Are you a fitness brand or professional thinking about launching a new fitness app but are discouraged by your lack of coding or digital skills?
Have you heard about the “NoCode” movement before?
If not, stick around because in this post we are going to share a framework and some tools you can use to transform that idea into an actual product:
On one hand, we will share a simple workflow to design your app
On the other, how you can connect different tools to execute on your “go-to market” strategy
The idea is to let you know about a few tools and how you can specifically use them within a structured workflow for your project. Full disclosure, we are not “NoCode” experts but hopefully we can share enough knowledge to motivate you to start going down “the rabbit hole” on your own.
We will not be sharing the entire scope of “NoCode” tools (there are way too many to count...) but in case you are curious enough, here is a “map” designed by the folks at NoCodehackers with some of the most popular ones grouped by category.
Before going into the details though, we wanted to point out a few things you may want to consider before starting on your “NoCode” journey.
Be clear on who you are going to target with the app and why they need it: Who´s “paint point” are you trying to solve?
Is this something that your brand truly needs? Is it “core” to your business model? At the end of the day, time is your most precious asset and focus is the lever to get the most of it.
Patience: This is not easy stuff, but just like you started with light weights the first time you walked into a gym and progressed from there, you should approach understanding the power behind NoCode for your fitness business the same way.
Designing a fitness app with Airtable - Google Sheets - Glide
Let's assume you want to design a workout-builder app. Nothing too complicated but good enough to share with your personal training customers or even your trainers. A possible workflow and framework you could adopt would look something like this:
What tools have we included?
Airtable: This is an awesome tool to build databases which then can be used for “almost anything.” With Airtable we could create one with different exercises we wish to include in the app. Just imagine including columns with the name of the exercise, the movement pattern, a demonstration video, equipment needed, and whatever else you can think of...
Glide is a great tool to build your own fitness app in case you have no experience with coding whatsoever. It has a simple “drag and drop” interface that will get you going in very little time. Once in it, take your time to understand the basics and the capabilities it has to offer so you can determine the full potential of the app you wish to design. Again, if you are looking for something basic, Glide could be a way to go, although it certainly is not the only tool available.
To get started on Glide though, and this is part of the beauty behind it, you will need to transfer your data from Airtable into Google Sheets, as it will use it as a source for the information you wish to visualize on the app. In essence, every time you add a row or column to your Google Sheets, you will instantly have that item available on your Glide app. Easy as "1-2-3..."
Finally, you will need a “connector” (known as an automation platform) that sends the information from one app to the other without having to manually make an input into the 3 tools by yourself. In other words, that connector will let you send a single manual input from Airtable to Google Sheets and then to Glide automatically. For this, we highly recommend you check out Integromat and Zapier. These tools are powerful levers that will let you see the full potential of NoCode. For the moment, it might make more sense to choose Zapier if you are working with Glide, as both can connect directly from the platform.
Automating the marketing process for your fitness app
Once we are comfortable with the first version of our product (an MVP), the time comes to launch it into the market and get actual users to sign up! The following would be a basic recommended framework, which by no means is intended to be “the only” one. In fact, please reach out if you have suggestions that may help make it better.
User Acquisition
If you work in the sports or fitness industry, you will need powerful visuals which you can develop with Canva. It makes design simple, quick and effective.
Once you have your designs ready, you can upload them to Airtable and create a “content calendar,” where you will be able to automate content publication in your social media platforms using Zapier or Integromat.
Consideration phase
From your social media publications (assuming this is where you are generating most of your demand), perhaps you can send potential customers to a landing page (with different versions tailored to the type of content that was originally posted) and a good option here is Carrd. It is a very intuitive platform, quick, and with many design possibilities. Inside those landing pages you could embed a contact form using Typeform, which will send you leads to your email platform.
As users fill out that form, you can then start to segment those potential customers in another database in Airtable based on “purchasing intent.” In terms of goals and objectives, our recommendation is that it is better to create fewer qualified leads rather than more volume of them but of less quality.
Purchase & Retention
The job is not done when the user downloads and signs up to the app. You will need a fantastic on-boarding experience that increases the chances for long term engagement. In fact, many businesses disregard the value that a good on-boarding brings to the table; make sure it offers a quick “aha” moment and analyze if people complete it or not to validate that they understand it.
Moreover, an engaged user base could drive additional purchases within the app in the medium-long term (personal training, accessories, merchandise, you name it...).
In these phases of the funnel, you will need to set up a payment processing platform. Popular options here are Stripe or Gumroad, and the beauty of this is once a customer has completed the checkout process, you can automatically update your Airtable database (which essentially is becoming your very own CRM platform...).
Looking at the data all along the customer journey
Being able to optimize your overall purchase experience is one of the most critical things you need to do.
Google Analytics is a fantastic ally here, given that it is a free tool that will return very valuable information across the different phases of the marketing funnel we have just described.
On one hand, you will be able to optimize “top of the funnel” activities which include monitoring the performance of your paid advertising campaigns, the sources of organic traffic, the behaviors inside your digital assets, and so much more.
On the other hand, you can connect Google Analytics to Glide directly; this helps you understand different behaviors within the app of those users that sign up, create cohorts and segments which will then feed your marketing & nurturing strategies.
For example, you probably will market differently to those users that use the app 3 times a week than to those who use it once a month.
All of this with the goal in mind of being more efficient in your marketing and sales processes. The more you understand who is visiting your service, who signs up, how they behave and so on, the more you can try to tailor their experience with your brand across the different touch points and improve ROI.
NoCode: Cost effective tools at the service of your fitness app´s business strategy
We hope these frameworks, tools and examples help you understand that you do not need to be a “techie” to get your fitness or sport business idea going.
NoCode simplifies things tremendously for your business, but please be aware it is not easy to master. You will need time, patience, effort and a solid business strategy.
We cannot stress this enough; the “real” work is about creating product-market fit, a coherent strategy and a flawless go-to market framework. The tools should then become enablers of this process:
It is true that once you have arrived at a workflow you are comfortable with, the opportunities are quite interesting. After all, the scope of possibilities and the value of these tools is amazing compared to their cost as you will actually find that many of them can be initially used for free.
The best thing is that new tools, updates and features reach the market almost every day, so this is bound to get easier as time goes on, more efficient and in the end, enable you to focus more on your core business and let the technology work in favor of it (vs having your brand working for the technology).
Finally, if you are knowledgeable in NoCode tools and methodologies or you have carried out projects of your own, feel free to reach out and help us improve this article so the whole community can benefit from it.
In the meantime, we will make sure we share relevant updates within the NoCode movement which you can then apply to your sport or fitness business.
Keep safe.