Pilates Business Podcast

Why Your Marketing Isn't Working — And How to Fix It with the StoryBrand Framework

• Seran Glanfield • Season 22 • Episode 217

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In this powerful episode of The Pilates Business Podcast, host Seran Glanfield is joined by digital marketing strategist and certified StoryBrand guide, Jennifer Orechwa of Salt Marketing, to tackle one of the biggest frustrations boutique fitness studio owners face: why your marketing efforts aren't converting.

If you’ve ever felt like you're doing all the things — posting on Instagram, sending emails, even dabbling on TikTok — but still not seeing consistent leads or clients converting… you’re not alone. This episode breaks down exactly why that’s happening and introduces the StoryBrand framework — a strategic, human-centered marketing method that simplifies your message and positions your studio as the guide, not the hero.

✅ If you're overwhelmed by marketing, unsure how to communicate your value, or just want a more strategic, effective approach — this episode is your game-changer.

🎙️ Tune in to discover:

  • The 7-part StoryBrand framework that simplifies and clarifies your messaging


  • How to stop blending in and become a category of one


  • Why your marketing feels like shouting into the void — and how to fix it


  • The power of a client journey plan (and how it builds loyalty + trust)


  • How to structure content that connects, converts, and creates raving fans


👉 Don’t miss this one — it’s packed with insights to help your Pilates studio or boutique fitness business finally get the recognition (and revenue!) it deserves.



