Introduction:
As part of the acquisition project, I'm working on the product - Spur.Fit to design the potential acquisition channels for us.
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The first question is "What is Spur.Fit?"
Spur.Fit is an all-in-one platform to manage your coaching operations as a fitness/health coach, i.e. a
Shopify for fitness & health coaches.
What does Spur.Fit solve?
A freelance fitness coach let's say in the USA or any locality for that matter typically uses a bundle of software to solve each pain point like,
Now this requires at least a virtual assistant to manage all these various tasks as you start scaling. Guess what, there's an industry on this. You can find a VA from the Philippines for $10/hr but you're not being involved in your client's journey anymore & it's neither affordable nor scalable in the longer run. }
So, now you're drowning with spreadsheets & now you also need to scale your business, & retain your existing coaches & figure out how to make them pay on time,
Too much stress right? That's where Spur.Fit comes in, it's your sidekick to help you manage your entire coaching business. Regardless of the services you provide in the fitness industry, Spur.Fit enables you to manage all your clients in one place.
You can create workouts/meal plans with the help of our AI assistant - Ask Co-Pilot
With the help of wearable integration & visual graphs - you can track & manage their progress. You can also accept & manage payments with Stripe & RazorPay integration
Best part? You're saving about 2-3 hours a day easily for 1/10th the cost of any assistant a month. So now take a step back, focus on just on coaching clients while Spur.Fit takes care of the rest.
It's been just over a year since we've been in operation, hence we are in the early stages of our PMF, currently, we have just over 1000 coaches, across 60+ countries.
Coming to the user distribution, out of the 1129 coaches, over 60% of our audience was targeted in India & USA, cause the persona of coaches we were looking for were,
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Now, where does Spur.Fit land in this rapidly growing" fitness industry?
The fitness industry as per a bunch of sources, the Indian online fitness market is expected to grow between 25-30% CAGR, whereas in the USA this number is between 32-37%. The online fitness market comprises digital products in the fitness & health space.
This industry is speculated to be valued at $15.3 billion as of 2024, but this includes - wearables (wristwear, smart wear, etc.) & apps - (tracking/analyzing, etc.) & with an estimated 32% CAGR - almost $300 billion by 2032.
While all of these stats are promising, it's also a pretty competitive market, there were over 250,000+ apps on health & fitness on the App Store & Play Store as of 2018 itself, I couldn't find data post that but estimates state that over 100k+ apps were getting added from 2020, which means over 500k+ apps.
Clearly this is a booming industry & thus multiple companies are trying to solve various problems in this sector based on physical & mental fitness. If you want to read further data, I'll add a glossary at the end.
Let's understand how our competitors are doing in this space. Coming to global space, the biggest competitors, include,
In India,
There are over 1000+ such apps, from over 100+ countries, but they are all trying to solve a specific problem under the big umbrella of health & wellness.
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Target User Persona
"Through automation, you can save your time" is the pain point that we're trying to solve for the age persona of these young coaches who want to optimize their business.
With the help of AI CoPilot, they can create custom programs & plans to schedule, track & manage their client's progress to help them achieve results.
Let's understand a few types of coaches called "health & fitness" coaches. For this, few common assumptions for all, that they're training virtually, running their own enterprise, or are either freelancing (basically, they're the decision maker). Hybrid training (Online & In-person) is the most common form of coaching right now & the business requirements to train clients virtually are a lot more straightforward & case they're running it then the problem statement becomes clear - a single product to help them manage their clients.
Now going in depth into a few of these coaches to understand their pain points. About 90% (except medical-related training - they have a very different approach & don't fall into this category of coaching). of the fitness & health coaching comes under,
Now in terms of the complexity & features required for the product to be suitable for these coaches, the company felt prioritized as,
As per the product roadmap, the features were being built & according we looked for channels to acquire these coaches.
Our ICPs consume their content on social media, primarily on Instagram & TikTok along with forums, & a bunch of niche groups based on the sort of coaching they provide.
