2 Killer Examples of Successful Health and Fitness E-Commerce Marketing

If you work in the health and fitness vertical and sell your products or services online, digital marketing can be tough for you.

Health and fitness is all the rage these days, as it's now an industry that generates more than 80 billion dollars in revenue per year in the U.S., and with so many businesses focusing on the same field, it can be hard to get your business to stand out from the rest.

In order to successfully market your e-commerce health and fitness company, not only do you have to reach the right audience using the right digital channels, you also have to convince consumers (who you never meet face-to-face) that they want to do business with you and not another company they can find online.

Luckily, however, while marketing a health and fitness e-commerce company can be a challenge, there are companies out there who've proven it is possible, and there are many businesses that've run ad campaigns so successful you should look to them as a model for your own.

If you're ready to market your e-commerce health and fitness company to the world, take a look at these stellar examples of real world health and fitness e-commerce marketing campaigns, as well as the reasons why they did so well.

Kayla Itsines' Sweat With Kayla

Kayla Itsines is often regarded as one of the biggest social media celebrities today. Itsines is a fitness trainer from Australia, and she made a name for herself by creating an Instagram account to showcase the progress of her own fitness journey, as well as the clients who decided to tackle her fitness program.

Itsines' Instagram popularity grew so large thanks in part to a workout regime that she developed and started selling on her website via PDF. Once she had made a name for herself via social media marketing, she created and began to sell a fitness app, Sweat with Kayla.

Itsines' app isn't just another workout app; it has skyrocketed in popularity and generated a huge amount of revenue since (TechCrunch predicts it will bring in more than $77 million this year).

One reason that her app and brand is so successful? A multifaceted online marketing strategy that relies heavily on social media – but also other channels and extremely convenient features – in order to build a customer base.

User Generated Content on Social Media

Itsines' main marketing platform is Instagram, where she originally launched her business.

Itsines doesn't focus on promoting her product directly. Instead, she builds a brand by sharing user generated content.

Itsines regularly shares progress photos of current customers who are doing her workouts. These photos are reposts of photos that customers have shared on their own social media accounts with relevant hashtags.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmvfVZbli_t/?utm_source=ig_embed

This user generated content allows Itsines to build credibility and loyalty, and it doesn't cost her anything, which means more marketing dollars for other channels.

The user generated content Itisnes uses also serves as a way to recognize the efforts of her fans, which helps build a sense of rapport, making her followers likely to stay loyal to her brand and products.

Finally, it encourages the creation of a community, who can serve as ambassadors for Itsines' brand and help encourage others to get involved (and buy). These happy customers, who feel loyal to Itsines and to one another, act as her own brand ambassadors to do marketing work for her, and they serve as advertisers and testimonials, all rolled into one.

Free App Trials

Before Itsines makes people buy a subscription to her app, she offers them a free week-long trial.

The app is $19.99 monthly, which may seem expensive to someone who isn't ready to commit. However, the weeklong trial with access to all features of the app gives people the chance to decide whether it's worth the cost to them or not, and once they see how good the app is (and get hooked), they feel more willing to shell out the money for it monthly.

Easy Signup and Payment

When you want to get the Sweat app, you can sign up with Facebook. This makes acquiring the product super easy for customers, and eliminates barriers that would stop them from buying.

They can also make payments with PayPal, which makes the payment process more convenient. Reducing obstacles to sign up and payment help up the chances that people will buy.

Other Digital Platforms

In addition to using her social media prowess, Itsines relies on other digital advertising channels to market her app. She has a website and a blog with useful content that helps her build her reputation as a valued thought leader worth buying from.

She offers a discount on her product for signing up for her email list, and she regularly sends sales, upselling and informational emails to the list.

Gym Shark

Gymshark is a product-based health and fitness e-commerce company that used smart marketing tactics in order to grow into a hugely successful business.

Gymshark sells sports clothing and accessories, and they were once named Britain's Fastest Growing Company. They differentiated themselves by making clothing that met the demands of people who went to the gym – not fluorescent and neon clothing, but instead, more subdued, comfortable clothing featuring the company's unmistakable logo.

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