According to the latest fitness industry statistics, the online fitness market was valued at approximately $6 billion in 2019. And, it’s expected to grow to around $59 billion by 2027. As you can see, the market for this fitness niche is huge and it’s expected to continue growing at a rapid pace.
So, if you are a personal trainer or a fitness coach and you are not selling workout plans online, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to take your fitness business to the next level.
The question is, where do you start or how do you go about selling workout plans online? Well, this guide has the answers.
In this article, we will cover the benefits of selling workout plans online as well as how to create and sell workout plans online. We will also share tips on how to promote and market your workout plans to reach more clients.
1. Benefits of Selling Workout Plans Online
If you are yet to take your fitness business online, you may be probably wondering whether it’s worth it. After all, you are still managing to get clients in your gym right? Well, selling workout plans online comes with a wide range of benefits, which your current brick-and-mortar fitness business won’t provide.
1.1 Retain More Clients
For your gym members with busy lifestyles, coming to your fitness center every day is almost impossible. And considering that they may not want to miss a workout session, they will explore ways of working out at home. During their research, they may come across online workout plans that your competitors are offering.
And the chances are, some may even decide to discontinue your memberships, in favor of your competitors, who are offering them convenience and flexibility. Hence, by selling online workout plans, you will be providing your clients with convenience and flexibility, which will in turn boost satisfaction rates. Consequently, your retention rates will be high.
1.2 Expand Your Clientele
Regardless of how many people you would want to help achieve their fitness goals, space and location will always remain a hindrance, if you only run a brick-and-mortar fitness business. But with virtual fitness programs, you will not have such constraints. Any person with a smartphone, laptop, or tablet can easily access your workout plans, regardless of where they are. As a result, you will be able to reach more people and expand your client base.
1.3 More Time for Personal Stuff
Just like any other entrepreneur out there, you definitely want to earn as much money as possible from your fitness business. And to achieve this goal, you will need to train as many people as possible in a day.
But this may come at the expense of your personal time, meaning you may be forced to sacrifice the time you would be spending with your family, friends or attending to your other tasks.
By selling workout plans online, you will be able to add an extra revenue stream to your business. As a result, you can now reduce the number of hours that you spend doing in-person training. And you can then spend this time attending to your personal stuff and other commitments.
2. Steps to Creating and Selling Workout Plans Online
Without a doubt, selling workout plans online comes with numerous benefits. It will enable you to continue with your passion for helping people achieve their fitness goals, generate a stable income and grow your fitness business.
At the same time, you no longer have to sacrifice your personal time, meaning it will help you to achieve a work-life balance. The question is, how do you actualize it and enjoy these benefits? Well, it’s not as hard as it may appear. Here are the steps to follow.
2.1 Choose a Business Model
The first step in creating and selling workout plans online is to choose a business model. A business model refers to the way you will price and sell your services to your target audience. And, there are two main types of business models to choose from if you are looking to sell workout plans online.
2.1.1 Membership Model
A membership model is also referred to as a subscription-based model. In this structure, people will be paying a monthly membership fee to access your workout plans, once you’ve launched them.
It’s more like a Netflix subscription. As long as they continue renewing their monthly memberships, they will continue accessing your workout plans. And if they stop paying the set fee, then they will automatically lose this access.
A membership model is the ideal business structure for fitness entrepreneurs looking to build a client-focused and comprehensive online fitness business.
The main advantage of this business model is that you will be earning recurring income. Also, your earnings will be more predictable. Furthermore, this business model can help you to build long-term relationships with your subscribers.
On the flip side, you must be ready to invest your resources in creating high-quality content regularly, to provide your members enough reasons to renew their membership. Also, this business model is extremely competitive, considering there are hundreds of other fitness coaches running similar services.
2.1.2 Pay As You Train
Also known as a transactional business model, people will be paying a one-time fee to access your workout plans. It’s more like purchasing a DVD workout plan, where the person will have access to the content any time they wish.
This business model will be ideal for someone who wants to teach a particular workout routine or fitness class. For instance, you can create a four-week workout plan that will help a certain demographic to lose weight. This plan will continue training plans, nutritional plans, workout videos as well as recovery tips.
