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Peloton’s Path
When you hear Peloton, you think “bike.”
But the brand’s about a lot more than that these days.
Peloton started in 2012 just selling stationary bikes, but now sells multiple bikes, treadmills, rowers, a TV workout guide and an app. It’s grown a lot, with 3.03 million subscribers in February 2023 compared to 1.6 million in September 2019.
When gyms closed during the pandemic, Peloton found itself at the forefront of the growing demand for home workouts. Peloton met the moment with good branding and drastically increased its sales.
Now, Peloton has worked to stay relevant post-pandemic by focusing its sales and marketing on repeat customers.
Peloton hooks customers in for life with its hardware-plus-subscription business model. Rather than just selling a piece of workout equipment, Peloton offers a monthly subscription to go with the equipment.
But how does it keep customers renewing their monthly memberships?
Peloton Builds a Community
Peloton creates lifelong members by building a sense of community. It prioritizes personalization by giving members tailored class suggestions. It creates engaging content with instructors who have garnered thousands of followers on their personal social media accounts. It constantly pushes out new equipment models and frequent system updates and improvements.
Peloton identified the main exercise problems of the average American and provided a long-term solution. People don’t want to go to the gym, they’re intimidated exercising in front of other people, they’re short on time, and they don’t want to do the same workout every day.
Peloton encourages prospective customers to “get a taste for workouts that fit your mood, goals, music style, experience level, and schedule.”
Even with gyms open again, there were over 575 million workouts completed in 2022.
It’s been a learning process for Peloton’s marketing team, but it has created a community that continues to grow because it offers a lifelong (and recurring) solution to problems that plague practically everyone.