S2 Ep 40: Fitness Marketing Predictions for 2022
In this episode of the Marketing Muscle Up podcast, host Richard Toutounji and co‑host Ev Chapman reflect on the first 80 episodes of their show and outline five key marketing predictions for fitness and wellness studios in 2022. They begin by sharing the podcast’s production backstory, their 10‑year journey from a general digital‑marketing agency to a fitness‑focused education business (the Ninja System), and the partnerships they hold with industry bodies and software platforms. The core of the episode is a series of predictions: (1) Google Ads (AdWords) will make a comeback as a more predictable lead‑generation channel compared with increasingly volatile and expensive Facebook ads; (2) fitness professionals will become more serious about building sustainable income and will seek business‑operator skills; (3) owning and actively using email databases will be a critical asset, with newsletters and fast‑lead strategies emphasized; (4) traditional gym peak‑time patterns will flatten as hybrid‑work schedules spread demand throughout the day; and (5) Instagram Reels will remain a high‑impact content format while TikTok is viewed as less reliable for lead generation in the fitness niche. The hosts close with gratitude to listeners, tease upcoming episodes, and encourage studios to adopt the outlined strategies.
Chapters
Welcome back to the last episode of 2021. Today we're talking about the fitness marketing predictions, maybe also call it business marketing predictions for 2022. What we've learned over the last year and over the last 80 episodes that we put out in the Marketing Muscle Up podcast show. I'm Richard Toutounji and I've got Ev Chapman joining me today. Ev Chapman has been on quite a lot of episodes as, what do they call it? The co-host.
Co-host.
Wingwoman and great person to bounce ideas and concepts off. Some of these episodes have been—
I can't believe this is 80 episodes.
This is 80 episodes. Yeah. We did a first season 140, next season 80. And remember, we, you know, the idea here was to, and it was an interesting concept, right? To say, how do we, you know, we tried podcasts before and it didn't, got to about 4 or 5 episodes and didn't really kick on. And the concept here is to go into a space that you haven't been in.
Yeah.
Or haven't really played around well in it and figure out how do you, how do you kind of have a dent in a relatively fast and efficient way in a new gap you haven't been in. And so the idea came up, instead of doing one a week, that would've been 52 over 12 months. The first season was every day for 7 days, and this season's been 5 days, Monday to Friday. We started on my birthday, September 7th. What are we in now? We're in—
December 14th.
December 14th. October, November, December. What is that? 3 months. And we've produced quite a lot of episodes. So really, you know, enough nearly for 2 years if we would do it once a week.
Absolutely. We'd be up to maybe— well, I think, you know, for me it's always about consistency. Like, you know, like those first 6 episodes we did of the previous show, you know, we like— I remember we put so much thought and effort and we were like, you know, I had a script for you, I had everything, right? And like then we did 6 episodes and now it's like, okay, we've got You know, obviously we, we have, you know, points and we know what we want to talk about. But I think like we, we kind of dropped kind of maybe a lot of the perfectionism I think you have when you do like one episode a week. It's like when you have to do episodes every day, you're just like, okay, let's do it. And, you know, I think like, I think for both of us, like, whatever's happening, it's like we have to get that episode out. And we have. And I'm really, I'm proud of us for that.
Yeah. Listen, there was one episode I think went live maybe at 12 midnight somewhere, but not my place. Right. So—
Well, that's true. You're an hour behind me.
So yeah, 80 episodes. What have we learned? And I want to share some predictions that we've definitely learned over not just these podcast episodes, but feedback that we've been receiving and also clients that we work with. And for those who are just tuning in today, maybe I founded a company around 10 years ago, actually 10 years, it'll be next year, 10 years ago. And it was digital marketing and probably go to episode 1, which is probably the, still the most popular episode is episode 1, season 1. I would definitely recommend going back to episode 1, season 1, and you can kind of hear a backstory. We started a digital marketing company And we morphed to more education for specifically fitness wellness studios to help them grow their business. And we do that very well. We're partners with some of the major industries like Fitness Australia, Exercise New Zealand, Pilates Alliance, Yoga Australia. We work with a lot of different companies like MindBody and Zip Leads and Impact Training and Meet Your Personal Trainer. PT Minder. And we have a system and a process, it's called the Ninja System, and we help businesses to double their business and in the first 6 weeks grow their revenue by 20%, just so as a business owner you have the full confidence to move forward. Over that space. And so, that's what we do. That's our backstory. And as I said, go to episode 1 and you can hear more about that, which was the most popular episode, by the way, Ev, in the series. Yeah.
