Year End Website Refresh & 2024 Studio Web Trends with Connie Holen

• Key Takeaways for Yoga Studio Owners from the podcast episode with Michael Jay and guest Connie Holen from Pixality Web Design:
• 
  
  • Importance of having a visually appealing and user-friendly website for attracting and retaining customers.
  • Tips for optimizing website content to improve search engine visibility and organic traffic.
  • Utilizing social media platforms effectively to engage with the yoga community and promote studio offerings.
  • The significance of mobile responsiveness and ensuring a seamless experience for users on different devices.
  • Strategies for leveraging email marketing campaigns to nurture customer relationships and drive repeat business.
  • Incorporating online scheduling and booking systems to streamline class registrations and enhance convenience for clients.
  • Considerations for integrating e-commerce functionality for selling merchandise and online class packages.
  • Importance of regularly updating and maintaining the website to reflect current offerings and keep visitors engaged.

Connie Holen
Pixality Web Design  https://pixalitydesign.com/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/pixalitydesign/
Website Audit with Connie https://pixalitydesign.com/audit
Connie's FREE End of Year Marketing Checklist.

Connies New BOUTIQUE FITNESS MARKETING PODCAST
https://pixalitydesign.com/podcast

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Michael Jay - Yoga Biz Champ 

Michael Jay, the Yoga Biz Champ, stands as the go-to Yoga Business Consultant, embarked on a mission to elevate yoga studios from mere survival to genuine thriving.

With a rich background as a yoga teacher, former studio owner, marketing expert, and yoga studio business coach, he possesses the insider knowledge necessary to elevate your yoga venture to new heights.

His passion for yoga, combined with a sharp business acumen and a sincere desire to see studio owners excel, encapsulates his professional ethos. Michael is not one to offer one-size-fits-all advice; instead, he's dedicated to providing tailored guidance, tangible outcomes, and supporting your studio to emerge as the next Yoga Biz Champ in your community. 

• Certified Yoga Biz Consultant • 
• FitTech Partner •
• Yoga Studio Launch & Growth Specialist

FREE RESOURCES AND BOOK A CHAT LINK
https://yogabizchamp.link/podlink

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FREE RESOURCES AND BOOK A CHAT LINK
https://yogabizchamp.link/podlink

Transcript

connie_michael

Michael Jay: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Yoga Biz Camp, and I've got my good friend, colleague, consultant, and design expert in our fitness world, Connie Holland from Pixality Design. Welcome back, Connie. 

Connie Holen: Thanks for having me again. So happy to be here. It's 

Michael Jay: great to have you here. Connie has been on the podcast before, and I'm super happy to have her here because I've also watched your career.

Michael Jay: Develop over the last few years and you really have just done the best job of position positioning yourself as top in the fitness marketing and website area. You just are top in that space. I really do think so. 

Connie Holen: Thank you very much. It just comes from taking, being real specific with the clients I work with and having clients over and over again in 

Michael Jay: that industry.

Michael Jay: And so if you're not [00:01:00] familiar with Connie, Pixality web design she just. It really does a great job in the website space. And so I actually, her website is really a great resource too, because I send a lot of my studio owners, go read Connie's blog. Go all the way down to the bottom of her page. There are so many tips and resources there on creating a great landing page.

Michael Jay: And so if they don't have the budget yet to invest in having a designer, I'm just saying go, there's so many great resources. There's a really great job, Connie. 

Connie Holen: Thank you. Yeah. And I tell people too, if you go to my portfolio page, you can filter just to yoga studios. You can filter even by the scheduling softwares that you're using.

Connie Holen: If you want to see examples of how other studios are doing it. So the, just digging around my portfolio page too, can give you ideas if you're creating your own website. 

Michael Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And congratulations, you just [00:02:00] launched your own podcast and it's called Boutique Fitness Marketing. 

Connie Holen: I did.

Connie Holen: I'm following behind in your footsteps. 

Michael Jay: And I have been listening to it. It's so good. You've had some really good guests on so far. And yesterday I was driving for to get my teeth cleaned. I'm listening to your podcast and what is it? Episode four, maybe the last one, three or four. But it's the last one and it's on branding and it's a short one.

Michael Jay: It's. 12 minutes and it's a short one on branding and you give some really great specific questions for people to answer. And so I was like, it was one of those ones I was listening to it and I'm like, yeah, I've got to go home and write those down. So it was a really good episode. So congratulations.

Connie Holen: Thank you. Yeah. And that, that one's episode six, but yeah, it's fun to get into a different, yeah, get into a different medium and, just talk with amazing people. But I know in this industry and I've got you on I've got you on the plan. You don't know it [00:03:00] yet, but we'll get you on over there.

Connie Holen: Yeah. 

