Branding Your Pilates Studio: Identity, Voice, and Vision

In this episode of The Pilates Business Podcast, host Seran Glanfield delves into the world of Pilates studio branding. 

This episode is a treasure trove of insights for studio owners seeking to distinguish their business in a competitive market. Seran explores the essence of branding beyond the visual identity, emphasizing the importance of a compelling brand story, consistent visual elements, and resonant brand messaging. 

Discover the significance of your studio's unique voice and how to weave it into every aspect of your business, from your website to in-studio experiences. Learn the secret to building a brand identity that captures the heart of your clients, and why evolving your brand story is crucial for sustained success. 

Whether you’re a new studio owner or looking to revamp your brand, this episode is a must-listen for anyone passionate about creating a lasting impact in the Pilates community.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Have you ever wondered why some Pilati studios just stand out? Well, my friends, I'm here to tell you. It is all about the branding, and today we're diving deep into the art of branding your studio business. From crafting a unique identity to resonating with your ideal clients, I'm here to share with you some of the secrets of successful studio branding. So stay tuned as we uncover how your brand can really be that magnet that attracts and retains clients in your studio business. Well, hi there, I'm Sarah. In Glenfield, I'm a business and marketing strategist just for boutique fitness studio owners like you. If you're ready to be inspired and make a bigger impact, you're in the right place. All you need are a few key strategies, the right mindset and some support along the way. Join me as I share the real life insights that will help you grow a sustainable and profitable studio.

Speaker 1: 1:07

This is the Pilates business podcast. Welcome back to the Pilates business podcast. I'm Sarah. Thank you so much for joining me here again today. I'm so thrilled you're here, especially because you guys, I know it's a super busy time of year.

Speaker 1: 1:28

The end of year, the year is just around the corner. The holidays are days away. If you're anything like me, you are finishing, perhaps putting all the decorations in place, perhaps wrapping some presents, perhaps some last minute gift shopping, all of those things, and perhaps even already starting to enjoy the festivities of this season with some fun gatherings and events and parties. And so I just thank you so much for tuning in and listening in today, and I know that sometimes I share with you here some really some strategies and some tactics that are perhaps sort of encouraging you to think next level in your studio business. But I want to talk today about what I think is one of the most fundamental, foundational components that makes your studio business a success, and it's not tied to a stage of business. It's not something that is tied to a certain revenue level in your business. You don't have to be making a certain amount before you can spend time on this. In fact, I think this is one of the things that is most overlooked when it comes to how successful you can be in your business and one of the things that actually is the key to your long term success, and that thing is branding. And I have spent so much time over the last 10 years as a studio business consultant working with boutique fitness studios around the world, and we talk tactics, we talk strategies. We talk advanced strategies, we talk next level strategies, we're talking innovation, we're talking cutting edge, what's happening, the forefront of utilizing all of the software and technology that is out there today and every day. But when it comes down to what really sets one business apart from another in the industry that we are in, so much of that success is tied to branding.

Speaker 1: 3:28

And when I talk about branding, I am not just talking about your logo or your color scheme and I think that if you've been listening to me for a little while now, that might something be something that you're already aware of. But I think often when we think about branding, that's often where we kind of our mind goes too very quickly is logo and color scheme and that sort of thing. But branding is so much more than that. It's all about the stories, the feelings and the messaging that your studio conveys. So the tactics and the strategies are critical. We have to know how to utilize different tools in our toolkit to progress our businesses forward. We need to know how to implement strategies that help us to grow and scale our businesses. But underneath all of this, when it comes down to how you want to everything from how you want to train your team on what to say as they meet your new clients, to how to cultivate that sense of community in your studio, to how to help your teachers to embrace that culture that you want to create, to how you want to attract and qualify clients before they walk into the studio so you know they're going to be a good fit for you. All of that is tied to the deeper messaging of your brand and your studio business. So it's not just about that logo, it's not just about the color scheme and what colors match and fit together, and so on. It is about so much more than that. And when you are able to really enable your brand to really harmonize with your business, you will stand out and set yourself apart from the competition, from others around you.

Speaker 1: 5:09

Right, when you are effectively branding your business, you are speaking directly to the hearts and souls of your clients, and this is important in the world that we are in today, because there is so much choice out there when it comes to moving your bodies, when it comes to your clients making choices around their fitness, their workouts, their movement practices. There is an abundance of options out there, and what will help your client choose you over. The competition is, honestly, it's not your pricing, it's going to be the power of your brand truly. So let's dive in, and I want to share with you today some of the ways that you can perhaps up level your branding in your studio business. And, again, it doesn't matter what stage of business you're at, whether you've been in business for a day or a week, or a month or a year or 10 years. This is something that I always find there is often opportunity for some improvement and some up leveling and some deeper work here.

