainer and coach is that a trainer teaches workouts and crafts workouts according to the needs of members. Whereas a coach looks at the factors to best serve the clients with the best workout and nutrition plan. In short, a coach looks at the bigger picture to address both workout related and nutrition-related requirements of the customers.
Compile a video library of exercises in your fitness training program
Even if you plan to offer a one-one fitness training session to your clients, consider forming a library of exercises to show your clients how to exercise. Start out with a ready-made video library that comprises basic forms of exercises, including the progressions and modifications you would like your clients to use. Make sure you shoot and upload short videos that aren’t tutorials but demonstrations. You can use it for instant reference in the middle of a workout.
Choose your online fitness platform
Once you have everything in place, you must choose the platform where you would host your online fitness session. The best option would be to build your own fitness platform using a live training software. With a compelling brand in place, you must consider building a fitness platform to host your online fitness training sessions. It is recommended to use an efficient tutoring software like PinLearn to build your fitness platform to create and sell online training sessions, manage access, and process payments. With your own online fitness platform, you can choose the monetization model you want to implement so that you can generate a significant amount of revenue by monetizing your expertise in the fitness industry.
Pick your promotional channels
If you are looking out for how to sell workout programs online, it is important to promote your online fitness platform so that you can increase your sales considerably. Before choosing your promotional channels start with your targeted clients. Find out what are the common social platforms your potential customers engage in. If you are a fitness trainer looking to implement or expand your online fitness training business, social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc are the platforms you must consider.
As over 2 billion users use social media, the chances are that all of your clients are among these users. Another way to promote your online fitness training business is to use referrals. The word of mouth referrals holds a lot of power in popularizing your online services. You can consider offering your fitness services free or at a discount to your clients, especially if they have a large network. You will be surprised by the impact it can have on your fitness business.
Ask for customer feedbacks
For fitness trainers who are just transitioning to online, the first sessions might not go smoothly. After your first fitness class, you can ask for direct feedback from your clients so that you can know whether you need to improve on any aspect or not. Make sure you efficiently communicate with your customers. You can either choose to workout with your members or choose to share a recorded demo video so that they can train at their own pace and you can monitor their performance and suggest corrections if any. Communicate with your customers more offers so that you can improve your online fitness delivery and improve your offerings.
Continue to focus on your fitness business growth
If you are looking for becoming a prominent fitness brand, make sure you constantly focus on enhancing your fitness offerings. When starting out, you would set a few milestones and probably achieve it. But never stop once you have achieved a couple of milestones, you must keep improving your fitness classes for continued success. If you are not able to succeed with just an online-only fitness approach, combine online classes with your offline workouts. Consider offering online training classes along with in-person training to satisfy the requirements of a broad client base.
Conclusion
Whether you are comfortable with the idea of taking fitness classes online or not, the world has changed and the shift right now is to online. Now that you are clear about how to start and run your fitness classes online, get started. It requires hard work and determination, take one step at a time. Research the best practices and experiment with different methods and keep improving by analysing your results. Within no time you would be able to successfully establish yourself as an expert online fitness coach.