You’ve seen it everywhere – your Instagram feed, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok videos – Pilates entrepreneurs. People are starting their own studio, teaching packed classes, and instructing in beautiful home gyms. If you’re a Pilates instructor, you know that there’s the aesthetic side to Pilates and teaching, but there’s so much more going on behind the scenes to make those pictures and videos marketable.
Many Pilates instructors start out working under a studio or brand to get their foot in the door. This is a great way to build your teaching skills and network with students and other teachers.
But what happens when you decide to strike out on your own?
If you’re used to the front desk staff or management shooting videos of your classes for socials or hiring a photographer for a yearly photo shoot, that’s all on you now.
As an independent Pilates instructor, you have a lot of flexibility in where and how you work. But if you’re also in charge of bringing in your own clients, there’s a lot of pressure to get things right.
If you’re looking to start or grow your independent Pilates business, here are some marketing ideas to help you get started.
Before You Start: Know Your Customers First
As a predecessor to any type of marketing, you need to know who you’re marketing to. That means finding your target demographic and understanding who they are, what they need, and where they’re at.
There are two ways to approach this.
One way is to decide what kind of offerings you want to have. Do you want to teach online or in-person? Group classes or one-on-one sessions? The clientele in each of these categories is often completely different.
Choose an offering that aligns with your schedule and availability. If you’re someone who thrives on feeling the energy in a room, online classes might be harder to teach. If you have a busy home life and would rather block your time into pre-recorded content, virtual offerings might work into your lifestyle more easily.
The other way to decide how to teach is to look at who you want to teach. Do you favor a certain type of clientele? What kind of people do you enjoy teaching? Some may want to offer classes that are inclusive of gender and body types. Others may enjoy teaching older adults or new moms.
Many instructors build their Pilates businesses on a specific demographic. Teaching to a specific demographic can be great, because it can make class planning easier, and marketing efforts can be easier to direct, because you know who to focus on and who not to. But the downside to demographic-specific business structures is that your income relies on a single subset of people. With an ever-changing economy, it can be unnerving to put all your eggs in a single basket.
However, that does not mean you can, or should, market your business to everyone.
Remember this: if you sell to everyone, you sell to no one.
So whether you approach it from a client-first perspective or a structure-first approach, get to know your clients before you start marketing.
Pilates Marketing Ideas For Independent Instructors
Ask For Referrals
When I first started teaching, this was the scariest part of the whole job. If you’re in the same boat, know that it won’t always be that way. Asking your existing clients for referrals can be the easiest and most effective way to build your clientele.
But it doesn’t always start out that way.
Before you ask for a referral, make your business one worth referring to. Plan classes that keep your current participants coming back. Offer sessions so good that clients want to tell you how much they enjoyed it afterward. If people love the service you offer, referrals will come naturally, often without you even needing to ask.
Your regular participants already trust you and enjoy the service you provide, so they’re an ideal referral source.
One of the local studios I practice at offers a “bring a friend” event a few times a year. This is an easy way to get more people into your class and to experience what you have to offer. Try out an event like:
- “Bring a friend for free!”
- “Split the cost of a class! Bring a friend, and you both pay half price.”
These could work for a regular class or a special event or promotion.
During a marketing campaign like this, your efforts don’t end when your participant and their friend walk through the door. That’s when good marketing really starts.
Have a way to capture your guests’ information. A name and email address can help you continue to reach out after the event is over.
Consider offering an incentive when a referral leads to someone signing up. You might give a discount or free classes to the client who made the referral, or offer an initial discount for the person signing up.
Your clients are far more likely to refer their friends and family to you if it feels natural and unforced. Make your offerings something so good, they’ll want to share it.
Build Your Online Presence
Once you have clients who love your classes, make sure you have an online space they can direct their friends to.
You can fall down a deep, dark rabbit hole when building your online presence. Before you jump in, circle back to your target demographic. I cannot stress this enough.
- If your ideal clients are in their early 20s (think Gen Z and Gen Alpha), they are far more likely to be on Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, so you’ll want to build the majority of your online presence there.
- If your target demographic are millennials in their 30s and 40s, you may still find a lot on Instagram, but you might want to branch out to Facebook and X as well (bonus points if your city has a subreddit you can post to).
- If your potential clients are in their 40s to 60s (Gen X), you’ll want your primary online platform to be Facebook and a dedicated website.
- For Baby Boomer-aged clients, aged mid-60s and above, Facebook and traditional websites are the way to go.
Within each of these platforms, look for ways to reach out to your niche, whether that’s in groups, pages, or channels. Find out where your ideal client hangs out online and be present there.
But when you’re online, don’t just advertise. Anyone can do that.
