As we learned in [Part I](https://www.trainerfu.com/blog/automatic-fitness-challenge-guide-part-1), it pays to create an automated fitness challenge that's short, automatic and provides tangible benefits to its participants. Next, we'll walk you through the steps to develop a challenge that meets these requirements.
A word of warning: It does require a bit of work upfront to put together a great challenge. But, once your challenge is ready for the market, you can basically put it on autopilot to sell your services for you. With that in mind, let's get rolling.
Step 1: Define Your Target Market Before you get started, determine who you're trying to reach. For example, is this challenge intended for new moms, busy executives, or people who live in your neighborhood and want to lose weight? Establish and target a narrow, well-defined market so you can design a challenge that meets their specific needs. Doing so will result in better outcomes for your prospects, as well as your business.
Step 2: Identify Tangible Benefits
For a challenge to be effective, it must deliver participants one to two tangible benefits. So, to identify what these benefits might be, step into the shoes of your prospects and determine what small aspect of their lives they're trying to improve right now. For instance, let's consider busy executives. Here are few things they might be trying to change:
- They don't prepare their lunches ahead of time and end up eating out most days. They struggle to eat healthy and want to improve their diets.
- They don't get enough sleep because they work long hours and have stressful jobs. They're trying to develop better sleep habits.
- They consume too much soda and sugary drinks. They'd like to overcome their dependence on these unhealthy, high-calorie drinks.
- They want to eat healthy dinners at home at least a few times a week, but they don't have much time. They're looking for help with meal prep.
- They want to be more active at work or while travelling.
One way to discover these tangible benefits is to do some research. Find out what blogs your target market reads; ask what fitness articles they find most interesting; dig into what they're searching for on the internet. Then, make note of any trends you notice on how they're attempting to make baby steps to improve their fitness.
Step 3: Build a Habit-Coaching Plan
Most likely, your research into the tangible benefits that you narrowed down in the previous step will reveal that your prospects need to change one to two habits. Now, it's time to put together a solid habit-coaching plan. For every habit you identified, you'll need to determine how you'll:
- Keep participants accountable to their habit routine For instance, in TrainerFu, you can create scheduled check-in messages. Just decide what the check-in message will be – such as, "Did you sleep 8 hours last night?" – and when you'll you send them.
- Use reminders to nudge participants in the right direction As an example, you might set up a reminder like, "It's 8 p.m., time to head home and get ready for bed." Then, determine when you'll send the reminder.
- Incorporate educational content Brainstorm a few tips and tactics that you can share with participants to replace their old, bad habit with a healthy, new routine.
Step 4: Create a Simple Workout Routine
A simple workout plan will make your challenge that much more effective, so consider including an easy plan with just one or two workouts. For example, if your prospect's ultimate goal is to go from A to Z, then this workout plan should take them from A to B. The idea is to give them a small benefit but, more important, to showcase your training style so you can convert them to a paying customer and work with them to reach their ultimate goal.
Step 5: Give Your Challenge a Catchy & Meaningful Title
The title of your challenge is the first thing your prospects will see. As such, it's essential to come up with a catchy title that conveys the main benefit of the challenge and makes your prospects excited when they read it. Here are a few examples to get you started:
- Stay Hydrated, Stay Fit Challenge
- Veggie Up Fitness Challenge
- Meal Prep Fitness Challenge
- Quit Soda Fitness Challenge
- Clean Eating Fitness Challenge
- 12 Days to Thanksgiving Fitness Challenge
- 7 Days to Better Sleep Fitness Challenge
Step 6: Write Copy for the Registration Page
While the goal of your challenge title is to excite prospects enough to click, your registration page is where you'll close the deal. Essentially, the copy on the registration page should answer any big questions that your prospects may have and dispel any lingering doubts. For instance, consider addressing common questions, such as:
- Who is the intended audience for this challenge?
- What will they get out of the challenge? What's the main benefit?
- What's included in the challenge?
- Is it free? If there's a fee, how much is it?
- When does the challenge start?
- How do you join the challenge?
Additionally, consider tying in social proof in the form of testimonials from previous participants. Or, if this is your first challenge, include quotes from your current clients.
What's more, you can also use the copy you wrote for the registration page in other places, as well, including:
- A Facebook or social media post that announces the challenge
- A Facebook ad (if you plan to run an ad for the challenge)
- A video script (if you plan to record a video for this challenge)
Step 7: Plan Your Upsell Strategy
Your ultimate goal in running this challenge is to convince people to purchase your more expensive packages. Therefore, you must have an upsell strategy in place if you want good results. Here are a few recommendations:
- Focus on just one package to upsell. Too many choices will cause confusion and delay decisions.
-
Have at least these three messages ready to send out in the last few days of the challenge.
- In message 1, explain how the current challenge is only part of the puzzle and why it's not sufficient in reaching long-term goals. Then, highlight your paid package, making sure to detail any differentiators and how it can help them achieve their long-term goals.
- Message 2 could be a success story profiling a client who went through an amazing transformation because she successfully completed the package that you're encouraging the challenge participants to buy.
- In message 3, offer some sort of limited promotion to encourage a prospect to pull the trigger soon and become a paying client.
Step 8: Write Your Onboarding Messages
Determine how you plan to smoothly on board the challenge participants. Here are three messages that you could include:
- A Welcome Message: This message should welcome the participants and answer common questions that they may still have about the challenge.
- Pre-Start Message: Often, participants join the challenge a few days before it starts. The pre-start message(s) aims to maintain the participants' excitement about the challenge.
- Challenge Started Announcement Message: This message goes out when the challenge goes live.
Step 9: Put it All Together & Automate
At this point, you have everything you need to put together a great challenge. Now, all that's left is to set it up in TrainerFu and automate everything. The next part of this guide will detail how to do just that. Read it here ⇒ How to Set Up an Automated Fitness Challenge in TrainerFu