For Boutique Fitness Studios, Marketing Tactics Are Changing Fast

Leaders from AXLE, SWTHZ, Solidcore and JetSet Pilates discussed how rising acquisition costs, shifting discovery habits and AI-powered tools are changing the boutique fitness marketing playbook

Boutique fitness brands have always depended on word of mouth, community and brand identity. As the market becomes increasingly saturated and competition for the fitness consumer heats up, marketing and operations are converging.

During “The New Rules of Fitness Marketing: Brand Building in the Modern Era” panel at the ATN Innovation Summit, Nolen Young, founder of AXLE, moderated a conversation with Matt Gregory, vice president of SWTHZ; Aundrea Bentley, growth marketing director at Solidcore; and Nat Straub, founding partner and chief strategy officer of JetSet Pilates.

The group discussed how boutique fitness marketing is now, more than ever, dependent on lead quality, presales, retention and local relevance.

How Consumers Discover Fitness Brands Has Changed

For Solidcore, which has been expanding into new markets, the customer journey often starts before a potential client ever becomes a lead.

Bentley said brands have to think beyond the traditional Meta-and-Google funnel.

“People aren’t going to Google anymore as their first place,” Bentley said. “They’re going on to TikTok, they’re going on to Reddit, they’re going to ChatGPT.”

Fitness brands need to show up earlier in the discovery process, but not in a way that feels overly controlled. Bentley said Solidcore is focused on creating content that lets clients and coaches help tell the brand story.

“If the only thing that we know about that person is their email address and a phone number, that’s not a lot to go off of,” Bentley said.

The company has used simple questions, such as whether someone has heard of Solidcore or taken a class before, to better segment leads and determine whether they need automation, a human touchpoint or more education before booking.

Presales Are Becoming a Brand-Building Moment

For JetSet Pilates, which began franchising after building a strong community-driven brand, marketing begins before a studio opens.

Straub said JetSet puts heavy emphasis on presales, local activations and digital marketing as soon as a lease is signed.

“We took that idea of really building community,” Straub said. “How can we front load and build community and enter a new market with a tidal wave of marketing?”

That approach requires buy-in from franchise owners, who are often closest to the local market. Straub said the challenge is balancing local flexibility with brand consistency, especially as JetSet grows into a larger national platform.

“I’m excited about this regeneration of old school, real local marketing,” Straub said.

Lead Quality Matters More Than Lead Volume

The panelists agreed that many operators are still too focused on surface-level marketing metrics.

For SWTHZ, a wellness and contrast therapy brand, Gregory said the priority has shifted toward understanding who is likely to convert into a member, rather than simply trying to bring down the cost of every lead.

“It’s a lot about education,” Gregory said. “It’s introducing people to the product and educating them before they even step foot in.”

Gregory said SWTHZ has become more disciplined about using data to understand who converts and where marketing dollars should go.

“There’s no need to waste money and chase CPLs (cost per clicks) when CPL is not truly what we’re chasing,” Gregory said. “We’re chasing members.”

Retention Is Becoming a Marketing Function

The conversation also turned to retention, an area panelists said has become increasingly important as acquisition costs rise.

Straub said brands often focus on keeping happy members happy, but there is also value in understanding the behavioral signals of a client who stopped coming.

Gregory said automations can help brands spot those moments earlier.

“Knowing that person is on the verge of canceling before they cancel” is becoming increasingly important, he said.

Bentley described retention as a matter of identifying “make or break moments,” whether tied to seasonality, tenure or visitation patterns. The brands that can predict those moments and intervene with the right message, she said, will be better positioned to keep members engaged.

AI Is a Tool, Not the Whole Strategy

While AI was a major theme, the panelists framed it less as a replacement for employees and more as a way to help teams work faster and smarter.

Bentley said she is particularly interested in tools that can summarize client conversations.

“I would say really excited about the AI features that can do things like summarize the entire chat that you’re seeing before you go in,” Bentley said, adding that those tools can be “time savers for the humans that are doing this in the day-to-day.”

For JetSet, Straub said AI can help solve a different scaling challenge: allowing local studios to market to their communities while still protecting the broader brand.

“We like to give our studios the freedom to market to their community, but also we need to keep marketing looking good, sounding right, being on brand,” Straub said.

Gregory said SWTHZ is interested in using AI to evaluate campaigns before they go live, helping the brand understand where a campaign may succeed or fall short.

“We can post-mortem a campaign, know what’s going to be successful and know where the fall points are going to be,” Gregory noted.

For fitness operators, the discussion underscored a more disciplined approach to growth. Marketing still depends on brand, community and strong local execution, but those pieces now have to be supported by better data, clearer visibility into the customer journey and effective systems.