Speaker 1: 6:16

So the first thing we want to make sure that we're doing is being consistent in our branding, and I want to talk a little bit about this, because there is an element of branding that is visual, and if you have seen any logo that you recognize, you will associate that logo with not just a company, but you're feeling about that company, and so it really is important for you to establish and define your brand identity, and your brand identity includes the voice, your brand story, but also those visual elements too, and when it comes to those visual elements, you want to make sure that you are being consistent with those across all platforms. So your logo has to be consistent. Having a logo that looks different in different places different shapes, different colors, different styles is going to confuse your audience, and if you are like me you're being bombarded every minute of every day with information and advertisements you will. Anyone who is confused about who your business is is not going to have that same connection with your business as someone who recognizes your logo and sees you and your logo and associates that logo with your business and your brand and your messaging and your values. So it's really important to be super consistent with your logo across all platforms. That means that what people see on your website as your logo should be the same logo that you are putting perhaps on your social media and in your emails and so on, and you wanna make sure that that logo is reflective of your business, so that evokes a certain feeling in your clients, and so it must match the energy that you have in your studio and the energy that you want your clients to associate with your studio. The visual component is really important in our industry, and having a color palette that is usable across different platforms is helpful as well, and typically what we find is that we want to incorporate those colors in lots of different places. So you might want to incorporate your logo color in other parts of your studio decor. For example, you might want to use it in the font colorings that you have on your website. You might want to use those colors in the way in some graphics that you put on your social media, for example, or your signage. So you wanna make sure that you love your logo and you love the colors that you have associated with your kind of brand colors and logos.

Speaker 1: 8:49

So if you're a point where you've had the same logo for a long time, you might feel, oh, I want to. Really I wanna change it up, I'm bored with it, it's time for a change. And it's always a bit of a temptation to have a full rebrand with fresh new logo, fresh new fonts, fresh new colors. And I always say have a think about whether or not that's going to help or hindi your business, because sometimes there is well, I say oftentimes there is a tremendous amount of value inherent in your logo within the clients that have already seen it and associate that with you. And if you switch it up, it tends to devalue, perhaps, your logo and takes a long time for your clients perhaps to recognize that logo, that new logo. So I think having a refresh is helpful. If you're a little just not too sure, if you like your logo anymore, then consider making some small changes to it. But make it so that it's perhaps similar to your prior logo, as opposed to a completely different logo, would be my recommendation. But I also feel sometimes it's just because we might be a little bit bored and we wanna have a refresh. Sometimes it's not helpful to your business. So unless you think it is going to help your business to grow, I'm not sure that I would recommend rebranding ever, actually, and just so, just keep that in mind. Having supported studio owners through that process, it does take its time to kind of recoup some of the value, that unrecognition, that is inherent in perhaps a prior logo.

Speaker 1: 10:22

Okay, so as part of your brand identity, you of course have those visual elements. You have your logo, you have your colors, you have the fonts that you're typically using and you're going to allow that to sort of permeate through all of the different ways that you communicate with your clients in a visual way. But there is also another component to your brand and that is your brand voice, and your brand voice and your brand tone is the tone and the way that you communicate with your clients. It's the words that you're using, it's the energy that is behind your tone and your words and your communication. And some studios well, I would say all studios have their own, very unique tone of voice, the way that they speak to their clients. Some studios are super casual and super funny and witty. Some folks are more professional and perhaps a little less kind of on that kind of edge of wittiness and sarcasm in their tone. So you have to lean into what you do in your studio and lean into your own brand voice. Taking on a brand voice that does not align with your business is going to create confusion for your clients over what you are all about in your business.