Based on this, we went ahead and acquired other freelance coaches who train their clients online as these coaches fit all the above-mentioned criteria. With the help of the founder network, we acquired a few users too.
Have a look at the table below, it mentions what our coach's prior setup was & their biggest point. Having competitive pricing helps too, but the product's core features were built around the pain point hence acquiring wasn't a bigger hassle. Defining our user persona helps with that. All these are functional aspirations with social status & finances being the secondary aspiration
Name | Type of Coach | Basic info | Prior Setup | Features required | Biggest Pain Point |
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Amogh Darker | General Fitness/Wellness Coaches | Age 21-25, India, Online fitness coach (self), primary time on Instagram, willingness to pay | Used GPTs, excel sheets, forms, etc. Instagram/WhatsApp to communicate, using QuickCoach | Have his library, create their programs, schedule, communicate, and basic integration with Apple & google watches, custom logo on the app - brand building | Quickcoach is limited. The features were limiting their service, hence highlighting all the features was key |
Ashwathi | General Fitness/Wellness Coaches | Age 25-35, India, Online fitness coach (self), micro-influencer, willing to pay | Excel sheet & PDFs, WhatsApp to communicate. No tools used in the past | Library of workouts, create their recipes & meals, communicate, schedule it, custom logo on the app - brand building | Scaling her online business was a hassle as no setup to sell her programs |
Karen Bernard | Endurance, Marathon Coaches | Age 35-45, South Africa, Endurance Coach (SMB), low-social contact | Papers, PDFs & sheets, Prefers 1-1 communication with clients, used TrainingPeaks | Running module builder, advanced wearable integrations- Garmin, track the progress visually, schedule it | Visual analytics were limited in TrainingPeaks |
Emman | General Fitness/Wellness Coaches | Age 21-30, Philippines, Online fitness coach (self), time on Facebook/Fiverr/Instagram, willingness to pay | Excel sheets, PDFs, email communication. Used QuickCoach as well | Schedule client's progress, Workout Builder, Communicate daily | Scaling his online business was a hassle, lead management was the key |
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Market Scenario
First, what do fitness coaches search for?
The primary keywords include or direct search results would be,
These are a bit on the lower end, typically these platforms also move into gym management - for product & growth reasons - & there the search volumes & CPC get extremely high
Eg. This is Fitbudd's data - They spend over $4k USD/month to get listed higher on "Gym Management Software"
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Trainerize, well they've been in the business for over 20 years hence a mature product. Therefore they focus on their brand as the primary paid keyword along with over $2k/month spent on fitness app
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Or, just try a bunch of pain points of these users like,
You can also create a ton of blogs again based on the sort of content these coaches search for, like
These are just a few sources but primarily building organic content on such topics I feel can give a clear edge & that is what is eventually driving the traffic
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YouTube feels a lot more review-based, focused on various competitor names & how to use those platforms or compare with other software
Another category of searches involves the type of coaches, such as
The sort of content for reviews & ratings
The YouTube search volumes as per VidIQ, clearly show the competition level on a lot of these keywords is relatively pretty low, hence a great place for content loop
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Along with these, you can also search for,
Instagram is also a great reference to create content, just take a look at this. For #onlinefitnesscoach, you get over 700,000+ posts already which gives you a ton of content on training, reviews, transformations etc.
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Now, coming to design acquisition channels, let's understand a few things.
In the USA, an average online fitness & health coach earns about $50-60k per year. Out of this, they typically spend about $1000-1500 a year. Again, these are skewed numbers, on the higher end some coaches spend over $6-8k easily on their annual subscriptions to such tools. In India & other newer markets, the amount is less however there's a willingness to pay. Examples - are South Africa, India, the Philippines, Turkey, and Egypt- to name a few. Here the coaches earn between USD 10-$30k/year on average & they'd be willing to spend $400-600 dollars a year.
Few of these brands have spent over $15-20k/month on Google Ads budget & are ranking higher on investigative keywords in our industry and their spend on influencers is over USD 10k per reel, which just isn't justified for our scale & goals currently.
