Are you a coach, consultant, or personal trainer wondering how to create a profitable online fitness challenge?

You’ve come to the right place!

An online fitness challenge could help you attract qualified prospects to your business, build trust with them, and turn them into paying clients in under a week.

In this article, I will show you how to create a detailed challenge schedule, how to promote your challenge, and how to effortlessly turn your challenge participants into paying clients.

Why Create an Online Fitness Challenge

Running an online fitness challenge is one of the quickest, easiest ways to attract new clients to your business.

Challenges attract people who are already interested in tackling the problems that your business (and your challenge) solves – for example, losing weight or increasing muscle mass.

This makes it much easier to convert them into paying clients once the challenge is over.

Plus, challenges are excellent for building your “know, like, trust” factor with potential clients.

Think of your challenge as a mini-program people get to try before paying for the real thing.

It’s an excellent opportunity for prospects to get to know you and your coaching style to see if it’s the right fit for them.

And, when your challenge participants see that your approach gets results, they will be much more likely to trust you with their money.

But the best part? You don’t need a lot of tech skills or a large following to run a profitable online fitness challenge.

Even beginners in the health and fitness niche can do this – and here’s how!

How to Create Your Fitness Challenge Schedule

Choose Your Platform

I recommend hosting your online fitness challenge in your own private Facebook group.

You can use an email marketing provider to deliver challenge materials directly to your participants’ inbox.

However, email marketing does not really provide the accountability and comradery aspects that Facebook does.

If you don’t have your own Facebook group, start one!

Make sure it’s centered around your ideal clients’ interests and passions, and you will have no problem attracting new group members (and challenge participants).

Get the Timing Right 

If you make your challenge too long, your participants may lose interest in the challenge.

If you make it too short, they won’t get a chance to get to know you and see the benefits of your coaching.

That’s why I recommend coming up with a 5-day challenge schedule.

A 5-day challenge gives your participants just the right amount of content while helping you avoid burnout and overwhelm.

Apply the Principles of Micro-Learning

If you want to create a profitable fitness challenge, you should apply the principles of micro-learning to your challenge schedule.

Micro-learning is a way of delivering content to learners in small, specific bursts.

It is designed to boost the learners’ engagement with the content and help them retain the concepts a little better.

Each day, your participants should get a 5-10 minute video with simple instructions guiding them through that day’s challenge task.

In this video, you should tell them about the day’s topic, why it’s important, and how they should approach their task for the day.

Focus on Micro-Commitments

A 5-day challenge is a micro-commitment within itself.

However, the key to running a truly profitable challenge is breaking it down further into even smaller micro-commitments.

Micro-commitments will make your challenge participants more invested in the challenge – and more likely to continue working with you after the challenge is over.

Ask your challenge participants to re-commit to the challenge by doing a small task every single day.

It can be as simple as watching a 10-minute video, filling out a short worksheet, or posting something to social media.

Give Your Participants a Micro-Win

Give your challenge participants a micro-win every single day.

Congratulate them every time they make it to the gym, or every time they go a whole day without eating sugar.

You can do this in a separate “Wins of the day” thread in your Facebook group, or in an automated email that goes out every time your participant completes a task.

These micro-wins will make people more motivated to actually complete your challenge – which is when you will present them with your offer.

Plus, people love feeling like they’ve accomplished something… Which means they will love you for making them feel this way.

How to Promote Your Challenge

You want to build interest and engagement around your challenge before it officially starts.

The optimal promotion time frame for online fitness challenges is 1-2 weeks.

Any longer than that and people may lose interest in your challenge before you even get going.

If you already have your own Facebook group full of active, engaged members, start there.

In addition to making a post about your upcoming challenge, change the group’s cover image to something challenge-related.

Consider posting testimonials from previous challenge participants and doing a Facebook Live to talk about your challenge.

You can also do some promotion on your business page and your personal page.

Not everyone who likes your business page is in your Facebook group – and who knows, you might find eager participants among your personal Facebook friends!

If you don’t have your own Facebook group yet, other people’s groups are a great place to promote your challenge as well.

However, be mindful of the groups’ promotional policies.

Some groups only allow self-promotion on specific days or in specific self-promo threads.

When it comes to finding challenge participants, a personal touch can give you a great advantage, especially if you are promoting in other people’s groups.

If someone comments or likes your posts, you can reach out to them and establish a rapport before asking them to join your challenge.

In addition, you can reach out to current and past clients and ask them to share your post.

Of course, you should also utilize any other social media tools that you have, such as Instagram and Pinterest.

However, these tools are not required for running a profitable online fitness challenge.

How to Turn Challenge Participants into Clients

If you do it right, by the time your challenge is over, you will have a list of people who can’t wait to work with you…

All you have to do is make them the right offer – in the right way.

Create an Irresistible Offer

The easiest way to monetize your challenge is by offering challenge materials, such as video recordings, to your challenge participants.

Some of them may not have had time to participate in the live round of the challenge or may want to reference the challenge materials later.

It’s a low-cost investment that’s easy to say yes to.

If you already have a premium offer (such as a fitness coaching program or a course), present it after your challenge – and in a manner that feels like a natural next-step for your participants.

However, your challenge should not appear to be just a mini-version of your paid offer.

That might make some potential clients feel like they don’t have a lot to gain by joining your paid program.

Your challenge participants will be more likely to spend money on your programs and services if they feel you are offering something that can’t be found or learned anywhere else.

Present Your Offer in the Right Way

You can send your challenge participants straight to a sales page, invite them to a webinar, or offer them a free strategy call.

Keep in mind that a high-ticket offer, such as a $2,000 program, will likely require face-to-face time with your challenge participants.

A combination of webinars and strategy calls works best for this type of offer.

Create a Follow-up System

Follow-up emails work great if you are more comfortable writing (rather than speaking with people) about your offer.

Plus, consistently checking in with people after making the initial offer can help convert people who are on the fence about joining one of your programs.

You can use email marketing software to create a follow-up sequence, or schedule a collective check-in with your challenge participants after the challenge is over.

How to Prepare for the Next Challenge

Take screenshots of everything, from your challenge materials to your Facebook group posts.

For example, screenshots of Facebook comments from people raving about their results make great marketing material for your next challenge.

Make sure to gather official testimonials from your challenge participants to use before your next challenge.

If you are not planning to run another challenge anytime soon, you can use these testimonials on your website.

Finally, you don’t have to wait until the challenge is over to share any of this material with your current challenge participants.

Seeing other people’s wins will keep them excited and motivated to stick around until the end of your challenge – and beyond!

Need More Help?

If done right, an online fitness challenge could help you bring in new profits in under a week – even if you don’t have any tech skills or a huge online following.

Want to make sure you nail every single aspect of your challenge?

Grab your FREE Challenge Checklist now.

FREE CHALLENGE CHECKLIST
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Alina Vincent
Business and Technology Strategist and CEO at Business Success Edge
Alina Vincent is a business strategist and the creator of a popular "Profitable Online Challenges" program. Alina is passionate about helping entrepreneurs package and monetize their knowledge and expertise to create a leveraged and scalable business. Experts hire her for strategic advise and simple step-by-step approach to creating successful online programs, engaged Facebook communities, and profitable online challenges. Finding her zone of genius by combining a strong analytical background, which includes advanced science degrees, with creative vision, Alina works at the intersection of logic and imagination, giving her clients everything from practical research-driven systems and strategies, to creative original and intuitive solutions.