← Pilates Business Podcast
Pilates Business Podcast
Inside the Marketing Playbook Fueling 40+ Top Fitness Studios with Zach Mills from ONBRND
00:33:47
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- [00:00]
Sarah Glanfield
What if you could generate more leads, convert them faster, and build a marketing machine that actually runs without you while you're teaching, leading, or finally taking a day off? Today on the show, I'm joined by someone who has done exactly that, not just once, but across dozens of studios and globally. Zach Mills has helped scale Ybel Fitness to an international acquisition. He ran marketing for Exponential Fitness and now runs On Brand, a boutique marketing agency that is quietly powering over 40 fitness studios behind the scenes. So if you've always wanted to know what happens behind the marketing scenes at some of the most recognized studios, this is the episode for you. Well, hi there. I'm Sarah Glanfield. I'm a business and marketing strategist just for boutique fitness studio owners like you. If you're ready to be inspired and make a bigger impact, you're in the right place. All you need are a few key strategies, the right mindset, and some support along the way. Join me as I share the real life insights that will help you grow a sustainable and profitable studio. This is the Pilates Business Podcast. Well, hey there and welcome back to the Pilates Business Podcast. I'm Saran Glanfield. I am a of business coach. I'm a systems geek and your biggest cheerleader when it comes to helping you build a thriving studio business without burning out. And as you know, I like to cut through all of the noise and nonsense and talk real strategy for studio owners who truly want to grow and scale their businesses not just for tomorrow, but perhaps for years to come. Now, if you ever felt like your marketing isn't working for you, it's quite common that I hear that maybe you're posting, emailing, boosting some posts here and there, but you're not quite getting the new clients through the door that you wish you were. You are not alone. This is one of the biggest frustrations that I hear studio owners share every single week. And the truth is, it's not always about doing more. Sometimes it's about being smarter about what you are doing. And so that's why I'm really excited today to welcome on today's show guest someone who's not only cracked the code on fitness marketing for their own business, but who's done it in the real world at scale and is now helping studio owners just like you to do the same. Zach is, I'm going to say it, marketing powerhouse. He has built his own brand, he sold it, and he's worked for one of the biggest names in the industry where he led marketing for two of their top brands and has gotten to see front row, front row seat to what is working and what doesn't right now when it comes to launching a studio and growing a boutique fitness studio business. So I'm so thrilled to welcome you here. Zach, thank you so much for joining us.
- [03:08]
Zach Mills
No, I appreciate the invite. I'm stoked to be here. Sran.
- [03:11]
Sarah Glanfield
So you have been in the industry for quite a while, and over the time you've been in this industry, your role has switched from being a studio owner to be a brand developer to working for Exponential. So tell us a little bit about, take us back a little bit. Tell us a little bit about how you got started and perhaps some of the pivotal moments on your, in your career that kind of gotten you to where you are today.
- [03:40]
Zach Mills
Totally. No, I mean, I think that's a great place to start. It's, it's a little all over the place. Right. In terms of where the, the career actually started. It was more so on the agency side, working in sports marketing for, for a couple of years, moved over to a smaller boutique agency. And that's actually when I got recruited to go to a small little company called Wide Bell Fitness. For anybody who's out there who's sort of just like a die hard functional fitness fan, you know, there was those little triangular weights that were a dumbbell, kettlebell type of hybrid. Right. So if you've taken any F45 class during the majority of their programming. So I had the, the pleasure and the opportunity to really build that brand from the ground up. And as Siron spoke to a little bit earlier, was with them essentially all the way through acquisition through trx, who is actually now we're working with on the agency side, funny enough. And that's through the world coming full circle. But after Wide Bell Fitness and you know, we saw sort of the writing on the wall in terms of the acquisition, I got recruited by Exponential Fitness. From there I was, I was brought on to run marketing for two of their brands, Yoga 6 and AKT. And it wasn't until I actually got to Expo they're like, hey, Y6 is actually crushing it. You should really just focus on this little, you know, redheaded stepchild that we have called hey kt. Which for those of you who aren't familiar, is a dance inspired fitness type of booty concept. Right. It started in Nomad in the heart of New York City as a single standalone. And the Exponential team thought that they could essentially replicate it at scale across various different markets. So it was a very niche Product for sure. We did what we had to in terms of sort of repositioning and redefining the brand and working alongside the education team and providing the best in studio experience. And it was very much roll your sleeves up, down and dig into the studio. Right. I think my first, my first year at Expo I spent, I want to say four out of the five business days in one of our corporate owned studios in the Southern California area. So it was really just a crash course in terms of hey, how the hell does this stuff work? Right?