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To design the acquisition system, let's have 3 channels based on,
Based on this, the 3 channels that I would like to prioritize on,
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Channel Name | Cost | Flexibility | Effort | Lead Time | Scale |
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Referrals | Low (often incentives) | Low (dependent on customer satisfaction) | Low (customer-driven) | Short (immediate referrals) | Medium-High (limited by customer base) |
SEO | Medium (tools, experts, time) | Medium (algorithm changes) | High (ongoing optimization) | Long (months to see results) | High (can reach a large audience) |
Content Loop + Socials | Low - Medium (content creation, social ads) | High (content, platforms, trends) | Medium (content creation, promotion) | Short to Medium (depends on content and promotion) | High (potential for viral reach) |
Before achieving PMF, we want to ensure that the product & the company are being built just organic & no advertising/paid cause it doesn't add any value. Currently, we want to do maximum outreaches because it gives more control on the ICP you want to target unlike what it does when it's bound. A lot of resources would be needed to set that up as well to track inbound.
Hence doing outreach, for the cost, effort & scaling of these channels would fit right in unlike any PPC campaigns, high social media spends on advertising, and even creator gigs too wouldn't be the right fit. We would need to people to understand the product in order to promote it so it can grow organically.
Henceforth, the channels mentioned above -
Referrals - purely organic, build credibility & trust, the feedback is fast to operate, low cost
SEO - purely organic, targeted keywords to ICPs on, high on scale
Content Loop - Organic outreach as well, high flexibility to experiment, can yield high results too
Time to deep dive into these
Objective - Design an effective referral program with the right incentives to acquire new users
Timeframe to measure - <30 days
Cost - Direct Cash would be needed, but low - will explain why. About $100 to acquire 5 paying coaches
Goals - Acquiring new users + Improve Sales (Direct metric), Brand Awareness (in the long run)
Ideal CAC to LTV ratio - it's about 1:3 per coach
CAC - $260 ($20 x 12 = $240) plus 1st month bonus $20
Revenue in a year - $720 (60 x 12 = $720)
Ratio - 1:3 (approx).
Ideal Consumer to refer,
Incentives- The million-dollar question? What incentives to provide?
Let's understand the users again, these are fitness coaches who are trying to scale their business. Hence they always need new customers to grow their business.
But this is against our pricing model. We do not charge their clients, coaches generate revenue for us. So, I can't get new leads for these coaches directly. But I can do is help them with enough resources & incentives for it.
Phase 1
Since these coaches are also tech-friendly, create enough resources & tools & distribute them.
An example could be a guidebook on "How to run ads on the Meta platform to generate new leads". While this also becomes a content loop, it could be an incentive for them.
But how do I get users to sign up on this? The product can play a role here. Our platform is on the web for coaches, hence
But is this scalable? Maybe.
Phase 2
If you have a few active coaches, target them with incentives. You can target them with cash + commission along with the above-mentioned resources.
For active coaches, based on demographics - have a 30% commission (Except USA)
Along with that can have some milestone-based referrals too, like $100 for every 5 paid coaches. Now, how are these numbers written?
Our pricing model.
This is the pricing structure. Our competitors for example charge,
But to acquire these users, the CAC as you have seen with Google Keywords is relatively high. Since our pricing is also competitive, CAC must be low.
Since we're also building it on a global scale, offering a 30% commission on $59 - which would be about $20 + $20 fixed, which would be $40 for 1st month, & $20 every month for a specified tenure post that.
Is this scalable? I don't think so. As this grows you're also potentially losing out on $20 every month from an already competitive price. Hence deciding how long would be important, hence about 6-9 months would be a fair timeline to rethink the approach.
Phase 3
The first 2 help with the materialistic incentives. Social validation is a key factor for fitness coaches, hence creating content loops would be crucial too, distributing it with the right resources to have a mutual benefit could be the deciding factor in scaling the referral program.
