Marketing in Fitness Post 10 - Jtrain Fitness is on Patreon!

*If you enjoy this blog or any of my other social media platforms / products, please consider supporting me on Patreon at www.patreon.com/jtrain1224*

Well, here we are Jtrain Nation. The last post in my "Marketing in Fitness" series. I've had a lot of fun doing this, and I hope you've had a lot of fun reading it!

So I was thinking that I might do something cool / fun / interesting for this post. I wanted every post to be about fitness and it looks like I was able to do so. I was thinking about what might be a good topic for a final post when I thought about maybe talking about how my whole Jtrain Fitness brand plans to utilize marketing in the future to grow myself as a brand. So that's what I'm going to do.

The advent of the internet has made it possible for anyone to turn themselves into a brand. If you have an idea, and enough people buy into that idea, you can start up your own brand with countless tools allowing you to do so on the internet with little to no cost.

One of these tools is Patreon. Patreon is a service utilized by many Youtubers to counteract the amount of money Google Adsense pays them (i.e. not a lot). If a person has enough of a following, they can utilize Patreon to ask fans or people who believe in the things they create to support them monetarily with a monthly pledge amount. Potential pledge amounts are decided by the person running their Patreon account, and often times rewards and prizes are offered in return to incentivize people to pledge.

A service like this in my opinion is very powerful. If someone is good at something or can offer something a lot of people believe in and want to support, that person can immediately start collecting money and building themselves and their brand overnight. They are also receiving an income that they can use to enhance and evolve the service that they already provide for their fans. It's a potential win win for both sides.

So how does this tie into me? Well, I want to start finding a way to utilize this service to help facilitate my ability to continuously generate the kind of content I want to bring forth into the world. With this service, I can interact with my own community and they can help support me while at the same time telling me the kind of content they want in return. From a fitness aspect, I could offer making customized fitness videos which answer questions they may have or exercises they need demonstrated.

With this service, I can focus more on promoting myself and generating content that my community wants. They can support me and, in return, are given the content they want.

I can use Patreon as a base for which all other Jtrain Fitness media lead to. I can make posts on all of my current social media (Youtube, Instagram, Blogger, Facebook, etc.) that drive all people who potentially want to support me across all social media to the service they can utilize to strengthen the Jtrain community. As I've learned in my UVA e-marketing class, utilizing consumer input and having them involved is a great way to get people invested in my brand and incentivized to support me monetarily through Patreon.

With social media I have been able to get eyeballs and viewers invested into the content I create. Patreon provides yet another way I can market myself and let those who are kind enough to support me be more involved in said content.

If you have enjoyed this blog, or any of my other social media outlets, please consider pledging to my Patreon account. I want to create the Jtrain Fitness community where you have a say in the types of videos and content you want produced. To do so, please visit www.patreon.com/jtrain1224 . I will think you are the greatest for doing so!

Take care lovely readers of Jtrain Fitness. Until the next post!


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Marketing in Fitness Post 9 - Fitness Platform from Egypt Connects Users to Personal Trainers and Programs

I'm back Jtrain Nation! We're almost at a close to my "Marketing in Fitness" series. It's been a lot of fun writing these blog posts, and I'm really excited to talk about today's story that I found while perusing the internet.

While searching for articles to discuss, I stumbled upon a story on wamda.com discussing a website that was developed in Cairo that connects users to personal trainers and their workout programs from all over the world.

Jumpsuite is a service (launched in February of 2016) that tries to help customers who are frustrated with paying large fees for personal training on top of gym usage fees an ability to interact with personal trainers and gain access to workout plans that they can use. The company cites and ever-growing expansion in the fitness industry, and wants to be one of the first to help consumers that want a way to generate self-discipline by finding workouts and trainers that fit their lifestyle.

Through Jumpsuite, users can search for, follow, purchase, and review fitness programs from all over the world. The company licenses out their product to trainers who then use it to develop their programs and market themselves and sell to users.

In the article I read that inspired me to write this blog post, the author states that the way Jumpsuite distinguishes itself is through its unique interface. The software that it hands out to trainers and nutritionists allows them to build workout programs an view the analytics of their client base. They also have complete control over their products and landing page. Users can also utilize the online marketplace to find, buy, and review programs. 

Currently, Jumpsuite has about 5,600 users registered. Since its launch, it has sold over 200 programs and is seeing growth. Currently, there is no mobile app for Jumpsuite but one is in the works and is currently being reviewed for launch on app stores. 