- [05:36]
Sarah Glanfield
Yeah.
- [05:37]
Zach Mills
And so it's, it's, it's funny, it was a little bit of a, of a humbling experience going from you know like director, quote unquote of marketing to hey man, you're making phone calls, you're passing out flyers, you're attending grassroots events, all of that. Right. But it was really kind of trial by fire and the best way to learn is by doing so did that for a couple of years and was able to really understand the Expo playbook kind of in and out and really saw some points of optimization that I felt could be applied at a little bit larger of a scale and a little bit more of a strategic of a scale because it's not a one size fits all. As we all know, markets change, modalities change, experiences change instructors, demographics, you know, really everything. So I really just saw an opportunity and started consulting, you know, relatively small time and over the course of, let's call it nine to ten months or so, my consulting business had really kind of grown to outpace what I was really doing at Expo and thought, you know what this is, there's definitely an opportunity here just based on the initial conversations and connections that I've made. So decided to leave exponential full time and go all in on, on brand and you know, since that time, call it two, two and a half years later, where as Sharon said, we're working with 40 plus studios, really specializing in the Pilates and yoga space. We've got a team of 11 people. We just had a new hire, new account manager start as of June 1st, which is awesome. She's a total rock star. And yeah, I mean that's kind of what brought us here. We do everything, you know, specific to boutique and really just dig into the details. We know there's a lot of agencies out there, but not a lot of them have sort of been in the trenches. Right. Really understand the pain points of studio operations and where there is room to really optimize and grow. So that's what we've brought to the table and stoked to share the story with you guys.
- [07:26]
Sarah Glanfield
Yeah, absolutely. And it is. What a story. What a story. So tell us a little bit about what the work that you've been doing more recently on, specifically on, I'd say lead generation. I think when we talk about lead generation, especially in the digital world that we are all in, what do you find that. What are some of the mistakes that you see or misconceptions? What are, what do people get most wrong about lead generation? What are you seeing?
- [07:57]
Zach Mills
A good question. I think it really comes down to what your primary KPI is or what your main goal is. I think the vast majority of not only studio owners, but primarily digital agencies, they focus on lead volume and cpl or cost per lead. So typically that is essentially the threshold or their grading system in terms of how well they are at their job. What they are, are not doing is how many leads they pump for your system and at what efficiency. Right. I think the primary difference with, with on brand and what studio owners should really kind of take into pass is not just how many leads but the actual quality of leads and how many convert at the end of the day. Right. And a lot of that comes upstream in the sense of what is your initial offer that you're putting out to the marketplace via these ads, Whether it's meta, whether it's Google. We've worked a little bit on TikTok, don't necessarily recommend it, but those are really the two primary platforms and it always comes down to the same thing. High ticket offers convert anywhere between three to five times higher. Leads come in a little bit slower, they come in a little bit more expensive. But the ROI on it proves the model time and time again. And that's really where we started to double down.
- [09:06]
Sarah Glanfield
Oh, that's really interesting. Okay. Any reason why you think that might be? I have some, I have some good guesses, but curious to hear your thoughts.