Make your accounts and sites ones that draw people in. Demonstrate your expertise, share useful Pilates info, and show prospective clients what working with you is like. Share value along with promoting your business.
Outside of social media marketing (which you shouldn’t be paying for right away anyway), create a basic professional website that explains who you work with, what you offer, where you teach, and how someone can contact/book you. If you are teaching in-person, use basic local SEO so people searching for Pilates instruction in the area can find you. You can also set up a Google Business Profile to help your business get seen. Encourage satisfied clients to leave reviews.
If you’re teaching online, look for opportunities to collaborate or be featured on larger platforms as a way to get noticed. Invite clients to share your sessions on their socials, and attend events where your business can be tagged.
Build A Local Referral Network
If you’re training online, you might be tempted to skip this section, but hear me out.
Every business starts somewhere. And it’s hard to be seen on a large scale if you’re not even showing up in small places. Sure, there are a few people who go viral after a single video or post, but that’s not what you want to bet your business on. At least it isn’t if you want to build a successful long-term business.
Start relationships with small or local organizations that could feed your business. Physical therapists, chiropractors, apartment complexes, and others could become strong referral sources.
Think of out-of-the-box places like senior centers, one-off events, local coffee shops, or plant shops. Places like these are great for collaboration because you can both promote your businesses together. Think “Plants and Pilates” or “Pilates and Matcha Making” events.
Whether you’re collaborating with a local business or networking with a medical provider, make it clear that you want to develop genuine professional relationships, not just walking in and asking them to send you clients.
Be genuine and have a pitch prepared to share with them why their customers or clients could benefit from your services. Business owners’ email inboxes are filled every day with people trying to sell them things. Don’t be just another spammy email. Be a fellow community member and business owner who wants to build together.
Get Into The Community
Speaking of community, find one and get involved in it. You probably have a community of your own – a group of friends, people who go to the same gym as you, or fellow humans at your third space. Those people can be a great source to tap into. But there are so many more people out there.
Put yourself in front of people who might not otherwise find you.
Get out of your comfort zone and talk to new people. Look for groups and communities, locally or online, that you could become a part of.
If talking to strangers isn’t your strong suit, try one of these ideas to get you started:
- Offer an introductory class or workshop at a community venue.
- Partner with an apartment complex for a residents’ Pilates class.
- Teach at workplace wellness events.
- Offer a mini-session at local health and wellness events.
- Teach a pop-up class at a business that your target demographic frequents.
- Offer educational workshops, such as an “Intro to Pilates” or “Pilates for Beginners.”
The goal with any of this community involvement isn’t just to make money from that event. It is an opportunity to get your name out there and drive interest in your business. Community involvement introduces you to prospective clients and can create relationships that lead to fuller classes and private instruction.
Make It Easy For People To Try Your Classes
The biggest barrier to Pilates for most people isn’t time, money, or energy. Pilates does not look inviting for many people. Not everyone looks (or wants to look) like the Pilates princesses of Instagram or moves like the choreographed instructors on YouTube. Pilates is much more than that, but for many people, that’s all they see.
Change their view.
Show your clients and potential clients that Pilates is for all bodies and all people.
Offer introductory sessions or classes that invite community members from all walks of life to come and experience Pilates. A great way to introduce Pilates to your community is a meet-and-greet-style event. I recently attended the opening of a reformer studio, and they had demos, mini sessions, and walk-throughs going on throughout the event. Events like these give an easy-access, low-stress touchpoint for people to come and see what Pilates is like.
Once you’re open and ready for business, offer beginner workshops. Even if your clients are experienced Pilates participants, it helps them learn your unique teaching style and helps you get to know your clients and their needs.
Any time you’re talking with a prospective client, clearly communicate what your offerings are. Let them know whether you teach private, group, in-home, studio, and/or online instruction. Make sure your booking and contact information is easy to find and use.
When you book a client for the first time, offer a consultation call or a 15-minute introduction before they start a class or session. Explain what their first session will look like, how to use the equipment, if applicable, and what to expect.
As you talk to people about your business, let them feel your enthusiasm for Pilates and your genuine interest in them, and you’ll find your people.
Make Sure You’re Protected
Whether your business is fully established or just starting out, one thing is a must, and that’s insurance. Marketing a business without insurance is like building a house without a roof, and then hoping that it will never rain.
Maybe that rainy day will never come for your business (and I hope it doesn’t), but the security and shelter a good policy offers give you the peace of mind to offer your best without worry.
Insure Fitness Group offers comprehensive coverage for Pilates instructors and across a range of 500+ fitness programs. It covers sessions in clients’ homes, online recordings, and in-person classes. That means you can market to the masses and know you’re protected no matter where you teach.
