Peloton's secret sauce
Peloton is using its instructors to keep its members hooked. Let's deep-dive into the strategy.
Let’s look at how important instructors are to Peloton and how it uses them to keep members loyal.
Peloton members love the instructors
It’s something you hear about time and time again on Peloton members forums and social media: “I love X instructor”. Peloton has invested in a wide range of instructors to suit the majority of tastes and preferences. Instructors are Peloton’s secret sauce versus traditional gyms. Peloton has made significant investments in its instructors and it’s a real highlight with its members. But why do members love them so much?
Variety of instructors
Peloton has 13 male and 23 female instructors. It offers a depth of instructors that no other platform can rival. By comparison, Apple launched its Fitness+ application with just 20 instructors but none can rival the social media following of Peloton.
This might reflect Peloton’s membership; where it has has more women than men and caters for its predominantly female membership. But how are the instructors performing outside of the Peloton platform?
Instagram heavyweights
Peloton’s instructors have a combined 7.2 million Instagram followers and the numbers are growing rapidly. In the past 39 days Peloton instructors overall Instagram following has increased by 8.4% from 6.7 million followers on 3rd March 2021. Average following has increased 8.9% to 201,000 followers per instructor. By comparison over the same period, Apple Fitness+ instructors grew total followers by just 4.8%. This is yet another sign of Peloton’s continued and rapid growth and shows the success of the Peloton instructors.
Table below shows Peloton versus Apple Instagram followers and increase:
Peloton’s top five followers has seen some significant increases in the past 39 days, from 3rd March to 11th April 2021.
Robin Arzon’s followers haven’t increased at the same rate and is below average for the period but perhaps that’s due to her having a lower class count compared to her follow instructors. Let’s examine the number of classes per instructor, thanks to data from Bob Treemore.
Class count per instructor
Similar to the number of instructors and aligned to my early survey of Peloton, membership favours women than men. The number of classes by males and female reflects its membership demographics.
How does Peloton maximise appeal?
Peloton instructors have a huge reach on Instagram providing an additional marketing channel that drives significant brand and product awareness. It also drives stickiness with its customers by creating a direct link between members and instructors outside of the Peloton platform.
It seems Peloton is carefully managing the content its instructors upload to Instagram. Photos are always studio quality and carefully posed, with some more candid shots mixed in. There’s definitely a style guide that Peloton instructors seem to follow showing just how seriously Peloton takes Instagram.
How does Peloton retain its instructors?
Given just how important Peloton instructors are, it’s no surprise they’ve been offered long term incentives to keep them loyal. Instructors have been provided with employee share options. Given Peloton’s share price growth in recent years this has led to some wealthy instructors with some commenting that Peloton has changed their lives. This is particularly true for some of the founding instructors who will have seen massive returns since Peloton’s IPO.
How else is Peloton capitalising?
Peloton’s line of apparel allows it to leverage its strong brand but also the extensive social media network of its instructors. Designed in collaboration with instructors Ally Love, Cody Rigsby and Robin Arzón who coincidentally have the biggest Instagram following.
The partnership with Adidas allows Peloton to widen its distribution way beyond its direct to consumer model. Equally the Adidas brand widens the consideration of the apparel it produces. Prior to the partnership, Peloton reported annual earnings from apparel of $20 million. Adidas will likely double or even triple that figure due to its increased distribution and brand alone, particularly as retail locations start to reopen across the world. It puts Peloton’s apparel up against Nike, Puma and Reebok. Adidas gains a segment of the market in a similar way to Reebok benefitted from its CrossFit partnership.
Gymshark built a global apparel brand by leveraging social media influencers. In 2019 Gymshark’s turnover was $240 million and recently its brand was valued at $1.4 billion. Peloton will hope to replicate the Gymshark influencer strategy with its instructors.
Instructors and music
In October, Peloton announced a multi-year partnership with Beyonce to create themed classes that feature Beyonce’s music. Peloton’s instructors utilise the music of Beyoncé in themed artist series classes.
As endorsements go, it doesn’t get much better than Beyonce. She has an insane market reach with 170 million followers on Instagram. Beyonce is the 9th most followed celebrity with a sponsored post costing as much as $1 million.
Peloton instructors also have created Justin Bieber rides. These combine the best instructors with some of the most popular music making instructors even more appealing to the Beyhive and Beliebers.
Summary
Peloton members love their instructors - it’s the highest rated area of the product
Instructors provide variety to suit all members
Instructors are Instagram heavyweights with a combined 7.2 million followers
Peloton has more female instructors aligned to membership demographics
Peloton uses its instructors social media presence to sell apparel
Music collaborations widen the appeal of the instructors
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