- [09:13]
Zach Mills
No, 100%. I mean, again, a lot of people love the first class free or, you know, the, the low ticket offers of seven days for seven bucks, you know, one week for, you know, for 10, 10 days for $10 or whatever it may be. At the end of the day, people just don't have skin in the game. Right. The customers don't. Um, what is, what is a first class free? Cool. I'll give you my information and there's really no, no sweat off of my back whether I take it, take you up on it or not. Right. Um, and so that's really where, you know, you turn Your, your paid media machine and just target people who are just, you know, kind of clickbait to a degree. Right. They just, they see an ad. Cool. Yeah. Right, Got it. And then when your sales process is implemented, your front desk team is doing what they're supposed to do and following up these leads, I would imagine. Nine times out of ten I'm like, who the hell are you guys? How'd you get my information? Right. When it comes to that more high ticket intro offer, anywhere between ideally we don't do anything below $60. Usually that 60 to 100, 100, $110 range or so is where we like to play around really, given the demographic in the market that we're marketing in. There's just an ad, there's just an added layer of credibility there. Right. People essentially know what they're signing up for because $60, $100 to people is quite a bit. Right. We all know that boutique is on the more expensive end of available fitness and wellness options. So we, we want to make that transition a little bit easier for them. Right. On the sales side of things. So people aren't coming in for a first class free and then they're hit with a, oh my gosh, it's $300 a month to do unlimited Pilates, like how the hell does that work type of thing? So it's a multifaceted type of approach that we take and that's sort of the rationale that we've seen from the marketplace.
- [10:46]
Sarah Glanfield
Yeah, it makes so much sense. You know, the quality, the quality of the lead is important and having that, that higher or that I should say, maybe it's not even, it's, it's the relative value of versus the next cell to be in more, more aligned. Right. And so then you're to some degree of pre qualifying that client and so you're not wasting time, they're not taking your space in class and you know, wasting time trying to convert someone who is never going to convert, which no one's got time for. Right. That's so good. Okay. So, so interesting. So that, so definitely we don't like first actually it's so funny because this week I actually had twice I've told two separate studios, please can we take away the very, very low single drop in class price as your intro offer. And please, please, please can we take away the free one too, please?
- [11:36]
Zach Mills
If you take anything away from this, please just go, please.
- [11:39]
Sarah Glanfield
No, no, no. Yeah. So that first step is really, it's really, it's important to get that. Right. And then what happens next? What other parts? Because I think, I think especially digital advertising, it a lot of, a lot of folks think it is sort of just this sort of like magic wand you wave and you just need to throw an ad up. And as long as you know how to put an ad together and put an ad up, life is good and everything will be marvelous.
- [12:09]
Zach Mills
What.
- [12:09]
Sarah Glanfield
But I think that's not always the case. So tell us about what happens next. After you have kind of have your intro offer aligned, your trial offer is in the right price point, what happens next?
- [12:22]
Zach Mills
No, great question. I think that's spot on. Right. And as good as these platforms are in terms of AI and just their machine learning, doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of optimization, targeting, creative feedback, copy, things like that, you still have to have a finger on the pulse, right? Just sort of understanding and dictating and mitigating really what is working versus what is not. Are we a year or two away from it being essentially completely autonomous? Probably to a degree, but that's a little bit more of the grander scale. This hyper localized lead generation tactics that we dive into takes a little bit more of a manual effort to really kind of dig into. So in terms of what happens after we've established the intro offer and we have opportunity there, it's obviously digging into the creative using those kind of best practices. And really UGC is what we see converts the best across the board. For those of you that don't know, UGC is user generated content. So it's really anything that you can just snap with your iPhone within the studio itself, right. And just kind of pinging through and just showcasing what the community is about, what your studio is all about, and really just sort of encapsulating that in a quick 10 to 15 second video. Right. So we have the creative piece and then where we take a step further on the on brand side is actually a post click experience. A post click experience. What I mean is once someone clicks on the ad, particularly when it comes to Google, we dig in and we devote, we develop a couple of different landing pages for each campaign and each intro offer that we're running on a monthly basis. So what that does is again it just provides an added layer of credibility to where people are able to land on this page. They take the time to consume the information, really understand what your studio and your brand is all about, and then if they're completely convinced they'll submit that lead form and then they're essentially into your system again. All Reiterating what it is that that primary intro offer is. So it's just an added layer to get them into your system. So that's essentially steps 2 and 2A, I guess you could say, in terms of once the intro offer is established.
