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Wednesday 25 March 2020

This Zumba Instructor Increased Profitability by 200% When Her Gym Closed

When the governor of Pennsylvania closed local gyms due to COVID-19, it affected the livelihood of gym instructors and the physical health of their students.

The situation forced Zumba instructor Alycia McFarlin to cancel her in-person Zumba classes. Her students were disappointed, and she lost recurring revenue from classes.

That night, McFarlin quickly came up with a plan to continue offering Zumba to her students — with online classes.

Her first online class was a huge success, filling to capacity in 15 minutes. Plus, she increased profitability by 200%.

Here’s how she did it.

How McFarlin promoted her online Zumba classes

McFarlin had already experimented with and found a platform to host her online classes.

The only problem? She didn’t have a way for students to learn about and sign up for the online classes.

At first, she considered creating a website to promote the online class. But McFarlin wasn’t sure if her online class would be profitable, and she didn’t want to invest countless hours building a website. She needed a way to quickly build an online page to promote her class and test out her idea.

So she used AWeber’s Landing Page Builder to create a landing page to promote her online classes.

“With AWeber Landing Page Builder, I was able to create a page in under 10 minutes that fit my style and personality, and included all the information that people would need. It allows me to communicate with people, gauge interest, and mold this online business into whatever it becomes,” says McFarlin.

The AWeber Landing Page Builder was perfect for McFarlin. It included all the features she needed, like:

FaceBook pixel IDs
Google Analytics tracking
The ability to tag subscribers inside AWeber
The option to add videos to the page
A seamless integration with her AWeber email lists

The next morning, she started promoting her new online class. She posted a link to her landing page on her Facebook business page.

“I ran a free trial. I limited it to 25 people, and the class filled within 15-minutes. Students were reaching out to me to open it up to allow more to attend, which was pretty cool,” says McFarlin.

A simple survey helped McFarlin offer the right product to customers and increase profitability by 200%.

When McFarlin is not teaching Zumba, she is a UX designer at AWeber. “I incorporate customer feedback before, after, and during most product releases to make sure our customers have a strong voice in the features that we develop,” says McFarlin.

As a UX designer, McFarlin knew she needed feedback from customers who attended her free online class. She wasn’t sure how much to charge for online courses. She also wondered if her audience would still participate in online classes once her gym reopened.

So she created a short survey and asked her customers for their opinions.

Based on the feedback from the survey, McFarlin decided to charge $6 for her online Zumba class. The next day, she launched her $6 class.

Her online workouts helped her reach even more students than her in-person classes. With a little help from her Facebook friends and followers, posts about McFarlin's online class were shared on Facebook to expand McFarlin's audience reach.

Plus, she discovered that her online classes are 200% more profitable.

When she taught classes at the gym, the gym paid her a flat rate. It didn’t matter how many people attended the class. But with her online classes, McFarlin could charge for each student that attended.

“Landing pages have definitely been huge for me during this time,“ says McFarlin.