Fitness businesses that succeed, even in challenging times, are those that continuously look for opportunity. Now more than ever it is critical for fitness studio owners and trainers to plan ahead, be strategic and organized and take action to revitalize their communities.
One way to serve new and existing customers in your community is to launch a lifestyle program. Not only does this present a way for students to get the support they need to get back into a fitness routine and healthy habits, but it’s a great way for your fitness business to gain an extra boost in revenue and potential for up-selling class passes, memberships and other products and programs.
Here’s how to build a lifestyle program that will attract and engage community members.
Create a structure for your lifestyle program that’s convenient but will also yield results
You want to have enough elements to your program to give participants value, support and tools for change. And you want to design the schedule and participation level so that the program is approachable and convenient.
Typically, to see results, your participants need to practice their program for at least 30 days. Six-week and eight-week programs are also long enough to get everyone engaged in getting fit and healthy and start to see results without feeling overwhelmed or burned out.
Your Punchpass fitness business software allows you to customize the length of your program and track registration and attendance.
Be specific about your lifestyle program’s elements and how and when students will participate
Let’s say you’re running a six week “Fall Back to Fitness” program. Here’s what it might look like:
- Weekly one hour group sessions – either in-person or on Zoom – where you share best practices and participants can connect and share their experience and check in.
- Daily classes or workouts. Using Punchpass, you can give participants the option to attend live sessions or pre-record them and give your students online access to do them when it’s convenient to them. You can set up password-protected access to your online program content in the Content Library.
- A special Facebook Group where you periodically engage with participants, share special content like recipes, motivation and ask the group to share about their challenges and victories.
- High-value downloads like journal questions, anatomy and alignment tips and diagrams, fitness metrics tracking sheets, recipes, meditations or inspirational stories. Host it in your Punchpass Content Library and share the links through email, in your Facebook Group, or simply let participants know that they will be able to access their course materials when they log in to their program portal.
- Give prizes along the way to keep participants motivated, to create a culture of celebration and acknowledgement. Consider giving away branded items like water bottles, t-shirts or hats with your fitness business’s logo on them. Discounted or complimentary class passes are a great give-away time too because they keep your best students coming back for more!
- Consider adding a mid-program cleanse to the program and give your students a recipe book.
How to price your lifestyle program
A good rule of thumb when setting the price of your lifestyle program is to consider the length of the program, the number of classes or sessions included, any private coaching you’re including, your time to run live discussion sessions and the supporting materials you offer.
One big influencing factor is whether you will include attendance at regularly scheduled live classes. You can structure your lifestyle program where participants will use regular class passes and memberships to pay for those, or you can include them for the duration of the program. If you include them, be sure to give your auto-paying members a discount that reflects the amount they will be paying during the program for class access.
Your pricing sweet spot will depend on your fitness niche, current per class or training session prices and location. Industry-wide, six-week fitness lifestyle programs that include workouts, nutritional coaching and motivational coaching tend to be priced anywhere from $250 to $750.
How to market your lifestyle program
Once you’ve written a catchy program name and description and set up your pricing and registration in Punchpass, you need to get the word out! You can email your current customers through Punchpass, and share the link to your program on your social media channels. Consider setting up your program as an “event” on Facebook and boosting a post about it to your local market.
To encourage early sign ups, set up a promotional code to give an “early bird discount’ of 10 to 20 percent off your program. It’s easy to do in Punchpass, and you can share this through email and social media channels.
Remember, the experience of guiding your group is priceless for building lasting relationships that will continue to build and grow your fitness business’s community even after your program is complete. The effort is worth the reward!