That's great. That's a good episode.
Great episode. There's some other popular episodes, too. And then we'll get into some predictions for 2022. So, that's—
And I think we're going to put out, I think, the top 22 episodes in January. So look out for that.
Yeah, look out for that. So yeah, I'd love to know your feedback on that. Yeah, there's a lot in episode— episode 3 has been a big one, How to Stop Comparing and Find Your Flow. That's a really big one. Justin Tam's a shout out. His episode there, New Trends for 2022, was a big, big one that people listened to as well. And my favorite, my favorite is How to Double Your Income and Half Your Hours. How to double your income in half your hours. That was in episode 2 of season 1 as well. And that was a big listen to as well.
Nice.
So today, if you have listened to 80 episodes, awesome and good to have you on the journey. If this is your first time listening, well, you're in for a real treat because we're about to talk about the fitness marketing predictions for 2022. So number 1, number 1 on the list, number 1 on the list, we have a thing, there's a thing called AdWords and Fitness pros, get into AdWords. AdWords is making a comeback in the fitness industry space. Yes, you heard it right here. You can replay that as much as you want. And let's see if it's true by the end of 2022, Ev.
Yeah. I've definitely called this one. AdWords is making a comeback. And I think, you know, I think that for a long time, we kind of kept people away from AdWords. It's It was expensive. It's confusing. It's hard to set things up. It's, you know, there's a whole bunch of numbers. Like if you get confused in Facebook, like, oh my goodness, like AdWords is kind of next level. But I think that what we found this year is that Facebook has become a little bit of a volatile platform. It's been hard to run campaigns on it. I've had actually heard of quite a few people getting hacked this year as well. A lot. And so, and then the other thing is it's getting more expensive to acquire leads on Facebook. And so yeah, I think for that reason, it makes sense now to go back and explore AdWords.
Yeah. And also too, What I want to add here is that if anybody is using Facebook, before you had the option to spend a little bit on your lead acquisition and expect to get your cheap leads at $2, $3, $4, $5, $6, $7, $8, $9. They still kind of exist, but not as popular. And you got to be doing some really cool things for that. I still believe on Facebook, yes, run, definitely run an awareness video, awareness campaign. Yeah. remarketing. But with AdWords is that it's more predictable on costing. So it's more predictable on your acquisition cost and more predictable, but also too, I think if you've run Facebook and you're exhausted and it's driving you insane and you're prepared to actually pay Facebook and you're putting up a hand and saying, I'm prepared to give Facebook money, but it won't take it and it won't spend it and it's not giving me anything. Well, That you're a perfect client for AdWords because you're prepared to pay. Where before, a few years ago, nobody was prepared to pay the dollars that it actually cost to acquire a client.
Yeah.
Because we thought that the holy grail on Facebook, which it was, was giving us really cheap leads. But we all know what it's like. I answer the phone, I didn't put my details in there. Yes, you did put your details in there because I've got your phone number.
If you ever want to hear some funny stories, we should actually get a couple of our clients on. They have the best stories about these Facebook ads.
That's a great idea. Yeah. You know them, guys. And so if that's you and you're just frustrated with the whole process, is that get on AdWords and get onto that. AdWords has an express setup service that you can use. So you can kind of get onto that yourself. You can obviously use professionals to set these things up for you as well. And it's one of those things that it won't— it's changed a lot. The backend's changed, the platform's changed a lot. And it's similar costs what you'd be paying for leads at the moment on Facebook and AdWords as well.
Yeah. And I think the other thing to remember is that on Facebook, what you're doing is you're interrupting people. So you're interrupting them while they're in the line at Coles or they're at the bus stop or whatever. Whereas on Google Ads, people are actually searching for something. So you do end up with being able to get in contact with people. You end up being able to— so you might need more leads on Facebook, which is going to cost you more money. Whereas like a lead might cost you a bit more on AdWords, but you're going to be able to convert that person easier than somebody on Facebook.
