Are you looking for ways of getting more clients for your online personal training business? Or are you looking to increase member engagement? If so, you should consider hosting an online fitness challenge.
However, if you’ve never hosted one before, you may be confused as to how to go about it. But, we are here to help. In this article, we will walk you through how to organize a successful, online fitness challenge. With that said, let’s get to it.
Determine the Budget
One of the main benefits of hosting a virtual fitness challenge is that it doesn’t cost much to host, compared to an in-person one. But, you will still have to cater for things like the platform you will use to host the event, marketing and prizes. You also need to include some more money for contingencies.
Once you’ve estimated your costs, it will be easy to budget for everything. You don’t want to find yourself in a situation where you end up over-spending on one area and under-spending on another.
Pick a Duration
Once you’ve set a budget for the event, you should then go ahead to pick a length of time for your challenge. When setting the duration, you need to strike a balance between getting results and keeping the participants engaged and motivated long enough.
For example, a three-month challenge can help the participants get decent results. But on the other hand, it’s quite long. And chances are, some of the participants may lose interest along the way.
Also, a 90-day challenge will require more effort from your end to keep running. On the other hand, a five-day challenge may be easier, and cheaper to organize. Also, keeping people’s attention over five days shouldn’t be a challenge. Unfortunately, such a duration is too short to get any tangible results.
A 30-day challenge appears like a sweet spot. On one hand, the span isn’t too long, meaning you won’t have a hard time keeping people’s attention. On the other hand, 30 days are enough to get decent results from the participants.
Choose a Hosting Platform
Your challenge will need a hosting platform. This will be more of a central hub, where you can organize everything, market the challenge and sell tickets for the event. This platform will also provide a place where the challenge participants can record their results, monitor the scoreboard, or even socialize.
There are numerous platforms out there, which you can use to organize and run virtual fitness challenges. You simply need to choose a platform that aligns best with your challenge.
Choose a Prize
By now, you already know what your virtual weight loss challenge will entail, how much it will cost, how long it will run, as well as where you are going to host it. It’s now time to select a prize for the winners.
When selecting the prize, you need to ensure you choose something relevant to the challenge. It should also be worth the participants’ time and keep them motivated to complete the challenge.
Some ideas to consider for the prizes include fitness gear, cash, or free personal training sessions. In case you are not sure which prize to go for, you should consider conducting a simple survey via email or social media.
In this survey, you will list the possible prizes you intend to offer or even ask the participants for ideas. From there, you can then go with the prize that earns the most number of votes.
Promote Your Challenge
A solid marketing and promotional campaign is essential for the success of your virtual fitness challenge. If you fail to market or promote the challenge, only a few people will know about it. Also, you will struggle to build interest around the challenge, if you don’t market it. Consequently, only a few people will register for it, meaning you may end up spending your money with nothing to show in return.
Therefore, you need to ensure you set up a solid marketing campaign for your challenge. Fortunately, there are several easy and cost-effective methods, which you can use to promote your challenge, build interest, reach more people and get as many people as possible to participate.
Some of the methods you can use to market or promote your challenge include social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing and paid ads. You can also partner with influencers in your niche to boost your event’s reach.
Summarizing
A successful virtual weight loss challenge can go a long way in growing your clientele, increasing member engagement, growing your community and boosting your retention rates. And as you can see, hosting one is not as complicated or challenging as you may think.
