One Push Notification. 1000 Sales in 24 Hours. The Fitness Studio Case Study

All right, guys, welcome back to another episode of Running with Wolves. Today, we are going to do another kick ass case study, and I know you guys absolutely love these because you message me all the time about these different case studies that I do. So today, we are going to break down how my fitness studio client literally sent out one push notification and made 1,000 sales. She made $100,000 in sales for intro packages in one month. And we were actually laughing about it this morning while I was on a call with her. I'm not kidding, you guys. When I say she's probably only executing half of the marketing strategy that I gave her. She is currently six months pregnant. She's renovating her sixth studio. So she has so much going on. She's not even executing the full strategy and yet these sales are aggressively happening. And most of it, crazy enough, is coming from a marketing platform that you think is dead. When an actuality, it's just her marketing strategy not doing anything for you. Most of her sales, you guys, because we have unique tracking links everywhere. So I can back this with data and real receipts. Most of her sales are coming from Instagram, which is insane because she has a massive email list. She has all these different text message contacts that she can do SMS marketing with. And she has push notifications. Obviously, the push notifications did a lot for her sales, but majority of her sales are coming from Instagram. So today, we are going to unpack the strategy changes that I have given her to make this happen, because she's only been working with me within accelerator tier two for about three months at this point when I'm recording this, which is in like the beginning of September, essentially. Also, happy early birthday to me. September is my birthday month. So this is the first time I'm filming in September. I'm very excited about it. Anyways, let's jump into the rest of the case study. And we're going to talk about, like I said, strategy changes, everything that I gave her to make this happen. Okay. So before we get into those strategy changes, you guys know I always walk you through the context of where each client was at before they started working with me, because I think it is very important. You understand the starting point to really understand the full context of the results that they've achieved, because without understanding where they started from, how can you understand how massively these changes were that resulted in these sales. Okay. So when this client first came to me, she, like I said, was pregnant. She is currently opening her six studio location in San Diego. However, she only had five at the time. She had an entire team doing her marketing for her. She has probably 70 different team members internally through studio managers and instructors. She has a pretty massive business. And on a yearly basis makes over a million in revenue. She has a fantastic audience on different social media platforms. So like on Instagram, she had almost 10,000 Instagram followers. She didn't have a social media platform on TikTok. She has an email list with tens of thousands of members on it. Same thing with her text message marketing. Her list there was almost the exact same size. And she has so many people coming through her door every single day. Her team is fantastic. Her marketing was consistent. So like for all intents and purposes, you would think from the outside looking in that this is a studio and a company that is wildly successful, which they are. But for the amount of effort that they were putting in to their marketing for the amount of money that they were putting into their marketing, investing in these different agencies and teams, etc. You would think that they would be making way more money than they actually were behind the scenes based on how many people see their marketing, how many people are interested, how many people click the link, how many people even set up a profile in their app and don't purchase a membership or an intro package or any of those things. So from the outside looking in, they looked incredibly successful. But when you actually got into the back end of their marketing, their sales, their data, their numbers, there was a lot going wrong. Okay. The biggest gap for them was the amount of attention that they were getting, meaning the amount of eyeballs on their marketing, not just social media, email, text message, every single marketing vertical that they had, that did not correlate with the amount of sales because they had a conversion gap. So let's kind of get into the mistakes that they were making in their marketing that was resulting in this kind of like starting point. Okay. So when they first started working with me and we got into market research, marketing and sales data, you guys hear me talk about this all the time, right? That's my like normal process to onboard on working with me. Okay. So I dig into all the numbers and I'm like, you have so much interest like what the hell is happening? You should be making way more sales. I look at that data. Then I cross compare that with their actual marketing that was going out and immediately I was like, oh, well, that's why you're not making any money or you're not making like two to three times the amount of money that you're making right now. And it's because I literally combed through probably six months worth of their marketing that I could, right? Not their emails or like their Instagram stories because those disappear and I didn't have access to their emails, but I'm looking at their social media, right? Then I have her send me email marketing, then I have her send me text