Find your marketing personality: https://saltmarketing.co/customreport/


Website: Saltmarketing.co


Got a question for Seran? Add it here 👉

~~~
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Work with Seran:

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Speaker 1:

In today's episode, we're diving into why most boutique fitness marketing feels like you're shouting into the void, and how to flip the script. My guest today is a digital marketing powerhouse and a story brand expert and the founder of Salt Marketing. She's worked with wellness brands across the country to build client-attracting systems that run like clockwork. We're going to be talking about what really moves the needle when it comes to marketing your studio business, especially if you're not a natural marketer. This one's packed with insights and a lot of clarity, and will make you think a little bit differently about the way that you market your studio. Well, hi there, I'm Saren Glanfield. 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:

This is the Pilates Business Podcast. Hey there, and welcome back to the Pilates Business Podcast. I'm Saran and I'm so thrilled that you're here with me again today, and we're talking about one of my favorite topics, and that is branding and marketing, and when studio owners find me, they will often say to me that their marketing isn't working. And if that is where you're at, just know you're not alone. I hear it very, very often. People will say I'm posting, I'm emailing, I feel like I am doing it all. I've even thrown in some TikToks here and there, but I'm not getting consistent leads. I'm not seeing the level, the number of new clients that I really want to see. Or, worse, maybe you are getting some clients coming in, but they may not be converting. And that's why I'm really excited about today's guest, jennifer Arequa.

Speaker 1:

Jennifer is not just a digital marketing expert, she's also a StoryBrand certified guide, and if you've never heard of StoryBrand, well, you are in for a treat. This is a framework that has been that is just so incredibly powerful, and so I'm excited to really dive into that today with Jennifer. So welcome, jennifer. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here. So Jennifer also launched her business, salt Marketing, and she works with businesses just like yours to help them, to craft messaging and marketing to get more clients. So, as you can imagine, when she and I connected a few months back, we really hit it off, talking all about all things branding and marketing, and I thought that it would be fabulous to have you come on the show, jennifer. So I'm glad you're here and I think it would be really great to kick off talking about what is StoryBrand and, as a certified StoryBrand guide, can you break down what it means and why this framework works so well?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely Certainly. And it's interesting that you say that, that people come to you and say marketing doesn't work, because I hear that all the time as well, and the problem is that behind that cry for help is there's a huge variety of disparate attempts to try and come up with something cohesive. And when you're doing that tactically all the time and you're just posting and you're running as fast as you can and the hustle is all about it and that's not necessarily going to work, you need a strategic framework. You need a way of approaching it that's going to get you results, and so the StoryBrand framework is part of that. So StoryBrand is a book written by a guy named Donald Miller. He was originally a screenwriter. He is an exceptionally gifted writer, but I saw him speak and he talked about this back in 2017. And I was just completely taken and immediately started implementing it in my own businesses as an entrepreneur and then became certified as a story brand coach about two and a half years ago. And so what that story brand framework consists of is making sure that your client is the hero of their own story. When you start telling them a story where you're the hero and you're going to come in and solve all the problems and you're going to swoop in. Well, that conflicts, in their mind, with how they see themselves. They want to solve their own problems, they want to get to their own goals, whatever those goals may be for fitness or nutrition or for wellness in general and they want you to guide them. So when you think about it in the context of Star Wars, if you've watched the movie Star Wars, so you want to be the Obi-Wan. You're coming in to help Luke get to his goals. You know what's standing in his way and you're going to help him achieve that. So that's, in the simplest terms, what story a brand is, but it consists of seven parts.

Speaker 2:

The framework begins with a character, and so we look at that character. And what is your client's desire? What is it that they're trying to get to? What are they trying to achieve? And so then what is standing in their way? So they have a problem and we break down that problem into a three-part structure. So we have our external problem. So what's being exerted upon them from outside? So they're too busy to exercise, or you know, their family's not behind them, or something like that. So some external problem they don't have the time for it. Then we talk about the internal problem. The internal problem is how do they feel about that, like, how is that? How are they standing in their own way with their own emotions? And then we talk about the philosophical problem, like why this really shouldn't be, like you shouldn't have to suffer in this particular way, and we're going to help you get through that.

Speaker 2:

So then the next step of the seven part framework is the guide. So you present your brand as the guide and these are the ways in which we're going to get to your goals and we're going to work together. And for that purpose, you have a plan. And this is the plan, is an intentional oversimplification, intentional oversimplification. We look at it in three steps. So how can you break down what you do from inception to goal achievement into three, four at the most steps? And so, after we give them the plan, we call them to action. Here's what you need to do place that achievement. And then we also talk about success and failure and defining those, and that's in terms of their transformation. What does failure look like? What does success look like? We want to cast that vision for the success. So, in a basic way, that's the story brand framework in a nutshell.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think it's so powerful, right, when you break things down, I think branding just such a there's, there's a lot in there right to unpack, and so when you've got a framework of any sort, and this framework, specifically, is just clarifies so much around what goes into creating a strong brand, right, you've got your client and what they're looking for and the problem that you're solving for them and what might be holding them back and their emotion and then their feelings around that you know, and and whenever we're trying to build a brand, you know, you know it really is more of personification of your business. So those feelings are actually quite important, aren't they? And then you know, then you're thinking about, okay, well, how can we guide them forward? How can we lead them forward? Um, and we can we guide them forward? How can we lead them forward? And we can only lead them forward if we know where we're going to take them and what that success and outcomes looks like.

Speaker 1:

And so it's really nice to break it down. It sounds so much more straightforward when we do right, absolutely, it's powerful. It's so powerful. So you've seen it in action. And so tell us a little bit about where you know, how you've seen it in action, and so tell us a little bit about where you know, how you've seen this work for some of the businesses that you've worked with. What types of businesses have you kind of worked with in this space?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you and I were chatting a little bit before we started about some of the diversification in the industry, because we work with a lot of different wellness brands and what we see happening is that, for instance, I had a mental wellness clinic who had added a salt room so you could come in and do their sauna, and so you know everybody's adding sort of these different modalities, and so how do you then qualify and quantify what that is?

Speaker 2:

And so we talk a lot about that when we build out websites in terms of the structure. How do we capture those visitors that are coming in and they're searching? They don't necessarily know the name, they kind of might know what salt therapy is, but they're talking about them in terms of how we deliver it. And so this also speaks to not selling individual services, which can often be erased to the bottom. So if you're pricing out here's my cryotherapy but somebody down the street is, you know it's a chain and they're doing the same thing, but they're certainly not doing it as well as you are when we gather those things up under your messaging framework, you can easily say you're going to experience these different modalities and that's going to get you to your goal. So you become like a category of one because you have this branding, you have this messaging behind what it is that you're doing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I always say sometimes I'm just going to give another example we often find ourselves marketing Pilates to the world, when actually what we really want to be doing is marketing Pilates with your studio to the world. Right, and there's quite a big distinction there, because we don't want to send them straight into the arms of our competitor down the street, right, we want them to come to our studio.

Speaker 2:

So it's really, as you say, really important to sort of make that distinction, and that can be a challenge because when you are trying to optimize for search engines and you're talking to the machines and not the people, you Google after those keywords like Pilates. But what you want to do is attract the right people and by having the right messaging, the people who will really benefit from what you do specifically will gravitate toward that message because you're speaking their language, or speaking to their hearts, and you tell them all about the transformation that they're going to undergo. It's not just I'm going to go sign up for Pilates, I'm going to have this transformation in my life and I'm making this change for purpose Right Absolutely, it's so much more powerful, so much more powerful.

Speaker 1:

So tell us a little bit about where, when you've worked, say, with a wellness business that offers red light therapy, perhaps, and cryotherapy and a salt room, or what have you, and as well as other modalities, you know, I think, if you're, you know, for those listening, you know, stepping into that world. It's a bit like offering, you know, your small group classes as well as one-on-one sessions, as well as perhaps some other add-on combination of those. How do you, knowing that, perhaps, or wondering if there is a different market for those different modalities, how do you blend it all together? How can you kind of walk us through what that looks like in real life?

Speaker 2:

So, and when you look at it, like that you know one-on-one versus small groups, versus large groups.

Speaker 2:

You know everything works differently for different people and sometimes at different times, like the same client may come in and need, you know, different attention at different times.

Speaker 2:

They may start off needing that one-on-one and then graduate to where they're really enjoying a group setting, and so you have to frame that up for the individual.

Speaker 2:

But you've also got to do it in the way that makes sense for your brand. So you know being able to communicate with people, that you do offer that, that you are able to diversify in that way to meet their specific needs. You know that goes back to defining that character and what their desires are and what those problems are. So you know a different person comes in and has a different problem, but they're going to relate to the way that you explain it and so they're going to relate to the way that you explain it and so they're going to come to you because you've got the answer to what it is that they're looking for. So oftentimes I find that even if you have a diverse offering or even if you're partnering with other, you know other people in the area. So if you have a community and you're kind of partnering up with them, being able to offer a cohesive plan to get to their goals. That's often a good way to differentiate yourself in the marketplace.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and when you say a plan, you're the one, you are the business owner as the business owner defining their first step, their second step, their third step Is that? That's what you mean by that.