Speaker 1: 11:37

But what you do want to do, again, is you want to be consistent in that tone. So if your tone is super professional and corporate sounding, yet in your studio you're super friendly and approachable, then you want to make sure that the two kind of match. So if you are communicating in your emails and you sound very corporate, but in the studio you're the complete opposite of that, then that probably is a sign that you might need to revisit the tone that you're using in your marketing communication and oftentimes I find that this is actually quite a challenging thing to do how to communicate effectively with your clients, what you're doing in the studio, in a way that obviously shows that you have expertise and knowledge in what you do, but without coming with it with also being able to perhaps build that relationship with your clients in that, whatever form of communication that is. So you do want to make sure that you are using your brand voice in your marketing materials and client communications, but as well, it should also match the way that you're communicating with your clients in the studio, the tone of your classes, of your sessions, what you tend to say to people. It should all be very, very, very much in alignment. And so what I've seen for those studio owners who have been able to translate the way that they communicate with their clients in the studio to the way that they communicate with their clients while they're outside of the studio, so on social media or via email it tends to really develop that relationship a little bit more and helps your clients, especially those new clients, to really understand what you're all about, and it helps to build that relationship even before perhaps they have walked in through the door. So we want to make sure that you are aligning your brand voice with the way that you're already communicating with your clients and also making sure that it's reflective of who you are. So we do want to have our brand identity that is visual, but we also want to have that tone reflect your brand as well.

Speaker 1: 13:37

Then the third thing we want to think about is what I would say your brand story, and behind every single one of your businesses is a story about why you do what you do. And I've led so many studio owners through the exercise that I use inside of my marketing intensive program, where I take you step by step through the process of defining your brand, of identifying your brand story, your brand promise, and then taking that and putting that into compelling marketing messaging that you can lean on in your marketing for years to come. And the exercises that I serve help the studio owners that I work with in that process inside of the marketing intensive to do helps to open up some of these opportunities for expressing your purpose and intention behind your business. And there's so much power in being able to communicate and articulate very clearly in copy and stories in the language that you're using to communicate with your clients, to talk to them in the class when you're having those introductory sessions or consultations. Being able to share a bit more about why you do what you do, the purpose behind your business and what you're there for, helps to align you with your clients and puts your values in alignment as well, and what we know is that when clients get who you are, then they are much more likely to stick around for the long term and invite other people into your business who are also similar to them.

Speaker 1: 15:08

So, having a your brand story telling kind of nailed down, with a library, perhaps a little, you know, a little bookshelf of different stories that you can tell about your business and why it does what it does and why you started it in the first place, and being able to talk about that in a way that is not just a story that is perhaps quite long but is highlights some of the most compelling reasons why someone should sit up and take notice of your business and become your client, and so this is something that often takes a little bit of time and a bit of a process to peel back, perhaps, the layers of the onion and to dive into what is underneath it all and driving you forward. But completing these exercises when I do this with those folks inside of the marketing intensive program then it is just opens up a world of opportunity for things that you want to share with your clients. That helps them to really connect with you and it also opens up a lot of aha moments for the studio owners. And on top of that, what I find which is, I think, just actually one of the most amazing things about taking the time to complete these exercises is that the studio owners that I work with often find themselves reinvigorated and energize about their work again, because they are taking the time to reflect on what drives them and why they started what they do in the first place, and so it helps them to refocus on that. So it's a really, really worthwhile exercise to do and, like I said, we do that inside of my marketing intensive program, which I am going to be enrolling into at the beginning of next year. So stay tuned and watch out for that.

Speaker 1: 16:40

But the story of behind your brand is something that I really recommend that you spend some time thinking about and find ways to incorporate that into your marketing messaging. So we've got your visual identity, we've got your brand voice, we've got your brand story. These are three pretty foundational, fundamental components of having a strong brand. Now, once you have that, you then want to make sure that you're integrating your branding across all of the touchpoints in your business, and that means everything from your website, which might be one of the most obvious places, to your text message communication, to your email communication, to the way that you're communicating and meeting greeting clients in the studio. So you want to integrate your brand across all platforms.

Speaker 1: 17:24

One of the biggest mistakes that I see studio owners make is that they have this amazing experience in the studio for their clients and they take a lot of time really curating how a client should feel in the studio, really curating their experience for their clients, with some really important attentions to detail during the sessions, but then what I find is that often that's not really portrayed in their social media activity or their email activity, and so one of the things that I teach folks how to do inside of the marketing intensive in the second part of the program is really to take that brand, that brand story, that brand messaging, and make sure it trickles through into all the communication that you have with your clients and that's when you really go sort of that next level when it comes to branding and marketing is when you can take your brand and make sure that it is really making an impact on your business in a very positive and very powerful way. So you want to make sure that you're sharing about your brand and that it's really clear to people who follow you and who are part of your community that they know that they could list, they could tell other people exactly what you're all about. And when you're in that place, that's when we see these really amazingly strong referrals happen in a Forest Studio when they're super clear about their brand, about what they do for their clients, about what makes them unique and different, and they're able to share that in a way that is compelling to their current clients, but also to new folks as well. So you want to make sure you're integrating it across all parts of your business and, like I said earlier, this does trickle down into the way that you train your team and onboard, perhaps, new team members, some of the things that you might train your team on during some team meetings and some of the ways that you might want to perhaps develop new offers on new services in your business. So there's a lot of potential here, usually for up-leveling inside of your operations as well as your marketing. So we've got your brand identity in terms of the visuals, the voice, the story, and then making sure that you are using that amazing brand, everything that you have developed, everything you've thought about, everything that you've talked about and making sure that it is utilized throughout your marketing.