message marketing. I'm looking at everything, right? When was the last time they sold? Couldn't tell you, could not fucking tell you? And this is something that I see with studios all the time specifically in the fitness industry, which is that oftentimes they are so focused on trending content, funny content, engaging content showing the behind the scenes of the studio and highlighting and spotlighting instructors or members or things like that, right? It's very fluffy marketing, which is fantastic for creating awareness that you even exist. Number one, getting people to fall in love with the community that you've created, which in the fitness industry is very important. A huge part, I literally just had a kick off call with a new client this morning who owns a bar studio, like pure bar, basically, like the company, right? She owns a franchise and she did market research as well. And the two things that would make people take a class and then purchase a membership was community and results. That is very normal in the fitness industry, okay? So when I go and I look at their marketing, they have one half of that. They're highlighting the community. They are not actually talking about how their studios are different than the other people in San Diego. And I will say the San Diego fitness scene as someone who lives in Southern California is insane. It is so competitive. It is very saturated. And so in order for you to be successful, oh, and by the way, they're the studio of fitness studio. They're the ones that have been around the longest in San Diego. Like everyone has come and gone. People have created fitness studios of different workouts. And then they've had to close their doors because they haven't done well. She has been around for forever, almost two decades, you guys, okay? So she's seen it all. There is nothing that is showing how they are different from the other fitness studios in their area and in their industry. Okay? So there's nothing that sets them apart, which means it is very easy for them to get passed over by somebody who is looking at becoming a part of a new studio. Number one. So there's nothing that differentiates them from their competitors. Number two, there is nothing that actually sells why people should come in and take a class. Okay? So the really cool part is when we first started working together, she had no clarity on what got people to come in. She was having hundreds of new members walk through the front door of their studios every single month. And when I asked her when she started working with me, why are they coming in? Why are they purchasing a drop-in class or an intro package or even with class pass? Why are they choosing you on class pass? And she could not tell me. So the market research immediately clarified that for us. It told us, and exactly like what I said with my new client, community and results were two very important things. But what it also told us was that and she actually didn't really know this majority of her target audience that was walking through her front doors as new potential members, meaning they purchased a drop-in class or they came from class pass. They came there after not working out consistently for years. Majority of their target demographic was not a consistent fitness person. They're someone who is trying to get back into working out. They have a lot of moms specifically at a couple of locations in studios that were new members that made up a large majority of their audience. Okay, so without knowing that, it would be very difficult to sell a membership or an intro package to a fitness studio because most people assume that when they are selling fitness memberships or classes that everybody works out, everybody knows what they're talking about. Everyone has the same mindset. If you are consistent with a workout, it's less about, is this workout gonna work for me? And it's more about like, where's the right place for me to do this workout? Right? Like, there's a million and one different, I don't know, Pilates studios in my area. And if I know and love Pilates and I'm consistent with it, it's less about will this workout work? And it's more about, okay, where do I go? Right? So if she had not known that that was like a potential concern or objection for her target audience, the marketing strategy that we created together would have not created, in my opinion, the results that it actually did because we had clarity on where her target audience was at in their quote unquote, buyers journey, right? So they weren't even like, I would call them solution aware. So we go from, okay, you're aware you have a problem or you're unaware, excuse me, that you have a problem, to you're aware that you have a problem. The problem here is that they want to lose weight or tone up or be stronger or build muscle. So they have a problem that they don't know how to fix. They're aware of that now. Then you have to make them aware of what the solution to their problem is. So you have to sell them on, this is a LaGree studio specifically, right? You have to sell them that LaGree is the solution for them. Then you have to sell them on the fact that you, your studio is the place that they should go to do LaGree, to do this workout, right? But if you skip the step of making them aware that LaGree and like having consistent workouts is the thing that they should ultimately be doing to achieve the goals that they have or solve the problems that they have. If you're not doing that, the marketing isn't going to land. If you're just like, hey, come check out like our LaGree classes as if they're already sold on LaGree, it's not going to create the result that you're looking for, okay? So we built that into her marketing strategy