- [14:22]
Sarah Glanfield
Right, right. You know, and I think it, you know, it's, it's interesting that we have, you know, you mentioned that you have specific landing pages. Right, right. We're not just sending people to a homepage. Right. We're not just sending people to a. Your website. It is to a specific page which is been designed specifically for that audience who is, you know, if they're coming from a Google, they're looking for you, someone like you. If they're coming from, you know, meta, Facebook, Instagram, then they're looking, then they're interested in something that you may have shared. Right. And so you're, and so you are, you're, you're, you're giving them some information based on knowing what you know about them, which is that they may, they may or may not be completely convinced that you are the one. Right. And so it's, you know, you're, you're, you're not just sort of throwing them into your homepage, which may or may not be optimized for that audience. Right.
- [15:17]
Zach Mills
That's 100% spot on. I mean, at the end of the day, we live in a very, very competitive space. Right. Or we work in a very, very competitive space. Speaking from Southern California, there are, you know, fixed Pilates studios within, let's call it a two, two and a half mile radius of where I'm at in kind of downtown Huntington Beach. So how do you make your way through the noise? It's really sort of understanding and designing and just iterating what it is that separates you from your competitors. And those are the pieces that my team really helps dive into and kind of understand and position you in a very specific light. And you know, when it comes to the landing page in particular, like you said, you can have the most incredible experience, the most seasoned instructors, the state of the art facility and reformers. But if what you're conveying online doesn't necessarily match that, you lose instant credibility with this new audience that you're looking to bring on board. Right. So the point of us designing these landing pages is to absolutely 100% showcase what it is that you offer. We bring the lead straight from the top of the funnel and then we get them through the middle and bottom again, just kind of reiterating the same sense of continuity throughout the brand.
- [16:20]
Sarah Glanfield
Yeah, yeah. Along all of that, even to that stage, you're tracking data. And so what are you looking at and what are you seeing right now?
- [16:30]
Zach Mills
No 100%. I think again, this is an area of opportunity where a lot of studio owners don't necessarily take advantage of, whether they don't know or they just assume an agency is going to do. But any campaign that we ever start running for any of our studios, we ensure that the Google Ads and the meta ads are directly integrated with their POS system. Whether it's MindBody, whether it's Walla, whether it's Mariana Tech Club Connect or Club Ready Glow Fox moments, you know, whichever one it is, some of them are easier than others in terms of integrating. Right. Like moments in particular, they're, they're fantastic with that integration Wall is kind of the same way Mariana Tech's brand bot is decent. Mindbody is a little bit of a pain in the ass to say the least. But we have a few custom tools. Our developers are very, very privy to understand what that integration looks like. Because the last thing you want is to be spending money on advertising people submitting leads and then they're just sat there, they're not going anywhere. You don't know that they're in their system, they don't know that they're engaging with you. Right. So it's definitely building that bridge. So that way we can then track exactly the second lead entered the system, how many folks actually purchased whatever Intro offer it is that they are that we're pushing and then even more importantly after that, how many that are converted to a pack for a membership. Right. So we essentially dig into that data from the inception of the lead from a CPL standpoint all the way through to CVR conversion rate. Right. And then we dig in a little bit deeper, LTV or lifetime value, to see what the conversion rate is and apply that back upstream saying, hey, Intro offer A converted at 12% last month while intro offer B converted at 8%. Okay, let's probably double down, put a little bit more money towards the 12% or option A just based on that fact. Right. And so again, we think there's just so much more opportunity and so much more data to inform our top of the funnel strategies on the paid media side to where people are actually converting at the end. So that's the way we track.
- [18:25]
Sarah Glanfield
Yeah. And you know, the data tracking component I talk about is all the time is just such so important, especially when you're spending money on advertising. Right. You know, when you're doing organic, social, like it's a nice to have and if you have time and you want to go and try and do that and follow through on all the links and all the stuff, you can totally try and. But when you're spending money, you need to make sure you're having, you're making there is a return on that investment of ad spend. And so the data component really becomes so much more critical.
- [18:56]
Zach Mills
Yeah, 100, 100%. And I'm happy to announce there's a little bit of, a little bit of a teaser, I believe I've told one or two of our clients. But for the last, let's call it 30 day, 30, 45 days or so. Our development team has been building a custom reporting dashboard that essentially has an open API that will connect to pretty much all of the major software providers of mindbody, Mt Walla, Moments and Club Ready and we'll essentially be able to track again any lead that we generate all the way through each individual system and you'll have your own very visual friendly customer client dashboard to see again, hey, what leads are converting, at what rate. And so that will essentially help dictate and just provide a level of transparency, be up for our clients. And so that way keeps us honest. They're 100% in the know in terms of what's working and what's not. We're probably another 30 days or so from, from launching that, that MVP product. So we're excited about that.
