On Sunday I drew the winners of the Halloween photo contest on Facebook Live. The past few weeks I had invited instructors to send their photos of their Halloween classes, either of them teaching in costume, or a group hoto of their class, or their decorated studios. Everyone who submitted photos would be entered into a drawing for a free 3-month membership at ICA.
I did my video on Sunday on my Stages bike at home, which is set up in an atrium off the living room, surrounded by windows and plants. It makes for a very interesting backdrop!
Before I picked the winners, I discussed my purpose for holding this Halloween photo contest. It’s because I wanted to encourage building community in your classes and studio so you can attract more riders and keep them coming back and spreading the word. One of the ways to do this is through theme or special event rides. Theme rides are a fantastic way to have more fun and bring your riders together. Halloween is especially fun because of the element of dressing up and decorating the studio with spider webs, haunted houses, skeletons, zombies and the like. Everyone (I hope!) loves Halloween, even if they don’t dress up.
Tour de France, or other stage race simulations, are another phenomenal way to create excitement in your classes. And don’t think you only have to do it during the actual race in July…you can do a Tour de France program any time of the year! I think January is a great time to do a series of Tour de France profiles to take advantage of the newcomers to your classes.
Halloween is a very special kind of event because it takes more planning and promotion, but not all theme rides or special events have to be a big deal every time you do them. You can put together fun rides that honors one of your riders, such as someone who is graduating, or their daughter is getting married, or they got a job promotion. It doesn’t even have to be an entire class, but perhaps only a few songs you picked just for them. Most people LOVE this kind of attention, especially if it’s already an intimate group with which they are comfortable.
Theme rides and special events are one way to build community in your classes. In my Facebook Live video, which I hope you’ll watch below, I give a few more ideas. Then, at the end of the short video, I draw the names of the winners of the free memberships. [You can hear my cat Galibier who was very vocal halfway through. He’s not usually like that—he must have known I was doing a video!]
First, here are our winners of the Halloween Photo Drawing:
3-month membership: Gail Johnson
1-month membership: Karen Beauchamp
1-month membership: Anne Thijs-Browne
In the video, I discuss additional ways to create community in your classes in order to build a tribe, one where your riders want to come back again and again, include the following:
- remember and use your riders names
- Get to know your riders, not only their fitness goals but what’s going on in their lives
- Get better at social media so you can reach your audience
- #1 way to increase numbers is to create safe and effective profiles with motivating coaching
ICA can help you do all of those things if your desire is to increase the numbers in your classes and keep people coming back and telling their friends about your amazing and motivating cycling classes!
Every single instructor can claim a 2-week free trial to see what ICA is all about.
Want to see the fun photos that were sent to us? You’ll get some great ideas for some costumes and studio decorations for next year. Click here to view all of the entries in our Halloween photo contest.
Interested in bringing the fun, intensity, and drama of the Tour de France to your classes? Check out our Tour de France package by clicking here.