and I'm so glad that that came up in her market research. So we do all of this, right? Then we cross reference her market research with what's going out in her marketing. Like I said, they had great attraction content, they had great warming content. I mean, actually, you know what? I would rate it like a B minus, maybe C plus on the warming content because it was showcasing the behind the scenes, their community building trust, building obsession with their brand, but it was not differentiating them from their competitors and we've talked about this previously, where if you for some reason do not differentiate yourself from your competitors in your marketing, people are going to consistently shop around. So what would have ended up happening if we didn't incorporate that into her strategy is people would have fallen in love with her community, but they would have gone to other potential studios maybe on class pass or they're just googling it in the area, they're trying different studios and then they ultimately do not end up going with my client studio because from the jump, their marketing didn't tell them why they were better. That's why it's so important in your warming content to not just get people obsessed with your studio or your brand or your product or your service, but also to say, hey, here's why we're better. It eliminates the shopping round, it eliminates the potential pricing objection in the future, it eliminates a lot of things. It makes your life a heck of a lot easier, okay? And on top of that, like wouldn't you rather somebody immediately, if they're like, okay, I want to do a degree workout. Ooh, this is where I'm going to go. Or like, for example, for me, I just signed up for a couple of different solid core classes 'cause I want to try it out. If I'm going to try out a new workout, wouldn't you rather someone be like, ooh, solid core, that's where I want to go. Instead of let me do my research, let me shop around. Like, would you rather be super top of mind for them so that they just immediately go to your website, purchase a class to try it out and boom, you're done. You've made the sale rather than them coming to you. Hey, I have some questions. Well, this is what your competitor is doing. Can you price match, can you this, can you that? Stop, like literally just included in your marketing and that headache will go away, okay? So differentiating yourself from your competitors is incredibly important. But what her market research also revealed was her target audiences top problems and goals and how they are experiencing that, okay? So you guys have heard me talk consistently about how important it is to not just talk about the what but the how, the what is the problem itself. So for example, they couldn't tone up basically, right? So like they're consistently maybe quote unquote working out but maybe strength training feels too intimidating and Pilates isn't good enough. Like it's not hard enough to actually create the results that you're looking for, right? So lagre is this like perfect blend between all of them. So there are quote unquote problem is that they can't find a workout that will build muscle that works for them. However, how they're experiencing that, which is what we want to focus on in our marketing is the story, is the experience, okay? So instead of saying if you struggle with finding a workout that actually builds muscle, you should come try our lagre class. I then told her, I'm like, that's not what we're saying, okay? Because that's a lot of what her old marketing team was doing. It was very fluffy, very surface level or very like infomercial QVC feeling, okay? There were two extremes to her marketing. So instead what we did is we said, if you are somebody who every single time you go to the gym, you walk around, you pick up different weights, like I don't know what the perfect weight is for me. You walk on the treadmill for 10 minutes and then you walk out because you have no fucking clue what to do. Or if you're someone where it's like, I have no time to drive 30 minutes to the studio, do an hour long class, 30 minutes back, take care of my kids, do my nine to five, whatever, right? That is the perfect fit for our studio because our degree classes are 40 minutes blah, blah, blah, right? Instead of me saying, here's your problem, here's the fix, I'm saying here's your experience and here's the solution to that, okay? That is a sales psychology tactic called mirroring and identity. So there's two things that we're doing here. Number one mirroring is where you basically use someone's exact language back to them. If you're in person in a sales conversation, I'm motioning at the camera. If you're watching this, if you're just listening to it, no, you oftentimes mirroring when you're in person can also look like reflecting body language, okay? So for example, if, and if you're watching this, I'll show you if you're listening, just listen. But if you're like sitting across from somebody, for example, and you're in a sales conversation, and originally their legs are uncrossed and they're just kind of sitting up straight and then they cross their legs and they fold their arms and they sit back, that tells me, number one, they're defensive, but then number two, they're probably not necessarily super engaged in the conversation. So what am I gonna do? I'm gonna mirror their body language because it feels comfortable to them. They feel like you guys are on the same page and it builds trust, okay? The same thing can be done in your marketing. If you mirror their language back to them, meaning you use the exact language that they are, it creates trust, it makes them feel like you're on the same page and it makes them feel seen and