Thursday, September 17, 2020

Peloton continues focus on community-building to drive engagement 


Peloton has been wildly successful due to their ability to build an online community of at-home-exercisers. In the pandemic, that community has online become stronger as gyms and boutique fitness studios shuttered, and people turned to Peloton even more than before. Peloton has built upon their community to implement features into their product to maintain loyalty and engagement; this has allowed Peloton to maintain a remarkably low churn rate (below 1%).

Peloton's most recent feature is called "tags". Peloton users can add tags to their profile that link them to sub-communities ties to their specific interest (for example, one of the most popular tags is Pelomoms). Some of these tags are also tied to individual instructors and has helped instructors with their own brand building. For example, many of these instructors have specific catch phrases they repeatedly use in their classes, which are ultimately used as the "tag" for their fan group.

While many Peloton users were already creating their own sub-communities on other platforms like Facebook and Instagram, having the tags directly through a user's Peloton profile helps Peloton curate their content and provide better recommendations to users. For example, if Peloton recognizes that Pelomoms love a certain instructor, they can curate the music, workout and motivational catch phrases for that instructor to more strongly resonate with that group. They can also suggest workouts for those Pelomoms that they are more likely to enjoy, which will keep them more strongly engaged with brand. When users are working out, they can see who else from their "tag" community is working out too, which provides social pressure for them to continue to stay engaged.

While features like "tags" seem simple, they allow Peloton to take their retention / engagement marketing to the next level to get a deeper understanding of who their customer is and how they can keep them satisfied with the product.



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