Speaker 2:

So it depends on who we're talking to. So we have particular wellness facilities that we talk with who will create a unique blueprint for each client. And so they'll come in and say you know, I've got this ache, this pain, this goal, and we're going to construct for you a specific plan and within that context, we're going to, you know, solve your problems. And so you know, it does matter whether you construct that, but in a general sense, we can, like I said it's an oversimplification intentionally by saying this is the first step. The first step is to walk through the door or sign this piece of paper or book a call or whatever that first call to action is.

Speaker 2:

And then in the middle is the messy middle is where we're going to actually accomplish the goal. But we know how to do it. So that's the part of the middle. And then the third step of that plan is these are the goals, this is what you will get, this is the outcome, and so when we simplify it like that at the highest level, we can then break down the specifics of it for an individual and making sure that they get what they need to go through that transformation and really cast that vision, for this is what success is going to look like.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think one of the reasons why that is so powerful is because when you are a consumer faced with perhaps those three or four or five different options or even just perhaps a few different ways to reach the goal as the consumer, trying to figure out, without having that plan, what they should be doing, often is the fastest way to lose clients.

Speaker 1:

And I think often there is sort of this hesitation to tell someone what to do. But most of the time when people are coming to you it's because they cannot solve the problem on their own or they're looking for a little bit of help. And so if you're thinking, oh, but you know everybody needs something different, or you know. Or if you're thinking maybe that you know you don't really have a plan for someone, or you don't want to tell them what they should do or not do and what if it's not the right plan, what you probably will find and tell me if I'm wrong here but you'll find that people quite enjoy having at least some sort of a sense as to where to start or what that sort of guidance is around, how often they should come and how long it might take to get results, and that actually often really fuels a much stronger bond between you and your clients.

Speaker 2:

Yes, especially when you can shift within that framework. So, for instance, with our marketing clients it's the same sort of thing. Like you know, you come to us, you're a Pilates studio, you are doing all the things, posting all the places you know, doing everything you possibly can. And when you nail it down into a framework it makes a lot of sense. That doesn't mean you can't adjust within that framework. So we have a five part framework where we that we use to to look at marketing. And so the first part of that is attract. How do you attract new people to you? How do you draw those, those new prospects? The second part of that framework is how do you convert them? How do you make them into clients? The third part of that is to create raving fans who are going to then refer you and talk about you and review your business.

Speaker 2:

The fourth part of it is automation. So how do we take all the chaos, all the things you're doing, and we automate as much of it as we possibly can. And then the final part of it is measure and scale. So we're going to look at our metrics and we're going to figure out how to scale the things that are working. So I can say that to you and I can give you that five-part framework. Within that you're going to have your own interpretation of that and how it's going to work best for you. But as practitioners, the best thing we can do is provide them with that framework. We know how to get you to your goals.

Speaker 1:

We're going to guide you and we're going to help you every step of the way, and that really, that really makes a difference. Yeah, yeah, it does. So, having worked with with many small businesses, when you first connect, what do you see as perhaps one of the sort of misconceptions or mistakes or areas that perhaps might need the most improvement? What isn't missing most? Most of the time, would you say the most improvement.

Speaker 2:

What isn't missing most of the time, would you say it is that structure. So we do a lot of organic. We believe in setting up content, marketing, inbound all of that ahead of doing any paid. Some people will tell you, no, no, just go to the traffic store, buy some traffic. But we believe strongly in establishing who you are in the marketplace, and so one of the biggest mistakes I see is trying to do all those things but doing it without a plan.

Speaker 2:

So you know, somebody tells them that they need to post every single day, or you don't need to be on Instagram, you need to be on YouTube, or you don't need to be on YouTube, you need to be on TikTok, and it drives people crazy and you can't be in all the places at all the time. So having a plan for that and making sure that you're doing it in an intentional way that's a lot of what we coach our clients on is getting to that point where you know what the topics are that bring people to you. You know the services that you provide, but the conditions or the circumstances that bring people to you, and that's what they're Googling. They're Googling solutions to the problem that they have. We, when we talk about creating original content, no-transcript, giving reviews and saying you know we see this working because of X and Y and Z. So there's, there's five pieces of the they ask you answer framework. But that is a really good way to guide your content and not just be random and posting and give you some direction there.

