13 Ways Fitness Brands are Selling to Millennials for Massive Profits

Fitness brands are selling to millennials for massive profits for good reason. Millennials make up over a trillion dollars of discretionary purchases. That's a lot of buying power and influence.

Millennials are 2.5X more likely to be an earlier adopter of technology compared to other generations. They are known as content creators and users with over 46% of them creating original photos and videos for social media. This is attractive to fitness brands for good reason.

It's important to know that Millennials are likelier to trust experts and blogs compared to past generations. 92% trust influencers over ads believing they are more authentic. 

Did you know that influencer marketing may generate 11X return on investment compared to ads? There is no surprise that marketing spend is changing with fitness and lifestyle brands. With over a billion users on Instagram alone, it's worth paying attention to ways fitness brands are selling to millennials.

Whether you like social media or not, you will learn strategy lessons for marketing to connect with millennials. Their impact and influence aren't going anywhere.

How do fitness and lifestyle brands make their products attractive to the millennial generation? Here's your crash course in selling to Millennials in 2019.

12 Ways Fitness Brands are Selling to Millennials

Millennials changed the game for marketing for fitness and lifestyle brands. With a  desire to connect with brands and be entertained, a more relational approach is required to sell to millennials.

Do you have experience selling to millennials? Are you a fitness or lifestyle brand? No matter what your industry is, you will learn innovative ways to sell to millennials.

A fitness brand that does this right is Gym Shark. From the beginning, Gymshark focused on social media and influencer marketing. Their influencer marketing strategies with influencers paid off big. They reached over $51 million in fitness apparel in 2018 alone.

Influencer marketing isn't the only way fitness brands are reaching millennials successfully. Brands doing it right are sharing stories, experiences, and adventure. They are inviting millennials to help develop the mission, message, and brand.

Some brands are even co-partnering in product development. The bottom line is marketing to millennials involves people partnering with people. It's similar to what Steve Jobs and Apple did with their marketing genius strategies.

Fitness and lifestyle brands are focusing more on experiences and non-traditional marketing. Whether you are a fitness brand or not, these 9 ways brands are selling to millennials will change the way you market.

Living the Brand Story

Millennials love to support a brand with a compelling story. Give them a chance to live your brand story with an experience. A fitness brand that does this well both with their influencers and involving people online in their community is Gymshark.

Gymshark sponsored 18 influencers with a combined following of over 20 million people. You don't have to be a Gymshark to be successful. You can start with fitness or lifestyle experiences with social media influencers in exchange for posting. 

Developing your Product

In case you didn't know, millennials like to participate. They love to share their unique perspectives and feel heard. A great way to sell to millennials and their communities is having them develop your product or services.

They won't simply be an influencer participating in a campaign, they will have say so in what your brand does next. Millennials love experiences like this. Betabrand did this by encouraging people to help develop their products.

Betabrand is an online clothing company where fans co-design, vote, and crowdfund the best clothing ideas. Consider ways that people may help you develop your product to help increase brand buzz.

Share Your Dreams and Theirs

A great way to sell to millennials is to share your dreams and theirs. Create a culture and community online and live to support people pursuing their dreams. Encourage people to share online with your product and service how they are doing that.

When they post, share on your social channels as well. This follows the basic golden rule of doing onto others what you want done to you. It helps millennials feel heard and appreciated too. Everyone wants to feel that their story matters.

Consider what your dreams are and how you could include others in the journey. Sharing your dreams and theirs online and live will help you sell to millennials and others. People love feeling like they are a part of something bigger emotionally.

Create Unique Experiences

Create unique experiences and ways for millennials whether they are online or live, as influencers or as clients. Make everyone feel part of the community.

Millennials love to participate. If you create a unique experience that allows them a chance to share in person and after, they will highly value the opportunity. Let them share the way they use your product. Give them creative freedom as a creator and entrepreneur.

Your brand will go a long way if you recognize giving millennials creative freedom and expression goes a long way. You will benefit from it in every way. If you are hosting experiences already, think about how open you are with content creation.

Are there ways you could increase the freedom of creative expression? How could you grow your reach so that more people know about you? Who do you want to work with and how can you connect with them for your unique experiences. 

Offer an Adventure

Millennials want to be offered an adventure to be a part of. 66% of millennials crave adventure. They want to be part of something innovative and inspirational. When your brand offers an adventure in everyday life, your brand will hit a home run.

Think of ways to make your product and services an adventure. It's important for Millennials to feel like their opinions matter. Personalization goes a long way to help people feel special too.