understood. So we're using that tactic. We're also using something called identity. You guys have heard me talk about this before, which is ultimately where someone sees themselves inside of your marketing, they themselves feel seen by you as a brand or business, which means they trust you because you clearly understand them well, they trust you more, which means they trust your solution more, okay? So the clearer we can paint this picture of not what they're struggling with or what they want, but how they would experience those things. And my joke, and you guys have probably heard me say this, so like still laugh, like it's funny obviously, but my joke is that I want you to pretend like you are asked in culture on punked, okay? So I want you fucking following them with cameras. I wanted to feel like when they read your marketing, that they're like reading their diary, they're like, how the fuck do you know this about me, basically, right? Like that ultimately is how they should feel when you are doing identity properly in like a sales psychology sense in your marketing, okay? So we put all of that into her marketing strategy based off of her market research because we literally verbatim had them tell her what they were struggling with, what they wanted, what that looked like. And so we went through and we just took all of those things and put it into her marketing, okay? So that was step one was basically market research and data and collecting the information we needed to make a highly converting marketing strategy. Then I cross referenced that with what did the best in their marketing and sales data. We already understand what their gap is. So we're going to incorporate that stuff into their strategy, but then we can actually double down on what's working really well for them. So it creates even better results, okay? So for example, her, she did like one or two pieces of quote unquote found her forward marketing that you guys have heard me obviously talk about a lot in the past of like her experience building this from the ground up or maybe even like teasing that something's coming behind the scenes, ie her sixth studio location. So she'd done a little bit of that content and it was by far her top performing top engaging content. So I said, okay, for your attract content, I really want you to lean into found her forward marketing, polarizing opinions, et cetera. We pulled all of that from the conversation she was having with other people in the fitness industry, with her actual members at her different studios, with her instructors. So we pulled all of those things because it was doing really well for her in her data. And we immediately put more of that out. And her reach went up significantly, okay? Then what we did next is what I like to call light bulb moments, which is basically you essentially saying in your marketing to your target audience, if XYZ is your goal, and this is what you're trying to do to hit your goal, here's why that is not going to work and why, and here's what you should be doing instead. So this is a piece of warming content that actually shows them the gap between where they are now and where they want to be and makes them clearly understand they do not know how to get there on their own. And then what it does is it educates them and it shows your knowledge and your expertise. 'Cause you're saying here's what you should actually be doing instead and why? And so it allows you to really be seen as this like authority figure in your industry who really knows what they're talking about. And then we ended it with a call to action to talk back to her, okay? So for example, we basically said, kind of the example that I gave of like walking around the gym with no real plan and why that's not creating any sort of like physical results for you, building any muscle, et cetera. That right, there is a fantastic example of light bulb moments, okay? So you're basically saying, hey, if this is your like quote unquote workout routine and you're trying to get stronger, that's not going to work because of XYZ reason, but here's what we do in our league classes that's actually going to build muscle for you. And it's gonna make it so you don't even have to think about what your workout is, you just show up and do it. your held accountable. It's a super fun community, et cetera. Okay. So we incorporated more of that into her marketing because it showed people, if you keep doing what you're doing, you're not going to see the results you're looking for. And then we did UVP. So this is what differentiates her from her competitors. Okay. So a huge part, I will say, of their UVP is number one, their class length. So it is just as effective as a regular degree class, but it's only 40 minutes, which for people who are working a nine to five and maybe they're trying to squeeze in a workout on their lunch break or busy moms or parents, for example, who are, you know, trying to squeeze in a workout like right, you know, before they have to go pick up the kids from school or something. Again, they don't have time for a 60 minute workout with a 30 or even 15 minute commute on either end of that, right? So that's a huge part of their UVP. Second of all, another really big part of their UVP. And this is actually something interestingly enough. And I might make a secondary episode about this for you guys. So you'll have to let me know if in the comments you actually want me to. But it was really interesting because we talked a lot in their marketing strategy about how a lot of these San Diego fitness studios very much cater to these perfect like Pilates girlies who show up in matching sets with their matcha. And like the studio is exclusively designed for like influencers and