Personally, I feel like this is a great idea. Jumpsuite is taking advantage of the current fitness craze and providing a market need for individuals who wish to connect with personal trainers or find workout plans but don't know where to start or don't want to purchase a gym membership. Serving as a vehicle to connect consumers with service providers is a great way to take advantage of the current environment. It will be interesting to see if other companies, especially in the U.S. start following this business model.

-Jtrain

Source: http://www.wamda.com/2016/04/building-global-fitness-platform-streets-cairo

-Jtrain-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Have a question about natural bodybuilding / fitness / nutrition / stress?
Need some advice? Email me at jtrainfitness@gmail.com and I will answer
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Marketing in Fitness Post 8 - A Look at an Indoor Cycling Studio's Marketing Strategy (An Interview).

Hello again Jtrain Nation!

I'm back with post 8 in my "Marketing in Fitness" series! In this post, I will give you the transcript of an interview I conducted with Chris of Applied Fitness Cycle, a small business located in Manassas, Virginia that specializes in providing indoor cycling classes. Chris is extremely passionate about what he does, and left a government job to pursue a career around his love for cycling. I sat down to ask him a few questions about his business, including the marketing strategies he currently uses and plans to use to help elevate his business to continue doing what he loves.

1. What is Applied Fitness Cycle?  An indoor cycle studio that also allows you to bring your own bike and ride it in class. We provide Hand Krank cycles as well. There is only one of its kind in America.

2. Who is behind AFC?  Myself and my Wife Sarah.  My brother who is paralyzed from the chest down was part of the inspiration to include the hand krank cycles. We provide a safe environment for disabled athletes.

3. What do you offer? 20 Real Ryder Bikes, 5 Hand krank cycles and 10 trainers to connect your own bike to.

4. What makes AFC unique?  Our Real Ryder bikes move so it feels like a real bike or at least as close as you can get indoors, we are the only gym in NOVA that offer them.  Also, we offer on and off the bike classes for a complete workout and additional specialty classes like Cycle Yoga, Krank Cycle, and Cycle Bootcamp.

5. What kind of image are you trying to portray with AFC?  We are family friendly environment, a safe place to workout at most ages and levels, our youngest member is 9 and our oldest it 72. 

6. Who is your target market?  Indoor cycling is unique because just about anyone can ride a bike so anyone who is at least 4'11 and wants to give effort is considered our target market.  We do break it down into three general groups for marketing references: stay at home parent, disabled athlete, and the advanced/pro athlete.

7. What form of marketing are you investing most in / rely most on?  We mostly invest in Money Mailers but we use social media the most. It's mostly free and boosting a FB post is much cheaper and can still reach thousands of people for pennies on the dollar compared to traditional marketing.  Word of mouth is everything for us so I consider building relationships within our members a huge marketing tool, another reason we try to get our members out of the studio for rides, swims, runs and races.

8. Do you feel online marketing is important to your business? Why or why not? See previous answer.

If you ARE utilizing online marketing, what platforms are you utilizing most / think have been most successful?  Facebook and Twitter along with our own website.

9. Do you use any analytical tools to examine / understand who is viewing / engaging in your product? Do you use search optimization tools to make it easier for people to find your stuff?  Google analytics is something that we live and die by, numbers are checked daily and we actually rearrange our website if we find people are looking at pages first or second and how long.  Also, we can target where they come from when they come to our website and put more effort and/or money into that.

10. Do you have any future plans to help improve your marketing campaigns? Will it be online or offline and why?  We are always trying to improve our marketing on and offline.  For example, we print out triathlon specific rack cards to pass out at triathlons but then print out "loosing the baby weight with indoor cycling" for our marketing at baby expo's. We are currently making videos to try and spread the word about what we do as well, classes all the way to how to videos.  Also, building strategic partnerships with other local businesses is huge for us, helps with marketing costs if we all want to chip in for a banner for a race or just having our info on their website.

11. Where can people go to find out more about AFC?  @AFCManasses for FB and Twitter and www.appliedfitnesscycle.com

-Jtrain
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Have a question about natural bodybuilding / fitness / nutrition / stress?
Need some advice? Email me at jtrainfitness@gmail.com and I will answer
it on this blog! Be sure to enter your email to receive alerts for 
when the next blog post has come out, and be sure to tell your 
friends about this blog! Follow me on Instagram @jtrain1224 and tell 
your friends to do the same!*
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