Building Your Virtual Studio
2 min read
Fitness studios and gyms are closed in most areas due to the COVID 19 pandemic. Many have moved their classes online to keep their audiences engaged, and to keep generating revenue during this period.
Whether you already have a Virtual Studio or are still considering it (just do it!), there are lots of logistics and questions to consider.
Here are some tips for building your Virtual Studio. Please reach out I haven't answered your questions!
🎇 Make adjustments to your waivers and insurance. Most liability waivers don't include off site classes. Consult your attorney to help revise your liability waivers. You can use software like WavierKing, Docusign, or AdobeSign to collect signatures on new waivers. Contact your insurance company to make sure your are covered to teach virtually, and make adjustments to your policy if you are not. If you are recording your classes with your instructors, you'll need to have them sign a model release too to allow your company to use their likeness digitally. Your attorney can help with this too.
🎇 Keep your memberships and class passes going!
Live streaming classes are much more engaging and motivating for your clients. At this point in time many studios are keeping their current pricing/memberships and offering live virtual classes.
Any online meeting software can be used to do this.Zoom seems to be the software of choice, but there are others such as Go To Meeting. Consider creating a special virtual pass and offer it to any clients that don't currently have an active package.
🎇 Clients can register as usual for classes using their passes. Then you can manually send the participants the link for the virtual class OR use software to automate this step.
FitGrid integrates with MindBody and Zoom and can automatically generate emails with links to class participants. They have a 30 day trial period.
Brandbot has just launched their LiveStream Reminder feature which you can use to automate the link delivery process. They have a 14 day trial period.
🎇 Record virtual classes and make them available to members
This is a great additional perk for those that are keeping their memberships active. You can house these recorded classes on a password protected page on your website. 🎇 Offer some free options as well. Keep more of your audience engaged by offering some free content as well. You can offer 1 free class per week or small snippets of pose tips or workouts. These can be on your website, Facebook, or Instagram. MindBody is launching their own video platform so keep an eye out for it! You'll be able to use it to create a video library to make available as a perk to select groups of clients. This feature will be rolling out to MindBody clients in increments over the next couple of weeks. This feature will be expanded upon over time to include the ability to stream and pay for virtual classes. You can find more information about it here: MindBody Video. Please feel free to email me with any questions you might have. I'm here to help!
