The virtual fitness buyer is not the same as in-person clients.
Virtual fitness classes have become the norm for the fitness industry in the past few years given COVID-19. The ability to teach online through methods like Zoom, Skype, and Youtube have helped keep brick and mortar fitness studios running through lockdown and beyond.
However, beyond a studio’s regular in-person group meeting on Zoom, there is another demographic of customers. The virtual fitness buyer isn’t some new revelation from the pandemic, they’ve been a part of the fitness world for decades, but have been overlooked by many fitness professionals.
The virtual fitness buyer is an online customer that doesn’t operate in the same way as in-person clients. While both have fitness needs, the virtual buyer has different priorities when it comes to what they look for in a fitness product. These buyers spend a lot of money too but in different ways, Allied Market Research found that the virtual fitness market will reach $59 billion by 2027, a mere 5 years from now. Who wouldn’t want to get a slice of that pie?
The virtual fitness buyer has been around for a long time. At-home fitness has been sold to consumers since the 1970s with programs like the Jane Fonda Workout, and since then the creative process has only gotten easier to do.
Up through the 1990s most home fitness videos were created by big media companies using celebrities to help sell the videos, but from the 2000s onwards this changed. Products like P90X have proven that you no longer need big name celebrities to sell fitness; the virtual fitness buyer cares about quality over a brand name. In the age of the internet, the fastest way to the virtual fitness buyer is by creating the best content possible, first and foremost. Learn how to future proof your fitness business by going virtual.
The virtual fitness buyer cares about quality over a brand name.
In order to access the online fitness industry, you first have to understand what the buyer values. The virtual fitness buyer has some key differences from the in-person buyer.
This differs from in-person clients who show up to classes on certain days and collaborate with instructors to create the experience. See how we're creating content for this buyer over on Fitstreams.club
How They Spend Their Money
These qualities also define the way virtual fitness buyers spend their money. There are three main ways: fitness accessories, fitness equipment, and fitness videos and virtual training. By knowing what the buyer will buy, businesses can better use their resources on things that will appeal to the online buyer in that soon to be $59 billion dollar industry.
Summary
Tap Into The Online Fitness Market
It has been made clear that the virtual fitness buyer is a valuable customer, one that the boutique fitness pro should be more aware of. With a 50 year history and tremendous growth, online fitness is a segment to start learning to serve. Understanding the values differences between the online buyer and the in-person buyer is the key because trying to cater to the virtual fitness buyer the same as in-person clients will not work.
The self-starting nature of the online buyer means that they seek specific solutions rather than wanting to work with an instructor to find the correct path forward. Being aware of these differences, means you will be able to tailor your content and your approach so that you can appeal to this new buyer type and as result begin to capitalize on an incredibly valuable opportunity for additional revenue streams from a previously untapped market.
- All courses...
- Topics
- Marketing
- Fitness Videos
- Virtual Fitness
- Fitness Production
- Business
- Access restrictions
- Only for Members
- Free
- Premium Course
- Reimbursable Course
1 Lessons Easy
Free
Learn about the steps necessary to reduce the threat we all experienced due to covid in 2020. This mini course is a high-level flyover in that 19 min. and 8 seconds shows shows 8 important things; Exactly what our shared vulnerability is and how it has been hiding in plain sight. How Covid Revealed it to us. Where the REAL opportunity for reliable secondary revenue is. What that target market is worth in the next five years. What 3 categories of things are being sold in that marketplace. Who the buyer is, and how they are different from the buyer we are used to. Understanding the simple steps we can take to delight that buyer so they will pay us even while we sleep. How to inspire ourselves into action by calculating how many of those buyers we need to match or exceed our existing in person revenue. There is a downloadable tool that can help you do that calculation. Don’t miss this! We need you to join this movement, meant to disrupt the disruption of the boutique fitness industry.
Guide
12 Lessons None
Free
This course is the result of more than two years of research, personal and professional inquiry, soul-searching with a singular end goal in mind. To figure out a way to get through the next major disruption more gracefully than we did the last. We decided that it was not enough to simply hope that we never have to experience the severe emotional and financial impacts that we experienced when Covid shutdown our Pilates studio for months in April of 2020. To do that we knew that we had to begin by Analyzing the situations we found ourselves in more thoroughly. Committing to develop multiple ideas, weighing all options, and only committing time and resources to the soundest of ideas. Making sure that our plans were built on a solid framework that was governed by principles known to reliably produce measurable progress toward our overriding objective. Our Overriding Objective To be profitable, quarter to quarter, year to year with or without disruptions. Seek out, understand and learn to attract an additional and completely different customer type. To establish secondary revenue streams in addition to our primary and traditional revenue streams. Do that without depleting our energy and human resources or compromising the quality of service to our existing in person clients. No one ever plans to fail, but thanks to the pandemic we woke up to the reality that we, like so many others like us, we were failing to plan thoughtfully and thoroughly. This Course Is Not a Sales Pitch It is a comprehensive "Open Source" business plan that is fundamentally different than the traditional boutique fitness service business plan that is almost universal across the industry. What we have learned is that what needs to be done, can not effectively be done alone. The reasons for that are very clearly outlined in this material. This course lays out a comprehensive business plan that requires a group of like-minded boutique fitness experts who also share the same desires to take power over disruption and reliably secure economic and emotional abundance for a business, our families, our employees and our clients. In lesson 1, we lead with the invitation we make to any fitness experts that want to join Fitstreams.club in this mission. That may not be you, but it might be someone you know. Someone that might be upset if you didn't let them know about the opportunity. In the end, you'll have the understanding you need to join us, or to refer others that you know that might wish to, or both! The more people that understand what were doing, the faster we will build the cooperative coalition of like-minded experts necessary to reach the critical mass this business plan requires for success. Yours in Fitness Mark Firehammer, Laurie Johnson, Katrina Hawley
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11 Lessons Intermediate
Reimbursable Course
Developing a cueing style for your recorded on demand videos that appeal to the known preferences of the virtual fitness buyer profile.
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