- [19:47]
Sarah Glanfield
That's awesome. I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it. The more data the better is what I say.
- [19:51]
Zach Mills
Exactly, exactly.
- [19:53]
Sarah Glanfield
Yeah. Now you also, you know when, when you, you take a very sort of holistic approach to the way that you run ads and work with your clients because as you mentioned, you care tremendously about not just getting clicks and leads, it's also about the conversions and the lifetime value as well in that you are also very familiar with the various different software that studio owners are using and the systems that we can set up behind the scenes to help improve retention and conversions. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, when you work with studio owners, what the process looks like to make all that happen and how generally, you know, how are you seeing? Are those automations that are already set up? Are those what you're doing or is it sort of case by case?
- [20:43]
Zach Mills
No, great question. And again, the answer is probably options fee. It's case by case. There are, there are certain studio owners that we, we meet with, we end up working with that essentially have nothing built, right. And it's, it's shocking to see how successful their business has been over a course of five, 10 clients who have been, you know, at studios for 15, 20 years or so that really didn't have just that basis of, of digital infrastructure, right, to where we're essentially building it from the ground up. And then there are others that are a little bit more privy to the actual capabilities of the softwares that they work with within moments, within, within mt, within Loyal Snap, et cetera, you know, and have some, some pretty standard, you know, automations in play at least to an elementary degree to get, get to check the box, I guess if you could say so for us typically it's kind of a combination, it's a case by case basis to see, hey, what exactly is needed, right. We have our kind of tried and true method in terms of our rather robust automation strategy across email and sms. You know, breaking it into eight different types of stages of the actual lead funnel. Whether they haven't purchased an intro offer, have they purchased but not book, have they booked but not showed, have they expired, are they cooled off, are they a win back, whatever it may be. Right. So we have that rather robust strategy and instead of just saying for someone who has automation set up, we dig in and be like yep, nope, that's wrong, you got to go with this one. We take a look actually at the data in terms of overall delivery, open rates, click rates, conversion rates, et cetera to see. Oh wow, this is actually a, this is, this is a great automation, this is a great tactic. It's a great little sequence that you've been, you've been deploying over the last six or so months. We're going to leave this as is, maybe tweak some things, you know, here and there in terms of messaging or the way the email graphic or the SMS message is actually configured to just optimize and then essentially iterate from there. Right. But I think in terms of the overarching process we have, you know, we manage everything within our project management tool called, called Notion. We just have an onboarding checklist once we get access to all the systems. You know, really the, the main area where we start is on the automation side because that's where we think is going to make the most immediate impact. Because without that a middle of funnel where you're actually consistently touching leads, you know, what we're doing at the top of the funnel on the paid media side really isn't going to bring any value. So before you start spending money on ads, you want to make sure that the infrastructure is really set in place and set in stone to convert any new people that we're bringing into your system at that top of the funnel. So that's really where we start and we essentially move out from there.
- [23:01]
Sarah Glanfield
Yes, yes, yes. All of that. Just repeat that. Does everyone rewind? Listen to that again. It's so important. Yeah, it's, you know, I think it's. And to anyone who's considering spending money on ads, you have to have the funnel fully, completely set up. And so, so many studio owners have so much, so much at their fingertips. It's a gold mine. Right at their fingertips that are not, is not optimized fully. And I think that, you know, before you start spending money on ads, that that's the part that is really going to help support business. Because growth in scale in boutique fitness is, is about retention. Right. And if you're getting leads walking in the door, but you're losing them as soon as they, you know, walk in, then you know your business is not, is not going to grow. Revenue is not going to grow. So retention is what it's all about. And retention is about all of those touch points down the road.
- [23:56]
Zach Mills
100%.
- [23:57]
Sarah Glanfield
Yeah. So tell us a little bit about some of the projects that you have been working on recently. I know you've worked with a lot of studios who are in their sort of opening and launch phase and I know that you've had many polarity studios in that phase and I'd love to, for you to talk through a little bit about what that looks like and timelines of how you have worked with studios in that, in that phase of growth.