to take photos in the mirror and like it very much appeals to that target demographic. Her studios are not like that. They are fast, effective studios workouts where you can pretty much show up however you want. Like you can have mismatching socks. You can show up with like baby spit on your t-shirt and no one cares. It's like we're just here for a really kick ass workout until like get the results. So we created some of that content. And it was really interesting because on Instagram it was so well received. Everyone was like, this is why we love you. We're obsessed with your brand for this reason. We always feel so at home, you know, with this specific studio. And then on TikTok, that exact same video. It was so interesting. Got so many fucking hate comments because people were like, you're not being inclusive blah, blah, blah, which actually inclusivity was the core root of the message. But it was very clear that on TikTok for some reason it landed on like a totally different like the wrong side of TikTok, the wrong side of the algorithm. But that is a big UVP for them. And that in and of itself, that video, interestingly enough, because it kind of went viral a little bit, did really well for them as far as reach and followers. And it also actually deterred the wrong people from coming to their studio. And it brought in the right people. So the one thing I'll say is that being controversial, being polarizing in your marketing can feel scary because sometimes you will get people who are being negative back because they basically are like, well, you offended me. And it's like, okay, well, if it offended you, it was probably not meant for you, right? And there is a difference I will say between polarizing marketing and like, quote unquote mean girl marketing. It was very interesting because so many of the negative comments were like, we know what you meant, but we just don't like how you said it. And we're like, what the fuck is happening? The words we use were like anti-hot girl studio. And so it was really interesting because I'm like, okay, anti-hot girl studio feels like it's, I mean, like hot girl is a term that's been coined for like the perfect, almost like Pilates princess person. And if you are somebody who is offended by that terminology, that is probably the kind of workout you're looking for. And that's not going to be this specific brand or this specific studio. Okay. So while it deterred people and created a little bit of controversy, it actually brought in a ton of the right people. So if you guys want me to like do a whole conversation about like controversial or like polarizing marketing and the pros and cons and all those things, I'm more than happy to, but let me know. That separated them significantly and got people talking about them versus their other competitors in their area and in their industry. Okay. So that was step two was incorporating that into their strategy. And then lastly, we have the converting side, which was the biggest gap of all, right? We've talked about this at the beginning of this episode already. So the four pillars for converting marketing are solution selling, social proof, objection handling and urgency. And all we did was we took the market research that she did, which they straight up told us, what are your problems, goals, biotypes and objections. And we basically did solution selling marketing around their problems and goals. That's all solution selling is it's like, if this is your problem, this is our solution. And if you want it, here's where you can get it. Or if this is your goal, that's exactly what our product or service does get it in the link in our bio or wherever you're funneling them. Okay. That's the entire premise of solution selling. Then one of their other videos that really popped off and created a shit ton of sales for them was a before and after side by side photo of a woman who had only been attending their studio for a month. And she had not worked out in 12 years. And the founder did a face to camera like green screen video talking about her story why she was afraid to show up to these workout classes, what tipped her over the edge and the results she saw literally in just one month. And that in and of itself right there because if we go back to the market research, a huge part of what would get people to come in was results that created a ton of sales for them. And all we did was just follow the market research. That's literally it you guys. So we incorporated social proof in there. And then we started talking about like if you haven't worked out in years, objection handling with that, talking about how you need five classes minimum to start to feel confident in the degree workout to start to see results to have fun with it, etc. Really promoting their intro packages. And then what we did, it was so crazy you guys. We took one of their top performing top converting pieces of content and turned it into a push notification at the very end of the like intro package sale that they were doing. And if you guys have ever done push notification marketing, you'll know you are on your character limit on that is very small. So you only can do like one or two sentences and they need to be very brief. So we obviously dialed back the piece of content that converted the best for them into literally one or two lines of the core message that converted sent it out. And by the way, the push notifications only go to people who already have their app. It does not go to obviously anyone in their audience. So this is already people who signed up and created a profile that never purchased from them. They sold a thousand intro packages, you guys 1000 in 24 fucking hours from one push notification. That's insane. Okay. If