By PJ Taei, Special FBA Contributor
When you're ready to expand your gym or fitness business, taking it online is a tempting proposition. Hosting an online fitness program can seem like a huge challenge, but it's not as complicated as it might sound. We've broken down the process into 4 steps that'll get your fitness videos online and your community generating income.
Here's what you need to do.
Table of Contents
Why Do You Need an Online Fitness Program?
Step #1: Create Fitness Content for Your Program
Step #2: Build Your Online Membership Site
Step #3: Pick a Monetization Model and Set Your Prices
Step#4: Launch and Promote Your Site
Why Do You Need an Online Fitness Program?
Even before the pandemic, online fitness was a high-growth sector.
Here are some important reasons why you should be diversifying into online fitness:
- At the end of 2020, 54% of gym members in the US said their facility was offering online classes and 44% of them were doing those classes at least once a week.
- In 2019, the market for online and virtual fitness was already valued at over $6 billion; it's predicted to be nearly 10 times that in 2027, at $59 billion.
- Creating an online fitness class means you can reach a much wider audience at a lower cost since your growth isn't limited to bricks and mortar locations which can cost upwards of $50k to set up.
Knowing how important the online fitness market is, here's our guide to tapping into it.
Step #1: Create Fitness Content for Your Program
Your first step to creating an online fitness program is deciding what audience you're going to target and create the content you need.
Choosing a niche gives you an immediate target audience; it's easier to communicate the benefits of your offering when you have a specific group of people to talk to.
Some examples of clearly targeted online fitness programs include MommaStrong…
Image Source: MommaStrong
...who aim their classes at new mothers, and Naturally Sassy…
Image Source: Naturally Sassy
… whose concept is all about getting fit through ballet exercises.
You need to have enough content to make your fitness membership valued from the beginning, so be sure to record enough classes to show your customers what you're all about. .
To do that, you may need to invest in some new equipment, which we're looking at next.
Equipment you need for your fitness content
There are two types of equipment you'll likely need to buy before you start filming.
For filming, you may need to invest in kit like:
- Microphones
- Lighting
- Cameras
Although you can start out with just a smartphone, if necessary.
Also, consider which video editing apps or software you're going to use, too.
Here's a video with a lot more details about the technical gear a fitness program should be looking at:
Upgrading Your Video Gear from a Smartphone to the Next Level
The other kit you may need is new fitness gear because you'll have the chance to monetize it.
Things like yoga mats, resistance bands, and even the clothing you wear can all be sold through an eCommerce platform or through affiliate links with Amazon, for example.
Now you've got your content ready to go, you need a video hosting platform, which is our next step.
Step #2: Build Your Online Membership Site
To make money from your online fitness content, you need a website that hosts it and you can charge members for access.
You have two options for getting your content online, which we're looking at now.
Building your own membership website
Your first option is to build your own membership website from scratch.
The pros of building your own site include:
- You can change every detail of your site to your requirements.
- You have full control over all the features of the site such as your payment options.
There are some cons to this approach, such as:
- Initial setup costs can be in the tens of thousands of dollars.
- You'll end up paying fees for a range of plugins to enable all your features like video hosting.
- You're responsible for long-term maintenance of your site.
Use a membership site platform
The alternative to creating your own website is to host your videos through a membership site platform, such as Uscreen.
The advantages of choosing this route are:
- You'll get a drag-and-drop website builder.
- All the integrations you need are easy to set up, including payments.
- It's a fully scalable option, with opportunities to easily expand into live stream classes and even create your own fitness apps.
Some of the drawbacks of this approach can be:
- You're limited to a few fixed templates.
- There are limits to the amount of video you can host - although they are generous.
To the third step.
Step #3: Pick a Monetization Model and Set Your Price
Your next step to setting up your online program is to decide how to price it.
There are three main pricing models you can consider for your fitness video-on-demand (VOD) content:
- Subscriptions (SVOD)
- One-off transactions (TVOD)
- Advertising (AVOD)
Allied Market Research predicts that, by 2027, subscriptions will be the dominant monetization model in the online fitness industry.
Image Source: Allied Market Research
Having your members pay a subscription allows you to plan your long-term revenue and encourages them to visit your site regularly.
You do need to ensure that you have the time to keep adding content to make a regular fee worthwhile, otherwise you should consider selling content bundles.
You'll find a lot more detail about how to navigate to this stage in this video.
How to Create and Sell an Online Fitness Program
There's one more step to getting your fitness business online.
Step #4: Launch and Promote Your Site
The last thing you need to do is communicate your new fitness classes to your audience.
Already got an audience at a physical studio or through social media channels? You've got a head start!
Use any existing community to promote your membership site and learn about your audience and what they want to see from you.
It's still possible to become a successful online studio without an existing audience, too.
Take advantage of the data you already have about your market and don't forget about the power of email marketing to engage your audience and tell them about your new online program.
Wrapping Up
Now you know the 4 steps you need to take to get your online fitness business off the ground.
Whether you're taking your bricks and mortar gym hybrid, you have an online following that you want to monetize, or you're a new fitness instructor starting from scratch, the process will look the same.
Keen to get started?
Uscreen has all of the tools you need to get your online fitness program off the ground. Get started with Uscreen now, the first two weeks are on us!
PJ is the founder and president of Uscreen, an all-in-one video monetization platform that empowers video entrepreneurs and creators to monetize their content and build thriving businesses around their videos.
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