FOCUS: Stand Out From the Competition by Carving Out Your Unique Niche
Laura Williams, Co-Founder
Girls Gone Sporty
After graduating with an exercise science degree and managing fitness centers for years, Laura Williams decided to try her hand at writing online. While she found freelance success, writing for other people wasn’t always satisfying.
“I had a message about health and fitness I wanted to share in my own way and on my own terms,” explains Williams. “My husband, a former personal trainer with an undergrad degree in exercise science, was a self-taught web designer. We decided we’d work together to create the type of online education outlet we believed in. We realized how crowded the fitness industry is and that we would need a way to stand out. Since I was going to be the ‘face’ of the company, we decided to focus on an active female audience and launched Girls Gone Sporty in late 2011.”
“Since my whole goal was to help and serve other women, I decided to add an ambassador program in late 2012 to help promote and provide resources to other female fitness bloggers,” adds Williams. “The ambassador program is a cornerstone of our business plan. I can’t say enough wonderful things about the women in the program; they’re smart, sassy and always pushing to be their best selves. They keep me motivated every day.”
Determined to succeed in a highly competitive and continually evolving industry, Girls Gone Sporty has fully embraced innovation and change. “What started as a news-focused website has morphed into a more personal, educational website with specialized fitness programs,” says Williams. “We’ve turned our focus to video-based content, offering free live online workouts and even original cooking show content [to address nutritional needs] each week. We pair this with paid online personal training and fully customized personal online streaming workout videos. Later this month we will roll out our first complete online boot camp!”
“Offering a free live workout every Sunday has been a big success. People can choose to tune in and do the workout with me, or access it after the fact on our YouTube channel. We are also committed to delivering only high-quality workouts. We invested in professional audio and three separate cameras to capture various angles. Even though we’ve only been doing these workouts for a little while, the feedback has been very positive and our YouTube subscribers have blossomed,” beams Williams.
By going online, Williams has expanded her market far beyond the local reach typical for traditional personal trainers. Customers appreciate the convenience of the format and the ability to sample before buying. By catering exclusively to a clearly defined audience of highly athletic women—think more P90X, less Curves—Girls Gone Sporty has been able to establish a lucrative niche for itself.
[Tweet “Have you considered going online to expand the size of a traditionally local-only market?”]Williams offers the following advice to others looking to compete in a crowded industry: “It’s not always about being different. In the fitness industry I see more and more trainers creating programs around crazy exercises or wild equipment, when it’s really about knowing and defining your customer and delivering what they want. It’s about [building true relationships by] presenting who and what you are in a way that’s relatable, personal and meaningful.”