I asked any of you guys to send out a push notification that would result in a thousand sales in 24 hours, you'd be like, Savannah, you're fucking with me. Like that's not possible. Yeah, it is babe. Guess what? Yeah, it is. If you know what converts your audience into a sale and that's on good market research. So then we go into August and basically their new studio opens in I believe a couple weeks actually from when I'm filming this. This is the beginning of September. So in August, we started pre selling behind the scenes. Their founders round memberships for this new studio location that they are doing. Okay, meaning they have not publicly opened up memberships yet. You quite literally had to go to Lincoln their bio. And I I actually pushed back with my client on this. I was like, why are you making this more public? And she's like, I just want to do it this way. I'm like, okay, might cap your sales a little bit, but that's fine. If you want to do it that way. So they had to go to the link in the bio. Fill out a form that they were interested in founding memberships. And then they got on a call with someone on their team. And then somebody from their team converted them into a sale. Okay, they sold $100,000 worth of founding memberships in August from the marketing that we put together. That is more than they have ever sold in one month. You guys. And that was for one studio location that hadn't even fucking opened yet. And to this day has not opened. And their founding membership sales are still climbing because we know it gets their audience to buy. Oh, the other thing I was going to mention that I forgot to mention this sixth studio location, they're incorporating child care. So and this is something that's actually very cutting edge. Unfortunately, it shouldn't be. It's something that's very cutting edge in the fitness industry for boutique fitness studios. Bigger gyms that are corporations or franchises obviously have a lot of child care because they have a bigger budget. Smaller boutique fitness studios are now starting to incorporate this into their budget because they're seeing such a huge return on investment. But no one in their area does this like the way that they are. Okay. And the fact that the founder is like six months pregnant is so fantastic because she's basically the poster child for this, right? She's like, I created LaGrie because I wanted to work out that was quick and efficient or I didn't create LaGrie. But I opened up the studio to do LaGrie because I loved this workout. It's quick and it's efficient and it's all these different things. And on top of that, it lets me take care of my babies. But it was really difficult running around trying to find child care. So I could just go to a fucking 40 minute workout class. So I'm bringing child care to our fitness studios. And so this new location, that's primarily the UVP, the unique value proposition that we incorporated into their strategy. And we were primarily targeting moms because those are the people that are going to benefit from the studio the most. So we took the data. We took the strategy of what worked previously for them. And all we did was just customize it with the child care UVP. And specifically, remember when we go back to talking about the how versus the what, they're what, quote unquote, their problem, their goal is very similar to the other demographics that they have for this fitness studio. However, how they're experiencing that is different because they have kids. So we really painted that picture. trying to work out, schedule the logistics and all the things you can go work out with kids and highlighted this like child care solution and then pushed the founding memberships. And so like I said, their founding memberships are still climbing. It's pretty fucking crazy, you guys. And, like I said, they're only executing on about half of the strategy that I have created for them. They fired their social media management team. So the founder is creating all of her own marketing in addition to opening up the six studio location managing like a 70 person team because it's that quick and easy because she already knows what to talk about in her marketing and boom, we're seeing these results. It's absolutely insane, you guys. And as a reminder, this mostly came from a push notification and Instagram. That's what's so fucking insane. So if you ever thought that Instagram was dead, number one, no, it's not. Number two, you could do something as simple as sending out a push notification and it could create wild sales for you if you know what she knows now, which is what makes her audience by concerns, problems, objections, market research, data, etc. And it could take you literally half as much time as it's taking you right now to create marketing that creates these sales. So hopefully, this was a helpful case study for you guys. I love this result just because it shows the power of marketing. It shows the right strategy and the results that it can create, even if the execution and effort is super, super dialed back. So if you guys have questions about this episode, your strategy, any of those things, please feel free to send them to me in my Instagram DMs. You guys know I fucking love nerding out with you guys about this. And if you want me to do this, obviously for your business, for your brand, if you want me to look at your market research or data and tell you what to do in your marketing to create these kinds of sales, I always put an application in the show notes. So feel free to fill that out. And if you have any other questions, let me know. But I hope you guys have a fantastic rest of your day. Thank you for listening. And I'll see you in the next episode. Bye you guys.