I've detailed the content loop below. But the target here also would be your active coaches itself
Phase 4
Another ideal consumer is a Sales professional with a Fitness Background.
This is fairly an experiment, but could be worth trying. As a lot of fitness coaches require sales as a primary skill, they end up with roles in sales itself. Design the right cash + incentive models with them, this would be different from active coaches.
They could also help you land high-paying clients, thus better revenue in the longer run.
Is this scalable? Yes, cause here volume isn't a priority, it's getting the right ICP & generating better sales. Hence it will help with overall growth too.
Tracking referrals
Currently, the product itself involves "Refer & Earn" section to refer & track your progress
The flow to add can be simple, share it as a link. We can share emails with them for invites,
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Can send the emails in this type (please ignore the -316 days) - I will fix that. With the mention of the coach referred, how it helped them. Intro of the product & a small offer to get them started
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For the referring coaches, we can create various milestones to gamify as well as incentivize to increase the number of average referrals
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Create various in-product notifications, emails, etc. to share with these coaches to experiment & incentivize. We can do A/B experiments, and test out various low CAC incentives & merch too if needed. The CAC is low, we get direct access to our ICPs.
What will this channel flow look like?
What outcomes to measure?
Running these as structured phase-wise experiments & assessing the North Star Metric, i.e. "Number of user sign-ups" must be the priority along with a boost in sales as the secondary goal.
Other metrics to analyze each experiment could be,
This might be a bit risky, but is achievable. The results would be clear in about 30 days for all these phases to plan, execute & measure the above channel. Experimentation is key, A/B tests on every action point of each campaign to ensure effective results.
Referral is always a low-cost effort, the product will always speak for itself however distributing it well yields exponential results.
Objective - Host podcasts with existing coaches, create local content from your existing consumers to drive new growth
Timeframe to measure - 30-60 days
Cost - Setup for the podcast - $50-100 (Mic & Camera from Amazon), & maybe a budget of $50-100/micro-influencer additionally to shoot content with an existing coach in their language, total - $100/month + salary of a resource (intern) - $75/month, tools - $25/month.
Total CAC - $200/month (approx)
If you cannot acquire influencers, create micro-influencers. Our ICP spends their time on Instagram & TikTok, hence the best approach would be to target coaches, who have a following between 10-30k on either platform to create content with them & distribute it through omnichannel marketing. This includes,
Here are a few thumbnails of episodes of the podcast. However, these need to be distributed as content loops.
This was the hypothesis, now what metrics to measure in this?
The moment a podcast is posted, distribute it with scale. Again, the bigger objective is to acquire them, so "Number of users signed up" i.e. have created an account. A timeline of 14-21 days should help you give early signs of conversion rates.
Create content in their local language by their micro-influencers to share it across their pages to engage with their network to ensure that you're penetrating likely into your ICP themselves.
This would require,
Who are these micro-influencers?
Whatever existing coaches you have, check for their profiles. Create a priority list to understand their biggest pain points, the current paid users are a great start. Generate content loops as social validation, & since they're paid users they're highly likely to recommend & since you'd be paying them, they're highly unlikely to not help. Also, start targeting other ICPs on this model to scale it further, while existing users are on a trial & new users are being acquired.
Tools
Platforms
Note - Currently, we're maybe starting phase - 1 of this plan, we're setting up these distribution channels, I've added the rest of the Phases here to plan the execution & have enough measurable outcomes. Experimentation is the key in this process with content, design, editing & publishing strategies.
What outcomes to measure?
The Northstar metric always during early PMF is "Number of user sign-ups" but also look out for,
Having these as a few KPIs might help. Within 30-60 days, I hypothesize that it would give enough metrics to evaluate it.
Micro-content is expected to have various fluctuations due to reasons beyond control. Hence flexibility from the platforms is limited. Focus on experimenting with various micro-content campaigns based on trends & relevancy would be the key factor to build an engaging community in the long run.
