Breaking into a new market isn’t easy. Add in the factor that the new market is thousands of miles away from HQ, and it’s even trickier. Enter: Australian wellness brand Your Reformer, which is coming off its first year in the U.S. The launch has been full of learnings and successes that founder Emma Stallworthy and her team are both celebrating and analyzing to boost the business.
Your Reformer’s mission is to make reformer Pilates more accessible at studios, gyms and homes through its reformer machines, available for purchase and rent; exercise equipment; and a fitness app. From the start, experiential has been a key part of the brand’s U.S. rollout strategy.
On World Pilates Day in May, Your Reformer drew lines around the block in New York City with a 24-hour, nonstop reformer Pilates stunt that offered free classes on the hour, every hour. The brand then provided two more days of free fitness classes, swag drops, exclusive discounts and an opportunity to shop its luxury Pilates line. Last month, Your Reformer popped up in Dallas and L.A., and over two weeks hosted more than 80 free classes and a series of invite-only activations for influencers and media.
“We had a really strong three years in Australia with great feedback and traction, but Australia is a small market, and the team was ready for a challenge and more opportunities. We knew that reformer Pilates was trending upward in the States, and we wanted to do it in a big way—go all in,” Stallworthy says. “The U.S. is a large country, and every state’s different, so coming and talking to the locals and getting them to trust in the quality of the product by actually trying it and seeing our style of teaching, we’ve found to be really positive in terms of getting the aha moment.”
Localizing Events
While pilot programs at studios and gyms have helped build brand awareness, Your Reformer is leaning into experiential to bring its reformer Pilates products and classes into new cities. Southern California made the most sense for its U.S. base because of its “similar lifestyle to Australia—on the coast, good weather and a wellness focus”—and because “it’s only one flight for us to get there, visit the team, be on the ground and support the growth of the business,” Stallworthy says. Due to a lot of interest and sales from New York, the city became the site of Your Reformer’s next showroom and a distribution hub on the East Coast.
“Dallas is really up-and-coming in terms of wellness and adoption of Pilates, and it’s more what we’re used to compared to Australia, in terms of people traveling into the hub to come and visit us, whereas in L.A. and New York, you’re really only talking to a select group of people around that area. The exposure and traction were greater in Dallas,” she says. “What we’ve learned from these experiential pop-ups is looking a bit more at the outer suburbs and being more strategic with the locations that we do this next.”
Stallworthy says the first events in NYC gained the brand a lot of fans, and the team came away with learnings to improve future pop-ups, like providing headphones rather than having attendees bring their own to create a more seamless experience, and tweaking the space’s layout to provide a locker area for storing participants’ personal items. Turning to local stylists has allowed the brand to tailor its pop-up venues to fit the city’s aesthetics, such as an elevated studio look in L.A. versus a floral theme in Dallas.
“You have to start with being true to what your product and the offering is, the essence of that, and your branding. And then allow for the flexibility around, how do we localize this?” Stallworthy says.
Collabing with Brands and Influencers
Ahead of the NYC pop-up classes, Your Reformer partnered with Australian café and coffee shop brand Bluestone Lane to serve up free beverages wrapped in sleeves that included a QR code linking to the events’ sign-up page and a trial offer. For the Dallas and L.A. events, the brand brought in several partners for attendees to engage with, including Dear Media, ILIA Beauty and Revolve’s WellBeing + BeingWell fashion line.
“We often find that Australian brands trying to make their mark in the U.S. are very supportive of other Australian brands, but part of my focus is to really be able to find U.S. brands that have a solid base and following in the States and see how we can work together,” Stallworthy says. “From a brand collaboration perspective, it’s going to be more powerful for Your Reformer if we can find ones that have like-for-like audiences and demographics.”
In addition to digital paid ads, targeted emails and appearances on local TV news shows like “Good Morning Texas,” influencer collabs have been critical to driving registrations for Your Reformer’s activations.
“What went bonkers in New York was a couple of influencers who have a page all about what’s on in New York, and when they posted about it, we fully booked out. I just heard the bookings go, ‘ding, ding, ding,’” Stallworthy recalls.
Zeroing in on the Right Data
Measuring the success of an event can be challenging, and Stallworthy acknowledges that “you don’t get an immediate ROI on these type of events.” For Your Reformer, building brand equity and awareness are at the top of the list, and while word of mouth has proven to be valuable, its impact can be hard to quantify.
“Because we are working with a high-value product, decision-making takes time,” she says. “We really look at if we’ve captured people’s attention and interest, and you get that from qualitative conversations and the feedback on the ground with them. Also, have we captured their information, their email address? So it’s a database lead generation that you can then nurture for when they are ready to facilitate that conversation and make that purchase. We try to be as data-led as possible.”
Stay tuned to see where the data points Your Reformer to for its next pop-up.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Your Reformer