Michael Jay: So we wanted to talk a little bit today about the year and between now and December and January, a little bit of a the website refresh kind of checklist. And so the kind of, we, we need to look at all those things as we come to the year end, right? So do you have any top, top suggestions for your refresh?

Connie Holen: Yeah, I think this is just a great time of year as we're recording this in October. But as we're going into November, December to get all your ducks in a row for that, that January, because you all know when January hits, you're going to have new students coming in. The energy is going to be high. You're going to be focused on.

Connie Holen: Wanting to connect with those new people and communicating and your sales team is going to be your sales process is going to be firing and all of that. So you need to do some things right now leading into that [00:04:00] because you're not going to have time to go tweak your website in January. So let's do it now.

Connie Holen: So that's the whole idea with the energy of this ending closing the year out. Especially if things are a little slow now or over the holidays, take some time to get your website fine tuned and ready to go for January. The way I would encourage you to do that is.

Connie Holen: Walk off some time on your calendar, say this is website retuning day or whatever it is, and then open up your website as like a secret shopper. So pretend you don't know your business and just say, I am a new person. It is January. I just decided that I wanted to be good to my body this year.

Connie Holen: And I'm thinking yoga might be a place to start. Found this website and just ask yourself, does it invite me in? Does it welcome me? Does it tell me I'm in the right place? Does it build trust with that client, with that person? And is it clear where they can go to see how it works in their day, see how it works in their budget?

Connie Holen: How do they get started? Is all of that stuff really obvious and inviting? on that [00:05:00] website. So if you just give yourself that time and that space in your day, because as business owners, it's hard to probably look at your website all the time, but not from that perspective of taking a step back, putting yourself in somebody else's shoes and taking that fresh perspective of it.

Connie Holen: And if you do that, I bet you'll see some things that don't make a whole lot of sense or that can be improved. 

Michael Jay: Yeah. Let's stay there. The secret shop like being going through the shoes of the customer. So I have a little story. 20 year old studio with an amazing history. They a history of giving back into the community.

Michael Jay: It's on its third owner now. And they just did a brand new website. But what they did with the refresh of the website was they lost it. Everything about the community that was built, right? So it's it was a very generic square space, templated looking site. Anyway, so I, they lost all the [00:06:00] branding basically through that.

Michael Jay: But the interesting thing was I went through that and I had the owner on the call and I shared my screen. I'm like, can you please show me how to purchase a. A pass on your website. And so I was doing the clicking, she had my screen and I'm clicking through it. And I said, okay, can she tell me where to, where the buy button is?

Michael Jay: Okay. She told me to scroll down. So I go all the way down. There's a schedule button. She's oh. Okay. Where else? She's okay, we'll scroll up, go up to the prices page. I'm like, okay, so go to the prices page. All the prices were listed there, but there was no hot links. So I was like literally clicking on this page saying where do I click?

Michael Jay: Show me where to click. There was no way to click six months. They'd had that website and no online sales. So I think that's a really good, yeah, I think that's a really good. Advice is to go through the journey of your students because [00:07:00] are there too many price options? Check their emails when they come, do they all go off as you want them to?

Michael Jay: So that's great advice, Connie. 

Connie Holen: Cool. Yeah. And another thing that I'm seeing now when I audit websites or I'm talking to prospects, is a lot of people have changed scheduling softwares in the last year, and sometimes you didn't get all those links off your website to the old scheduling software.

Connie Holen: So buy a gift card here and the gift card goes to a dead link because it's a link from your previous scheduling software. That's pretty critical this time of year to catch that. Yeah. Or you're, you're just gonna not be not capture any of that traffic of people wanting to buy gift cards.

Connie Holen: So yeah, checking for dated things and things that don't work anymore. And you don't need a, I do, I have a website audit service and you don't need somebody else to look at those things if you just set aside the time and but those are the things that I find when I do website audits.

Connie Holen: It just takes a little bit of time to look. 

Michael Jay: What do you think of the commonly overlooked items on a fitness or yoga [00:08:00] website when you see a new client? 

Connie Holen: I think one of the big things is having a cluttered navigation. As the business owner, you look through the mess up there and you know where to find things because you've put them all there.

Connie Holen: But I think. Taking that step back, studio owners fail to realize how overwhelming that is for a new prospect. And if you have 12 different links or a dropdown of 20 different items, people are not going to go to those pages. So the few pages that they do go to Better get the point across.

Connie Holen: So I think that's one commonly overlooked thing is just looking through the clutter and not seeing the important things that have to be very clear for everyone. I think another thing right now, depending on if you did your own website one of the big things is not having that that color contrast between text and whatever the background is.

Connie Holen: Yeah. Yeah, so if, if we start playing around with this... Especially if 

Michael Jay: it's only a video. . 