Speaker 1: 19:37

I did touch on earlier a little bit about evolving and refreshing your brand and often, like I said earlier, we often think about how doing a rebrand as just updating that logo, and sometimes that might not always be as fruitful for your business as you might expect. So I would always think twice before you go and switching out your logo or your studio name. Even for sure, we certainly would want to think very like a lot about that and I would want to make sure that it had a true value to the business and to the growth of the business. And so a scenario where that happens is if your services have changed significantly, you might want to come and change the name of the studio, or if the logo reflected a very old version of your business, then it might be worthwhile, but typically, what I see with a refresh of a logo is that you might just update some of the colors or keep the same kind of theme. We also want to make sure, though, that when we think about rebranding or refreshing your brand, we're not just thinking about that logo and the colors and the fonts, because, like I said earlier, this is typically where we go when we think about a brand.

Speaker 1: 20:46

What I find we often overlook is the opportunity to refresh the brand messaging, and I will say that is where I do recommend you revisit your brand over and over and over again, at least once a year. It's super helpful to sit down and go through some of the exercises I talked about earlier in crafting your brand messaging and think about what you want people to know about your business and then making sure that you are incorporating that into all of your marketing, because it's so easy to overlook this really crucial component that really does drive the effectiveness of your marketing, so be thoughtful about how often you come back to the table and think about your brand messaging. I would encourage you to revisit that once a year, when I found that when folks do that, it really up levels their messaging and the impact of all of their marketing. So I've seen studio owners that have come through my marketing intensive program two or three times and every time they do it their marketing just gets better and better and better and they're able to create even better metrics around retention and attracting new clients every single time and it just creates a whole ton of clarity for you also as a studio owner, about what you want to focus on in your business and what you want your business to look like. So I hope that was helpful to you as we come to the end of this episode today.

Speaker 1: 22:09

The branding really is the heart and soul of your business. Truly it is. It's what sets you apart and tells the world who you are and what you stand for. So whether you're thinking about perhaps up leveling your branding or you're just starting out even and thinking about what you want your business to look like, remember that your brand is a huge component of what will make your studio a success. It is a living and evolving kind of entity that grows with your business as well, so you'll want to make sure that on an ongoing basis, it is reflective of your business.

Speaker 1: 22:45

So take some time to think about where you might be able to improve and up level your brand messaging, your visual branding and your tone as we head into the new year, because this is a great time for reflection. It's a great time to look back and think about what has worked well, and it's also a good time to think about where you might want to focus your effort and energy in the new year. And I will say that, as we enter into the next phase of the growth of this industry, we are seeing a next level amount of composition in the industry, and I will say what will set you apart is going to be what drives you, what makes you unique and distinct, is going to be what you truly care about in your business, and that is reflected in your brand. So I hope this is helpful to you as you go about thinking about what might be next for you in your business. And yes, this is a fundamental, foundational topic that we talked about today. It is not a one-time, one-hit, one-der tactic that is going to work. This is something that you develop and evolve over time, and so it does require you to come back to the table and revisit it, but it's something that is very, very, very worthwhile.

Speaker 1: 23:57

So, if you enjoyed this episode and it got you thinking about some things that you might not have otherwise thought about, I'd be so appreciative If you could go and listen to wherever you're listening to this, and perhaps rate and review this podcast. It would mean a ton to me and it would also mean that others who are in our industry would also feel as supported as you do. Have a great week. Did you love this episode and want more? Head to spring3.com and check out my free resources that will help you run a profitable and fulfilling studio business. And before you go, one last reminder there is no one way to do what you do, only your way. So whatever it is that you want to do, create or offer, you've got this. Thanks again for joining me today and have a wonderful rest of your day.