Speaker 1:

Right, and when you have got sort of those pillars, perhaps for content types or topics or themes. Is that what you mean when you say that with that structure?

Speaker 2:

It is content pillars, but it is also appealing to optimizing for search, but appealing to the things that people are already asking, the questions that they're already asking. Pricing is always a big sticking point with a lot of our clients. They don't want to talk about it. They don't want you know somebody price shopping them with the studio down the street. So we want to make sure that we're talking about pricing in the right way. So how much does this cost? Well, it depends. It depends on what you're looking for. It can be from this to this, and so we talk about pricing in a way that cements them as an authority. It shows the client is going through, but then it also provides the information they're looking for. So they know this is the person that I need. This is the situation I want to be in.

Speaker 1:

Right, where do you place that content, or where do you recommend as a sort of a baseline or foundation kind of what's the sort of minimum, bare minimum, that you would recommend when it comes to content?

Speaker 2:

So we typically recommend. So we have a package that we offer because we want to get to the goals right. So we set the goal and so, in order to get to the baseline goals, we post three times a week and we pay attention to the things that we're leading people to, always with a call to action, always with something for them to start with. In addition to that, we want one piece of original content, and by that we mean a video, a podcast, an article, something of that nature. That's a little bit more, it has a little more depth to it, gives the search engine something to sink their teeth into, and so we make sure that we do that at least once a week. We also talk about a cadence of emails. So we want to have a strong welcome sequence. When somebody comes in and they're just sort of poking and learning and looking, we want to make sure that we are leading them through to booking that first session, and so that cadence is there as well as some.

Speaker 2:

It depends. Yeah, there are obviously, like I said, there are variances. Once you get below the framework, there are plenty of variances. So we might do a weekly email, we might do a monthly email. It depends on you, depends on how often your folks are used to hearing from you. So that's the minimum. But we want to hit all those different modalities because we're talking about. Some people like to consume their content on a podcast, some people like to read an article, some people want to watch a video, some people just want that quick hit. They're going through their stories on Instagram. So we want to make sure that we're hitting all those without exhausting ourselves, without, you know, going off the rails there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, for someone who is perhaps wearing a lot of hats in their business, they are also perhaps teaching, coordinating their team, training a team, managing a lot of admin, customer service, etc. How do you make that content creation piece the most doable? Do you have some hacks that you recommend or that you can share?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely, and it's all about putting the marketing infrastructure in place, which a lot of people are missing, and you forgot a million zillion things that have to be done as a business owner. You know paying your taxes and paying your people, and you know I've got to get payroll done and all those things. So what we recommend doing is automating as much as possible, particularly on the operation side. If you're trying to hire, we can automate that. If you are gender. If you are putting podcasts, we automate that. If you are holding webinars or you are holding live sessions and you want people to come into the studio and come in and try a session and you want to do that in a group setting, we automate that. So automation is key to a lot of that. And so once you take some of that administrative burden off of you with those automations, then the marketing falls into place and it's more fun, it's easier to do because you do have the time and the bandwidth to really sink into it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it takes a little bit of investment up front, but it's worthwhile over the long term to have that in place.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you don't have to think about it like it has to be all done at once. You know, once you, once you get into the automation game, yeah, there are different pieces of technology and we do coach our clients on that, but you can do a little bit at a time. You can say, okay, I'm going to automate this part of my process and then I'm going to automate this pit and over time you build that, that infrastructure out and that allows you that breathing room to really cater to your clients in that way.

Speaker 1:

It absolutely does, and I think you know it can be incredibly overwhelming, having watched many business owners try to do it all at once, or to see the long list of things they could be doing with their automations within their software, and it does really help to simply prioritize. Okay, where do we start? What's the most important for my business today? Next most important comes next, but we do not have to do it all at once and I think you know that's one of those skills that you develop as a business leader and a business owner is navigating how to prioritize those different pieces of that marketing puzzle and making sure that you are being sort of smart about where you spend your time and energy and that's a really good point, being smart about where you spend your time and energy.

Speaker 2:

And the worst thing that we see our clients do is they'll invest in automation software and they'll do one thing and then they're like no, no, it's just faster if I do it myself. I'm like it's not faster if you do it yourself 25 times over the next month. So anything you're doing three times in a row we need to automate. And so that's that getting to that mindset, flexing that that sort of muscle memory to say, ok, we can automate this. That's a, that's a game changer for a lot of practices.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for sure, Absolutely, Absolutely. So a lot of people come to me and they will. They will share that. They're doing a lot of different marketing and often you know people have automations or they are posting on social regularly and consistently and they are sending out emails, but they don't feel like that it's working. Do you ever see that when you work with people? And if so, you know, what would you say to someone who is feeling that way right now?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely, and we do see it. Certainly, a lot of people come to us with that. The messaging is key. If you're not getting traction, go back and look at the messaging. Have you positioned your brand as the guide to your hero? Just think about it in that context, making sure that your message is resonating with them in the right way, and that's where you're gonna to start to get that traction. That's where people are going to gravitate toward you If you're speaking their language and you really truly get them. It's often said that when you can articulate your client's problem better than they can, that's when you start to win, and so that's often the piece that's missing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I completely agree with you and it's amazing how it, when you make it, it takes a little bit of time right. This, you know, put sort of the investment of time into those seven steps of the frame of the story brand framework that you described. And if you've ever spent time working really deeply on your brand messaging, it is kind of deep work right. It makes you really have to stop and have a good think about what all of these different components that kind of go into crafting that really um, that, that that compelling brand message and positioning your business. I think that you know when you do that work it does pay you back because you do stand out not just to new clients but also your existing clients feel and find and recognize the value that you deliver to them.

Speaker 2:

And even more importantly with that is the way that you start to talk about yourself when you're at a party or you're in a room and people start to ask what you do. Well, you don't just say I own a Pilates studio. You start to talk about the transformation like this is what I do for people, and so doing that hard work and taking that time to do that can really change everything.

Speaker 1:

It changes how you see yourself, it changes how other people see you and it changes how your ideal clients are going to gravitate toward you on this, the light bulb, ahas that happen and just how then it just shifts so much for them in the way, like you said, the way they see their business and themselves, but just the way that they approach what they do and how they just the doors it opens.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

It is really Love, that it is really, it is really powerful, and so if anyone is listening and hasn't done this deep work, I highly highly recommend you do. And I think in the environment that we're in today, you know there is a lot of noise and we have like the smallest attention span we've ever had Goldfish.

Speaker 1:

Right, we have to be able to stand out Right when you've spent the time like we've talked about today. It really just supports your ability to be able to deliver something that's very unique and you're not competing on price or other things.

Speaker 2:

You're trying to keep the wheels on, you're trying to get the people in the door, and so stepping back and doing this can feel like just slogging through mud sometimes, but it's so beneficial and doing this hard work is so important, particularly if you are going through it right now. You're trying to keep all the things, all the wheels on, all the things running. Stepping back and doing this will be a game changer, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely Fantastic. Well, thank you, jennifer, so much for coming on and sharing. I love StoryBrand. I read it when it first came out. I think it's really powerful, and so, if anyone's listening is keen, that was a great recommendation for your next book. But in the meantime, why don't you share with us a little bit about how people can learn a bit more about what you do at Salt Marketing?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. We are Salt Marketing. We specialize in wellness businesses and helping them grow. You can check out our website at saltmarketingco. You'll also find us on Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn. I'm easy to find on LinkedIn because my last name is very unique it's O-R-E-C-H-W-A, so Jennifer Oroquois. So if you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, that would be fantastic. We also have a custom report that you can grab a hold of so we walk you through a quiz. It's kind of similar to a disc profile. You know what is your marketing personality, because we do talk a lot about how you approach marketing as a business owner, and so that customer report is at saltmarketingco slash customer report so you can go there and grab that. It's a quick quiz and it's fun and gives you great results and kind of gives you a new approach and a new lease on your marketing. So if you're feeling a little dragged down by your marketing, there's a great way to re-energize yourself.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic. I'm going to link to all of that in the show notes so you guys can go and grab that and check it out. Thank you so much, jennifer. I appreciate you sharing all of your wisdom and insight with us. Thank you Absolutely. Thank you Well. Thank you all for listening and I hope this episode of the Pilates Business Podcast was helpful to you. If it was be sure to never, ever miss another by hitting that follow or subscribe button wherever you listen to podcasts button wherever you listen to podcasts. 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.