Totally. All right. So that's prediction number 1 in 2022. Number 2, this is my prediction, is that fitness pros are going to get serious about building income, not just running a fitness business. What I mean by that is that over the last year, 2 years, if you're in the game right now, it's because you've done a great job. You've retained well. Yes. You've cashed your dollars and cents and you're saving your dollars and cents and you've cut your costs and you've got less— well, there is, if you're in an area and that other gym owner's not there anymore because they just weren't able to sustain what they had, they either had expenses too much or they didn't really care about the business and wanted to close shop. And so you're in a good position because the people around you are good operators. And so my prediction is that anybody by the end of 2022 are going to be really good business operators because you need to be a good business operator To first of all get through closures and and get through opens and shutdowns and things like that. But also too, by now is that you know I'm I I'm hearing less and less people saying oh I'm not here for the money. No, you don't have to be here for the money. No, we didn't say that. But you still have to get paid so you can stay in the industry long term. So you you know if you grow if you have a family you know you have income to put your kids through school, or you have income to go grocery shopping, or you have income to buy a house or pay a mortgage or rent or anything you want, that does require physical money. So I'm predicting that you're going to have better operators because they're here, because they are good operators and they are running a business, or whatever, they're learning how to do it. And we've had an influx Of people, um, coming into our programs and our courses wanting to learn how to stay in the industry long term and how to be a better business operator. So I'm seeing, or I'm already seeing that happen at the moment.
Yeah, totally. And I think you make a good point. Like, the fitness industry is at its heart a service kind of industry, you know, it's heart-centered. Um, and sometimes you get caught up with, well, I just want, I just want to help people. And so, um, sometimes that can kind of grate a bit with like earning money. But actually, if you want, like, you know, if you're listening to this and you're like, no, I just love helping people, you know, but at the end of the day, if you want to do that over the long term, you have to make money and you have to actually make your peace with money and be okay with, you know, with creating that income for yourself so you can continue that into the future. I
think it's a good one. Be at peace with money. It's not the evil and it's definitely needed to help more people in your community and to serve more people. You need to ensure that you can get yourself out there and that requires money. So I'm really excited for more good operators wanting to grow a business.
Yeah, it's exciting.
Totally exciting. If you need help with that, guys, just hit us up at commarketing.com.au. Prediction number 3.
Let's do it.
It's all about databases that you own, meaning email addresses that you own, is going to make a big time comeback on that one. Now, that was one of your predictions.
Yeah.
Deep dive into that.
Yeah. I think I've made this prediction every year now that I think of it, because it is what I do. But I think that I really think that we've experienced a lot this year around, I think, you know, social media. Like we've always said this. So you don't own the people that follow you on social media. At any time, you could get blocked, banned. You could get your account hacked and never get it back. We've had that happen to a couple of our clients. And so you, a lot of what you're building on social media feels like it's yours, but actually isn't. And then you are also, you're subject to all the algorithms. Yeah. So you don't control that. And so you're putting all of this work into all of your content and then like 10 people see it on Facebook or however many people see it on Instagram. And so I think, you know, I think the, not that the newsletter is coming back, but definitely having people sign up and subscribe to get content in their inbox from you is making a comeback. And that is going to be a big source of leads and a big source of people like, you know, and I think like I talked to our ninjas about this the other week in that like if you like, Sometimes, I think we are like apologetic for landing in people's inboxes. Like, oh, I'm so sorry I'm here in your inbox annoying you. Like that's kind of how we sometimes present ourselves. But I think what you have to understand is if somebody has legitimately signed up to get information from you, then you should show up with confidence and you should show up thinking, I have value. And I can teach you something. I can tell you, you know, like I can solve your problems, all of that kind of thing. So I think like showing up and being okay with that. And, you know, I think we spoke about this in one of the last episodes, like using blogs and that kind of thing to, yeah, like really just, you know, you have things to share, share them with the people who are in your newsletter and get more and more people to sign up to it.