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Objectives - Generate create content loops & distribute them to rank higher. Metric - Brand Visibility
Timeframe - 90-180 days
Cost - Tools - Semrush $100-$150/month, Resources - 2 interns ($150-$200/month), Additional tools - $50/month (optional)
The first thought that popped up was if EverFit, Trainerize, & Fitbudd are spending over $10k+/month only on Google ads, how would we rank better with <$500/month?
SEO has 5 keyword essentials, right?
They primarily target their ad spends mainly on investigative, comparison, and navigational.
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KD averages over 65% in keywords for this category, however, informative keywords can yield high results
Forums - Forums such as bodybuilding.com, FaceBook & Reddit groups are a great way to create informative content
Step 1: Pick the most engaging questions on the forums
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Step 2: Look for the search volumes, & create an informative article
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Step 3: Look for references to optimize better
Take a look at a few of our competitor blogs
FitBudd - Here are the top-performing pages for fitbudd.com - They primarily target based on searches on more relevant trendy content.
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Trainerize - Well it's a mature scaled brand. Henceforth, for them their brand keywords become the biggest priority, and their other key performing pages are on other industry
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Everfit - These seem to be either paid keywords or are around some specific product integrations such as MyFitnessPal etc.
Where do we rank in this?
The next step would be to make a list of untapped keywords, & focus on the ones with low KD & High search volumes. I've added 2 screenshots of Fitbudd & Trainerize, suggesting me some missing keywords as well as shared keywords between us.
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Finding out a balance between low KD & decent search volumes will be a priority. And accordingly, map out the keywords
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Create a few blogs such as,
These blogs are redistributed through email marketing, also can be published in a lot of directories to generate better authority & traffic.
The frequency of blogs can be once in 10 days, where you can re-engage with existing coaches as well while reaching out to potential leads on email marketing - weekly once.
Run A/B experiments to understand which blogs are clicked on highest & accordingly double down on the content & distribution. The reason for sharing so many screenshots was only to describe the varieties of keywords that competitors pick which gives you the right balance to understand which keywords to target.
Distribute content loops:
In the above-mentioned acquisition channels where through podcasts, local content, etc. you can scale your brand visibility, SEO plays a crucial role.
Write blogs for podcasts, reviews, pain points of users as case studies, etc. to build authority too. This approach should build an ecosystem of measurable within 3-6 months that can be scalable exponentially. Here too, using geolocation keywords can give an additional boost to your rankings within regions
What outcomes to measure?
SEO is tricky, but within 3 months, keeping a realistic expectation of
To name a few of the metrics, henceforth analytics would play a crucial role in optimizing your pages better for higher scalability.
This is a highly skilled & effort task, however, it can yield exponential results too. It helps you understand your ICPs better. I believe each competitor has their ICPs based on their pricing, henceforth targeting your ICP through these would be the priority.
You can use email marketing as a key channel to distribute your blogs, articles, case studies, etc. too. Generate local keywords to target new markets. Constant optimizing would help with the overall rankings too.
For an early PMF product, the approach to the acquisition channels is distributed based on the timeline for measurable outcomes. While low CAC is always a priority, the scale matters too.
Targeting users through Email Marketing in the USA would be a better approach than any other paid channel as CAC is low for conversions, but again user paying cycle comes into play.
Example - During November - January, people typically in the USA spend a lot. Due to Black Friday, Christmas & New Year, and New health resolutions, spending on health & fitness becomes a priority. Hence they target coaches who in turn look for solutions to handle clients & are thus far more likely to spend on technology during this phase.
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Along with this, target a few markets such as,
Asia - Tukey & South East Asian belt (Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia etc.)
Europe - Greece, Romania, Denmark. Germany could be worth experimenting too
Africa - South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco
South America - Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil (Translation in Spanish could be the key)
With these, setting up the acquisition channels to achieve the PMF would be the goal. These channels would create the right ecosystem for the scaling as all 3 can potentially have medium to high yields.
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Thank you for your time! I'm hoping to implement these channels soon so I can provide measurable outcomes too!
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