Published March 23, 2020
The demand for wellness and fitness products/services has grown ten-fold in the last decade. with the advent of new exercise modalities, a societal desire to experience the process of self-improvement with friends & family, and the existence of software that can streamline the experience — boutique fitness has consistently shown that it’s in a renaissance period.
Where Are We Now?
With the arrival of the coronavirus (covid-19), the fitness industry has been forced to adapt, while the anxiety of changing times looms. once again, clients are resorting to home-based, individualized workouts to get their daily burn in. All of a sudden, it feels like years of progress towards the establishment of the brick & mortar boutique fitness industry is in jeopardy. With headline after headline highlighting that the future of fitness has changed — business owners have been forced to think outside the box on how they’ll continue to serve clients in a new world.
Luckily for owners, fitness has had a cohesive relationship with the digital world in recent times. with the most expensive real estate in the world now existing in the palm of our hands, and a client-base that already spends a significant amount of time there — it’s clear that success lies in becoming a tech-enabled business. and management teams have done just that, with heavy investments in the production and distribution of video content via a branded website/social media to capitalize on clients’ sustained desire for fitness consumption.
At IPSTUDIO, we’ve witnessed the use of a multitude of platforms to do so, and the results have been encouraging to say the least. studios have been able to successfully reconnect with their clients via live streams or on-demand libraries through platforms such as: zoom, instagram, facebook, zype, and vimeo. It’s been really amazing to see the level of client engagement studios have been able to maintain through such mediums, and to see a clear path for their future.
However, these mediums of distribution have not come without their downsides. the digital real estate and share-ability these platforms provide, comes with the challenge of monetization. live streams via social media simply can’t be monetized, and streams hosted via zoom require instillation and can be shared freely amongst those looking for a free viewing. on top of this, none of these solutions offer a native integration with a cms, booking platform, or business management software built for boutique fitness.
The Way Forward
To solve this problem, we created Live by IPSTUDIO™ & On Demand by IPSTUDIO™.
Live & on-demand video solutions built specifically for boutique fitness. these products exist as end-to-end integrations that allow clients to buy, book, and view content/streams all without having to leave a studio’s website.
With the primary benefit of this being that all attendees will need to login using their credentials with the studio’s booking platform, and will need to have purchased access to the content/stream to participate. studios will now have the flexibility to share links to live streams & on-demand content freely, without having to worry if viewers are paying customers or not. On the on-demand front, users will get to browse, view, and favorite content in a modern video library. studios can now return to offering credits & memberships for services through their website, and once again can track activity & purchases through their booking platform’s reporting module. Digital content will also remain compatible with classpass, and other class-based distribution networks.
We quietly rolled out the first versions of these integration products over the past week, and the amount of positive feedback we’ve received so far has been substantial. turnaround time with the setup process has also been kept low, and since our soft release last week we’ve already launched a double digit number of studios.
If you are a studio owner (or affiliated with a studio leadership team) looking to integrate digital video into a booking software, we encourage you to reach out to ipstudio at hello@ipstudio.co for help. we’re taking a long-term approach to these services.
Based on all indications, most studio’s we’ve worked with view the emergence of digital offerings not only as a long-term solution, but as a viable stream of revenue for the years to come.