Welcome back to Let's Talk About Brand! This week's guest, Mel Bridger, is joining us today from the UK. Mel is a personal trainer, but she has three separate fitness brands! We're going to cover all of them, but basically, she has branded a partnership, a personal brand, and a franchise. She’s the perfect guest to be speaking with us about branding something bigger than yourself.
Mel’s Three Brands
Let’s dive into each of Mel’s brands, and why she chose to make three brands instead of combining them. Each of them has a clearly defined purpose to differentiate them.
Her first brand, Cardio Central, was designed to be all about community, inspiring other women, and getting people active who wouldn't necessarily be active. The organization started as ‘Zumba Central’, but Mel later rebranded to Cardio Central as she was teaching more than one type of class.
Mel says, “Cardio Central was one of the first to launch in my area. I couldn't handle the number of students that we had coming through the door.” She expanded Cardio Central by training former students to become instructors. What a great way to initially draw from your audience to expand!
Mel realized the need for her second brand, The Mummy Trainer, after having her daughter. This brand is all about working with other moms, or people that may be intimidated by the gym. Mel’s goal for this brand is to offer a service for women that is relatable and effective.
She explains, “When I was pregnant with my daughter, I was looking for fitness activities that would help me as I got later on through my pregnancy and throughout recovery. There was nothing in my area. So I decided that I would train not only to be a personal trainer but also to specialize in pre and postnatal fitness. That's one of the things that I'm known for in the fitness industry.”
The Beatz Fitness franchise was developed out of another gap Mel saw in the market. The main difference with Beatz Fitness is that it's not for students, it's for other instructors. It’s designed for other instructors to come and train to then go out into the world and deliver the program.
Mel says, “They train with us, and we develop them not only in how to deliver the program, but we teach them about all aspects of fitness marketing and everything else to help their business grow. As they became more successful, we became more successful, so I decided to move from working for other people and be able to bring my own ideas to the forefront without having to have somebody there telling what to do.”
Every brand that Mel has developed has been designed to fulfill a need in the fitness industry. While all three brands are different, they all contribute to creating a community in the fitness industry. Mel says, “The ethos around all three is community.”
Digital Marketing in the Fitness Industry
Digital marketing and social media contributed greatly to The Mummy Trainer’s success. The brand started predominantly as a blog before the personal training aspect was added.
The Mummy Trainer started to get noticed a lot more as the brand accumulated a large following in the fitness industry. As Mel became more interested in social media and digital marketing, she learned a lot about personal branding and started to be more consistent across all platforms.
Furthermore, marketing three different brands can be tricky. How can you differentiate marketing three separate brands? Mel says, “The way that I market and grow those brands are very different. The community aspect where it's students, it's a support network. With Beatz, it's big. It's going to be exponential, we can spread it to far more people in the growth aspect. It's a completely different audience, and so I can't market both of them or treat both of them the same way.”
As far as implementing a strategy, Mel says it’s all about teamwork. “You have to have the right team around you to enable you to focus. You can't do it all on your own.”
Building a strong brand
What do all of Mel’s brands have in common? They all incorporate a strong sense of community.
We asked Mel how she built such a strong brand that has resonated with so many people. She says it’s all about authenticity. “I've always said the one thing that you have in this industry is your reputation.”
Building a strong community also requires a great team. Mel says, “I always treat my team as if we're all on the same level because we are and everybody's contribution is valuable. So it's never been Mel Bridger and the Beatz Pro Team. And when that's been said about us before, I've gone in and asked people to correct it because I see us as one. We're all valuable, and that in itself has helped the brand to grow very quickly.”
Find Mel
Mel can be found as The Mummy Trainer on every platform. Of the three brands, that’s the one that ties it all together.
Thank you so much to Mel Bridger for speaking with us today and to everyone that watched! You can catch the next episode of Let’s Talk About Brand on Facebook every Friday at 12 noon Eastern. See you next week!