How Content Made Peloton the Fastest-Growing Company in New York. Customers buy the bike and then take group fitness classes delivered over video. Batali is all over social media. We try to have a balance between both.” Social media is the marketing channel of choice for showcasing Peloton instructors. On Instagram and Facebook, Peloton uploads one to three posts per day. The company blog, Cadence, gets new content two to four times per week. The idea is to familiarize riders with the instructors and their unique personalities while also building up excitement for the classes and offering a behind-the-scenes look at the Peloton world. Meanwhile on Instagram, where Peloton has 34,000 followers, the brand shared photos of Love including a group shot of its instructors taken after her “debut ride.” Many Peloton instructors have their own hashtags to help riders find their content (e.g. #LoveSquad). “We’re trying to be creative with new forms of media that fall somewhere between earned media and more traditional marketing,” Foley said. Every company has an opportunity to market its employees, but because of its unique business model, Peloton has to rely on that tactic more than others.
At the beginning of 2016, Peloton Cycle asked its
employees to share their New
Year’s resolutions on YouTube. Besides getting more sleep and
drinking more water, there was a common theme: They wanted to be
more ambitious.
Turns out Peloton executives had the same idea.
Last month, the at-home fitness brand took the number one spot
on the Crain’s New York Business 2016
Fast50, a list of the fastest-growing companies in New York.
With a staggering two-year growth rate of 2,829,405 percent, the
business is on track to increase its revenue by a factor of five
this year.
Founder and CEO John Foley describes Peloton as a software,
hardware, and content company. A former engineer and competitive
cyclist, Foley started Peloton in 2012 because he and his wife
couldn’t find the time to go to the gym but felt existing at-home
workouts fell short. Capitalizing on the growth of spin classes, he
paired indoor cycling with progressive technology and high-energy
rides that users could access at their convenience. Customers buy
the bike and then take group fitness classes delivered over
video.
Peloton, which now has 20 national retail stores, currently
streams 12 hours of content every day from its Chelsea cycling and
production studio. “It’s like a Netflix library, but for fitness
classes,” Foley said. Users can live-stream the subscription-based
classes or watch them on demand. Touchscreen tablets on the bikes
allow riders to monitor their performance and get immediate
feedback from instructors.
Those instructors, a group of elite athletes and cycling
experts, are at the center of the Peloton experience. They provide
motivation and support, responsibilities that come with lucrative
rewards. According to Inc. Magazine, some Peloton instructors earn
a six-figure salary for teaching between 10 and 15 classes a
week.
So it shouldn’t be a surprise that Peloton built its marketing
strategy around its indispensable employees.
“Celebrity matters so much in this world,” Foley said. “Think
about Williams-Sonoma selling a new blender from [chef] Mario
Batali. Batali is all over social media. It’s effectively a
co-branded sponsorship between two brands. The same goes for the
New England Patriots and Tom Brady. For us, the other brand is our
celebrity instructors. We try to have a balance between both.”
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