- [24:22]
Zach Mills
Absolutely. Yeah. So I mean it's, it's fun, right? Our, I guess what you could say it was our first studio clients in Natural Pilates founders Laura Wilson out here in Southern California. You know, they started with four locations when we had them three years ago. Right. And to this point, we're, we're set on opening the seventh location next month in Manhattan Beach. And funny enough, I was on with Laura last night and she was talking about, she's flying to Miami this morning to go discuss two leases in South Miami and then two additional ones up in New York. So really just exponential growth in terms of what, what has kind of trigger pointed, you know, since that time. But a lot of it sort of really just comes down to, hey, she feels as if she has the fundamentals of her business locked in. Right. She has her go to marketing team, she has her sales process, she has her operations manage everything like that. So now it's time to kind of crank up the heat and run with it. Right. So we have that essential, you know, client where we're running pretty much all the day to day of all the existing and sustained studios while we currently have one in pre sale set to open in the month of July. So next month, meanwhile we did another presale back in January for Studio New York City that opened up. Right. So while we're still maintaining that sustained studio on the go to, we have our go to pre sale strategies, right, that were typically deployed anywhere between 8 to 12 week time span. We feel like that's really where you kind of have the sprint to dig in and really make an impact within, within the community without promising, hey, we're opening our doors this day and just continuing to kind of kick the can down the road. Right. So in terms of sustain versus pre sale we, we really understand it all, you know, the pre sale studio itself and Laura, forgive me if I'm, I'm just going to give round numbers but the, the New York studio opened up on January 4, closed January 31 and they brought in just shy of 100k in revenue month one. So again, very eye opening type of experience in terms of what we're able to, what we're able to do when you have the necessary systems in place, you have a little bit of budget to spend on ads and really kind of make an impact. But that's kind of where, where we're currently at, right. On the national Pilates side. And then we have a handful of studios that are just standalones, right, where again they just needed. They know what they don't know, I guess you could say, right. And they are more than happy to be like, hey, we've seen your cv, we've heard you from X, Y and Z. You know, how can you kind of help us out, right? And so we've got a sustained studio right now technically in soft open. Grand Open is about to happen next week, funny enough, and then pretty much everything in between. We just signed for Zeke 57 up in New York City. That's been around obviously for quite some time. Yeah, exactly. We're, we're take, we're taking a look inside their systems and really just looking to, you know, of dust the cobwebs off if you will and see where there's area of optimization again starting within their POS system which is moments, which is a pretty, pretty nifty. And today's digital age, I guess you could say, right. In terms of the capability. So just taking a look and seeing, hey, where, where can we optimize and, and how do we build this funnel to where it is just recurring and there's an opportunity for it to, to essentially automate right, over the coming months.
- [27:16]
Sarah Glanfield
Yeah, absolutely. So lots of growth, lots of opportunity in the industry. Obviously we touched on it very, very slightly earlier. We talked about AI, but we're seeing huge changes and forward leaps in digital marketing in general as well. So what would you say as we sort of wrap up this conversation? What do you think studio owners should be really paying attention to as we sort of look ahead to the next 12 to 24 months? When it comes to marketing online, are.
- [27:47]
Zach Mills
You talking AI specifically or just digital marketing as a whole?
- [27:50]
Sarah Glanfield
Well, should we talk about it all? How long have you got?
- [27:55]
Zach Mills
T shirt? T shirt.
- [27:58]
Sarah Glanfield
But yeah, no, what would you, I mean the both combined and, and separate. What would you, what are you seeing and what are you expecting?