You will then package all this information into a single plan and offer it online via downloadable videos or e-books. Once someone purchases this plan, they will have access to it forever.
The main advantage of this business model is that you can charge a premium price, which is almost impossible with the membership model. As for its drawbacks, it will be hard to predict your income. Also, you need to market it aggressively to continue finding new customers.
2.2 Choose Your Content Structure
After you’ve chosen your preferred business model, you then need to choose your content structure. When it comes to selling workout plans online, you have two main content structures that you can adopt.
First, you can decide to use videos. The videos can be pre-recorded classes or live-streamed sessions. Videos are the most popular method of delivering online workout plans. Also, videos are preferable, since someone can easily follow the different workout routines.
Second, you have the option of selling your workout plans in text format. And this mainly entails fitness e-books. These e-books will contain a combination of text and images, explaining the different workouts. E-books will be easier to create, compared to videos.
You also have the option of a combination of the two. A combination of e-books and videos will provide a convenient option for your target audience since they can choose their preferred mode of consumption.
2.3 Create Your Content and Set the Price
After you’ve settled on a format of structure, it’s now time to do the actual work of creating your workout plans. If you decide to use videos, you will need to find a spot where you can shoot them.
This can be in your fitness center or even a spare room at home. And you don’t need sophisticated equipment to shoot videos. A tripod stand and your smartphone can help to get you started. If you intend to sell pre-recorded videos, then you will need to make some edits after you’ve finished shooting them.
On the other hand, if you’ve decided to create e-books, you just need to decide how long you want them to be. You can either do the work yourself or hire a fitness writer to create the workout plans for you.
After you’ve finished creating your workout plans, you will then need to decide how much to charge your workout plans. You need to be extremely careful when setting the prices. If you charge too high, your target audience may look elsewhere for similar plans.
On the other hand, if your prices are too low, your workout plans may lose value. Considering that you are starting, check what others are charging for similar services and lower your prices slightly.
2.4 Deliver Your Workout Plans
At this point, you’ve created your workout plans, selected your preferred business model and set the prices. And you are now ready to start selling them. When it comes to selling your workout plans online, you have two avenues to pursue.
First, you can decide to host them on your website, if you already have one. If you decide to follow this route, you will have to have a system in place where your target audience can purchase or subscribe to your workout plans.
Second, you have the option of hosting your workout plans online via a third-party website. Such platforms will handle the payments on your behalf and then deduct a commission.
So, which option should you pursue? Well, if you already have a fitness website and it’s already receiving healthy traffic, then you should deliver your workout plans through it.
On the other hand, if you are yet to set up a website, you can begin by hosting your workout plans via a third-party site, as you build your site. Once your fitness website gains traction, you can then shift them there.
2.5 Promote Your Workout Plans
Just because you’ve created high-quality workout plans doesn’t mean that you should now sit back and your target audience will automatically find them. If you decide to do so, you may end up making zero sales. Instead, you need to promote your workout plans aggressively so that your target audience can know about them. To this end, you will need to find ways of driving traffic to them.
Some of the methods that you can use to market, promote and drive traffic to your workout plans include social media marketing, email marketing, influencer marketing, in-person marketing, paid ads, guest blogging, affiliate marketing, and running contests, just to name a few.
Be sure to use great content in all your social media posts. This is where ContentBASE can help you out. Check out our very popular Fitness Canva Bundle, which contains no less than 300 fully editable workout templates.
3. Track and Monitor
Once you’ve launched your workout plans, you will need to monitor sales closely. In case the marketing strategies you’ve deployed are not delivering the results you’ve expected, you can shift to other methods. You can also experiment with different pricing strategies to see if there are any changes. Tracking and monitoring will help you to fine-tune your online fitness business for maximum success.
4. Wrapping It Up
Selling workout plans online comes with numerous benefits for you individually and for your fitness business. And, as you can see, it’s not as hard as it may appear. With the right approach, careful planning and effective marketing, you can successfully sell workout plans online.