There's an old saying, Ev.
Okay.
It says, send people an email unless they unsubscribe or they die.
That's it.
It's a very old saying in the digital marketing world. And it's true. Just keep sending them emails until they unsubscribe. It's very simple. They can unsubscribe if they choose to.
Yeah, totally. And if they haven't unsubscribed, they still you still have permission to land in their inbox. And I still think that is a, like, I mean, think about like the emails that you get in your inbox. Like, you know, you still have to show up, you have to show up with value. Otherwise, you know, you'll become invisible. Totally. But I think, yeah, like get into people's inboxes. It is one of the most guaranteed ways to get seen in 2022. Because less and less you're going to be seen in the feed.
And then guys, if you add— we have a concept called the fast leads. If you add fast leads to that, it really ramps up relatively— it ramps up really fast. But again, if you've got a small database, you haven't ever grown it, go out and grow that database, collect email addresses. Go on the street corner and do what you need to do. Give cupcakes out and ask for an email address. Give a fitness plan out and ask for an email address, but get email addresses to start growing your business. And especially If you want to sell your business long run, that is going to be an asset building process when somebody looks into that and the numbers.
Yeah, totally.
All right. So number 1, fitness AdWords, they're back in 2022. Number 2, we're going to see more fitness pros get serious about building income on a business. So if that is not you yet, go and reach for help and get that. Reach out to us and we can definitely help you in that. We've seen a lot of people moving into that space. Number 3, Databases, uh, that means email addresses that you own as well. Start using those, back to using those if you haven't used them for a while. Number 4, um, we're already seeing that times have changed and changing, and this whole concept of, um, no peak, uh, hour anymore—
Yeah.
Is, is taking a storm in the fitness industry. Um, so if you haven't yet seen this, um, it's that the peak time is all day. The reason being is people are now working from home. And in the future, you know, I guess this year, this year was a bit of a random year per se, a lot of lockdowns, especially in Sydney and Melbourne and coming into the year. And people are probably like, you know, doing what they're doing or continuing the routine. But next year is going to be a decision year for a lot of businesses, companies, I should say, to figure out what their employees are going to be doing with their routine, i.e., are they going to be back in the office 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, 2 days? They're going to have the flexibility. So there's going to be times, and the prediction here is that not everybody's going to go back to 5 days in an office. And so the whole changing their routines and times are definitely going to impact your fitness business. Ev, what are your thoughts on this one?
I think so. A lot of friends I've talked to, they're definitely doing the hybrid work from home a couple of days a week and then going to the office a couple of days a week. And so that means that on the days that they're at home, they have more of that flexibility. And I think that it's definitely— that's definitely going to be a hallmark of 2022 is that people are looking for more of that flexibility so that they can, you know, maybe spend a bit more time, you know, with their family at night rather than being at the gym. They've got that time kind of during the day maybe to go or later in the morning. Like, I think like we're going to see less and less people having to be at the gym at like the 5:00 AM time slot and more people maybe going a little bit later. Um, and then, you know, getting back home and getting into work. So yeah, I think, um, you know, if you've got classes and things, they might need to adjust. Um, and you know, maybe there's more daytime classes.
Yeah. And there's been a big gap in the, in the space for many, many years that the gym becomes empty in the day and you've got the peaks, AMs and PMs. And you know, this is a this is a thing that I want you guys to look out for is that this is going to be changing. It's also going to change the way that you do business as well. So sometimes going to be good for you as the operator. You don't have to be there early in the morning or late at night because yeah, it's going to be more consistent all the way through the day. And if it's not already, start to look out for these opportunities and start to ask your clients, hey, we're opening up another spot here. If you're already a pretty busy studio, opening up a a spot in the morning, in the daytime. And, um, you know, I know a lot of gyms there, if you're 45s, are discounting, slightly discounting price in the daytime to get people there. So just the option is there for your clients where before it just wasn't there at all. It didn't matter what you did, that just wasn't there at all.
Well, and there wasn't, and I think we just talked about this before, is that the choice, like, it's like there is a choice now. And so if you do want to kind of spread more people out, or, you know, yeah, if you, if you want to fill kind of the middle part of the day, that's actually— you can actually do it because people can physically come. I know I've been training in the afternoons just straight after lunch, and it's great because guess what? Hardly anyone else is there.