- [28:05]
Zach Mills
Totally. I mean, when it comes to, when it comes to AI in particular, I think there are so many areas of opportunity that just individual studio owners can, can leverage. Right. Chat GPT is again sort of the standard in this, but when it comes to crafting emails, crafting social copy, creative direction, visual direction, everything like that, really lean on that and sort of develop your prompts to save yourself 5 to 10 hours a month just ideating around potential content ideas for organic social. Right. Take that one step further on, you know, the, the email and the SMS side of things. Right. Again, you have this, this list of contacts within your database that have all been familiar with your brand. So craft email and SMS campaigns using ChatGPT, right. Just based on specific promotions, specific people or audiences that you want to target, et cetera, to essentially build that. Right. And that's just kind of specific to ChatGPT. When it comes to industry agnostic type of technologies, the industry as we know from a digital perspective is usually a few years behind that of its, its of its counterparts. Right. So what we're actively doing on the on brand side is, is really searching for ways to further solidify our tactics across middle of funnel and bottom of funnel. Right? Top of funnel is really just going to be meta Google your paid ads for the most part. Right. And obviously grassroots and organic to, to complement those. But middle of funnel, bottom of funnel, how can we get much more personalized with the overall nurturing and closing of leads, right. That can essentially be automated. So there's a handful of different softwares that we're currently in beta and just trialing. Right. In terms of call Rails voice agent, AI voice agent, in terms of plugging directly into our CRM system and following up with leads, again, just all. It's just an AI voice agent essentially just designed to vet different leads and lead them to purchase an intro offer. You can definitely tell it's an AI voice agent on the other side. Right. Same thing with SimpleTalk AI. Those are the two ones that we've found to be the most advanced at this point. But there's still another year ish or so away from really kind of cracking where there's, there's opportunity there. But on the texting side, you know, manychat AI is definitely an opportunity again to just continue to nurture leads. So you're not necessarily stuck as a keyboard warrior following up with, you know, with questions, FAQs, customer service pieces like that. But at this point in time, I think really it's just leveraging the, the free versions of chat, GPT and even Canva from a design perspective to just get your brand intact and to really just mitigate a lot of that admin esque type of work. Right. In terms of ideation, copywriting, just the mundane tasks that aren't necessarily difficult, they're just time consuming. Right. So I think that's the immediate area for people to take advantage of it. 12, 24 months down the line, it's really going to be those AI tools that are implemented at the middle and the bottom of the funnel to not necessarily, not necessarily remove your front desk, but have front desk be front desk. Right. As opposed to sales ops or sales reps.
- [31:08]
Sarah Glanfield
Right. It will make your front desk just way more efficient.
- [31:12]
Zach Mills
100%.
- [31:13]
Sarah Glanfield
Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting you say, I think I, you know, I'm finding the same thing that there are a lot of tools coming but I not sure I would recommend many of them yet, but they are of sort of evolution is. Is quick. It is not, it's not years and years away, it's. It's months, you know, and so 100%. Yeah, for sure. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much Zach for sharing such great insight. I'd love for you to let people know where they can learn more about you on brand and what you do and how to get in touch.
- [31:48]
Zach Mills
Yeah, absolutely. So On Brand is just on brandmarketing.com is our website. You guys will get to understand essentially everything that we do and everything I just blabbed about for the last 30 minutes with Saran. Instagram is at on Brand, underscore, LinkedIn again is at on brand underscore. So you guys have any questions, comments or concerns, just shoot us a message directly via via one of those platforms and you know we'd be happy to have a chat. But excited excited to be in this industry, excited to kind of keep pushing forward and honestly the likes of rubbing shoulders with the Surron is is is incredible company to be in. So we're excited to be here.
- [32:21]
Sarah Glanfield
Thank you so much Zach. I appreciate it. If you've been feeling a little overwhelmed by your marketing, I hope this gave you a bit of a sigh of relief and a little bit of spark of inspiration as well. Marketing does not have to be complicated, it just has to be a little bit perhaps strategic and also aligned in the way that your studio works. So if you want to learn more about Zach, I'm going to share everything in this show that notes so you can click over there and find your way. And if this episode sparked an idea or perhaps helped shift your thinking a little bit, do me a quick favor. Share it with a studio friend who could use a little marketing clarity as well. And if you haven't already, please hit that follow button so you never miss another episode. Did you know? Love this episode and want more. Head to spring3.com and check out my free resources that will help you run a profitable and fulfilling studio business. And before you go, one last reminder. There is no one way to do what you do, only your way. So whatever it is that you want to do, create or offer, you've got this. Thanks again for joining me today and having have a wonderful rest of your day.