Are there ways for you to include adventure online? How about physically via mailing items? What about creating experiences with adventure? The possibilities to offer an adventure are limitless.

Share Simplicity

Think of ways to make your product stand out with simplicity and convenience. Millennials love products that help make their lives easier. Whether this is a fitness technology product or a service, there are ways you can simplify. 

A great example to follow is the genius of Apple. Even if you are not an Apple user or fan, glance at an iPhone or Mac. You will see how simple and sleep the products are.

Look at your products and services your business offers. How could you simplify your products and services? What could you do to get people excited about them?

Brand Buzz

Speaking of excitement, millennials and their communities are great at brand buzz. To be a part of it, it's connecting with them so they share your brand without even being paid for it. The best brands in the world get people to generate brand buzz naturally. Apple and Nike are great at this.

Create a story that naturally generates brand buzz. It could be connected to your culture and community. What do you stand for? How do you give back? These are all buzz-worthy topics that may help you with selling to millennials.

Nike and Apple understand the power of technology, simplicity, and consistency. Despite their success, they point to these simple ways even start-ups can start with brand buzz. 

Creating brand buzz will help you with your online presence, as well as raving fans. Raving fans will share about your brand all the time because they love what you stand for and how you've helped them.

Fitness and lifestyle brands know this first hand so they work on crafting a story that resonates with the community they want to reach. With time and consistency, your brand will stand out. Before you know it, you will have a community that can't stop talking about you.

There are many ways to do this in today's online world. Keep in mind that Apple or Nike didn't have when they first started. Everyone starts at ground zero. No matter where you are, think of your mission, vision, and how you are sharing online.

It's important to build both a personal story with the founder or creator, as well as a brand story that aligns to the founder. Authenticity and integrity go a long way with selling to millennials.

Consider ways you may use social media and influencer marketing to generate brand buzz? Take action consistently and track results. Keep in mind Nike wasn't built in a day.

Stand Out from the Rest

Whether you are a fitness or a lifestyle brand, or not, stand out from the rest. Think of ways you may differentiate yourself via products, offerings, and experiences. Look at your competition to see how you may be and do things better and faster.

For example, Apple didn't invent MP3 players or Smartphones, they reinvented them. Not only did they reinvent them, they made them sexy and cool when no one thought computers and phones could be. Their strategy is to stand out from the rest and be the best.

How could you take your existing products and services and make them stand out? What ways could you position yourself to sell to millennials easier and faster?

How could you be a disrupter? What ways could you create experiences? How do you evaluate your products, services, and experiences regularly? It's essential to celebrate what you've done. At the same time, challenge yourself to be better.

Innovate Relentlessly

Innovate relentlessly. Have a pulse on current trends while seeing into the future. Fitness and lifestyle brands set the trends they don't follow them. Adopt a culture of there is no box. The iconic brands pursue purpose and excellence continuously. 

Innovation never stops. The best CEOs and creators know that technology, methods, and preferences may change. The impact and influence of Phil Knight continues on Nike. The same goes for Steve Jobs and Apple.

They are both founders who dreamed big and fought for their dreams. They understood the importance of taking risks. Visionaries see things well before anyone else does. Are you taking risks regularly and innovating?

Are you thinking differently from everyone else in your industry? Do you challenge the status quo? You weren't born to fit in. You are born to stand out. Share that in your story and business when you sell to millennials.

Multiple Touch Points

Screen time is on the rise with the younger generations, as staggering 20% of 14- to 17-year-olds spend more than 7 hours a day on devices. Holding their attention with advanced ad campaigns is part of every brands strategy today, from Instagram Stories, Facebook Feed ads, Google Adwords, or Snapchat ads making it incredibly easy to keep them engaged. Research show that you can be exposed to as many as 5,000 marketing messages or ads daily.

 

Fitness Brands are Selling to Millennials

Fitness and lifestyle brands are selling to millennials using innovation, experiences, and community. The best brands know involving millennials in the mission, message and development pay off.

90% of millennials will share about brands they love without being paid. The best brands understand this at every level. They understand creating a culture and a community of raving fans leads to massive profits.

These fitness and lifestyle brand strategies work no matter what industry you are in. These principles of mission, vision, and community are timeless.

To improve selling to millennials, assess where your business is today. Choose 1-3 strategies to apply in the next 90 days or less. Make sure you track your results.

Millennials changed the game in selling. Brands can't simply think about selling to millennials like they did in the past. The experience and the community are what matter most.

What action will you take next to improve your marketing and your business?

Learn more about top fitness trends here.