So good.
There's a couple of people I see regularly. They also work from home around the area and You know, it's kind of— it feels kind of cool.
Yeah, totally. All right, so there's our predictions. And, um, it's just 4 quick predictions. Was there any more predictions from your side, Ev? Any sneaky ones you wanted to get into there?
Um, sneaky ones—
We had AdWords, we had fitness pros getting serious, that there's databases that you own, uh, times are changing, so make sure you change your time. Yeah.
Um, Maybe I make a— can I throw a curveball in with like a, you know, maybe like a TikTok or something?
Well, yeah, you got to predict it though so we could go back and we can figure out if it was—
yeah, junk or not.
But you can do a TikTok prediction, that's fine.
To be honest, out there,
yeah,
to, to be honest, I think maybe TikTok might— no, it won't go away, but I don't think it's the platform that we thought maybe it was going to be after lockdowns.
Okay. So it wasn't the platform that we thought it was going to be. Is that specifically fitness or just overall?
I think both. I, as you know, I've been playing around with it for a while, as I do, but I don't know if I've seen anybody really particularly like nail it for fitness in terms of like Sure, you can get a lot of views. You could become an influencer, but like not for getting leads and like a legitimate platform like that. So yeah. But in saying that, Reels is a real thing on Instagram. And if you already have the audience, you don't have to actually build that audience and you can get a lot of views on Reels. And I think they will kind of, you'll have to build them into your content plan.
Instagram Reels is a real thing. It's sticking around. That's the prediction. Number 5, Instagram Reels. Get onto it if you haven't already. You can get views really fast, really quick. You don't have to dance around and be funny. You don't have to do all that kind of stuff. You can have some good content. It does help, but you don't have to.
You don't have to. You don't.
Totally. All right. Thanks so much, team. And thanks to everybody who's listening to these 80 Plus episodes, 80 episodes. It's been a real blast bringing them to you. And yeah, what's your— what's going to be one of your favourite episodes, Ev? Just putting you on the spot there.
Oh, that's a good question. I loved the early episodes where we talked about your story and kind of like discovered a whole lot of kind of even things that I didn't know, even though I've known you for a while. Yeah. So I really loved those first few episodes. I think they were fun to— and I love the episodes with you and Joey as well. There was the one with the rainbow. That was great. Yeah. And I think we need Joey on more. I think next season.
We do need Joey on more. She's coming back next year in a big way. Great. She's going to come back next year in a big way. The first few episodes, we're definitely going to talk about what we've done over the summer break and what new platforms we're going to be on. You know, what new fruits that we've grown and— Yeah. Totally.
Looking forward to hearing more of the adventures of the farm life.
We will talk about that. We'll talk about adventures. And in the next season, we have more flexibility, so I'm going to be moving around to different studios as well and do some podcasts in different studios. And that will be pretty cool as well. So— Yeah, that'll be fun. Look forward to doing that. And yeah, that's what's going to happen in 2022. And my, you know, I just want to give thanks to everybody who's been listening to this, but most importantly, to take the break that you rightfully need over the period and to absorb your mind with some different strategies. And hopefully you may be listening to this over the break. This is a great time to listen to different fresh content, with a clear head because the information becomes out totally different way then. And yeah, I'm really looking forward to— I'm looking forward to getting Rula and Roara in season 3. I am really looking forward to spending more time on just— in just podcasting and listening and just presenting my thoughts and my predictions that we're seeing firsthand In all the fitness businesses that we're working with. So I'm going to bring you those insights so you can help grow your fitness and wellness studio.
Good stuff.
Thank you for joining, Ev. Thanks, team, for listening in to these past 80 episodes, and enjoy, enjoy the backlog. If this is your first one, go back to episode 1, check that out. Yes. We'll be coming back in 2022 and helping you to grow your fitness and wellness studio. If you have liked this episode or any episodes, be sure to share— be sure, be sure to send it to a friend, and they're going to benefit just like you have in these episodes. Bye for now.