Connie Holen: [00:09:00] Exactly. Yep. Exactly. And Squarespace, which is great, which is what I work on, what I recommend to clients. They make it really easy to add textured backgrounds, photo backgrounds, all of that stuff Here are videos or snap here are videos.

Connie Holen: Yeah. All that stuff. And that is all very on trend stuff, and that's great, but you need to make sure above all of that aesthetic things, that the text pops off the page and that it's crisp enough and big enough. that your message gets across, because people won't squint and try to read something that's not really readable.

Connie Holen: That's something I commonly see, especially on sites that were DIY'd. You need to go find out how to darken that photo up or lighten that photo up, depending on what the text is on the top of it. That's 

Michael Jay: a great one. I'll say two that I see are common, which I know you're all about.

Michael Jay: And the Not having a really good call to action on the intro offer and not having a sales page for an intro offer or a direct to [00:10:00] membership or whatever method it is. But I find it surprises me actually still, when I get a new client that those are not just a given now, but I guess that's because I'm in the industry and see it all the time.

Michael Jay: But it is surprising that, a lot of the websites are still. 10 years ago and not really keeping up with what's happening now. You did some heat mapping on inter offer buttons on sites. 

Connie Holen: Yeah. So heat mapping is just another way. It's to see the analytics of your site, to see how people are interacting with your website.

Connie Holen: It's a more visual way, Google analytics. You can see a lot heat map is a visual way to see how people, where they're scrolling, where they're clicking they. Few people scroll all the way to the bottom of the page. So if you have that new client page, which is great that you have one, but the first time you introduce that intro offer, or even on your homepage, the first time you introduce that intro offer at the bottom of the page, the vast majority of people are not going to see that at [00:11:00] all.

Connie Holen: So it needs to be very high up on the page as well as very clear. And I guess this comes into the bucket of common mistakes, making it very clear that it's a clickable. thing. Then the button text itself is very clear. And as well, you can see in heat maps a lot of times where if you have a graphic or something that's promoting the intro offer, and maybe that image is clickable.

Connie Holen: Or sometimes the image is not clickable. People will try to click on things that aren't clickable, and they won't necessarily click on something that is clickable if it doesn't look obvious that it is clickable. So You know, there's no, no need to get super creative here. If you want people to click on it, make it a button or get a very bold text link that has, a color change or an underline, make it really obvious because when you look at those heat maps, you're like, why are they clicking right there on that picture?

Connie Holen: Because you're mentioning something, they figure that will go there and it doesn't necessarily. So those are some of the things we can learn from heat maps [00:12:00] is. Move that, that intro alpha call to action, be very clear what it is up further on the page, and then make it obvious that it's clickable.

Connie Holen: Buttons are the easy way to do that. 

Michael Jay: Yeah. So we, we I feel like you've taught the industry that it should be top right. 

Connie Holen: I believe so. 

Michael Jay: I like top that definitely comes for you from you. And then I like an extra hit under the, or within the hero. kind of area, like in just a second.

Michael Jay: And then I'll also on the landing page, like under a schedule, like to have another hit of it or under a visual schedule. I like to have another hit of that, but yeah, it doesn't harm to have a, quite a few of those buttons around. 

Connie Holen: And on that new client page, that get started page, whatever you're calling it, it is the point of that page.

Connie Holen: So it should be, it should be several times on that page. And then any text images, videos that are on that page should have the goal of just selling that intro offer. You're not selling them on a membership, you're not [00:13:00] selling them on a lifetime commitment. You're just selling them on the idea of giving it a try.

Michael Jay: I literally have a an email of behind you right now from one of my studios that we're looking at her, we're going over her sales page right now, but it is, it's what I said on when I looked at hers was there was too many off links. It was going to the schedule. It was going. It was going all over the place, right?

Michael Jay: And really, that page, you want to keep them on that page, but you want to deliver them what they need to know. The schedule, maybe a little bit about the teachers, some testimonials and what they get for their, what they get for their investment. And then buy. 

Connie Holen: And everything related to having the lens of a beginner.

Connie Holen: So the testimonials should be talking about, I was hesitant to try it. I didn't think I was flexible enough, whatever, go cherry pick those testimonials out that really talk about concerns that beginners have. And same goes with any videos, any photos that you have on that page.

Connie Holen: You're not going to be [00:14:00] showing the most advanced poses. You want that page to feel really inviting and accessible. 

Michael Jay: Absolutely. Checklist item, mobile friendly. And I think Squarespace does a fantastic job of that, of if anybody hasn't used Squarespace, you can just literally click to see the mobile view, but you can rearrange that mobile view and it doesn't affect the web version, which is incredible.

Connie Holen: Yeah, and that is that's what Squarespace 7. 1, which is the latest version came out around 2020. So if you have a site older than that, you're probably on the older version and you don't have those fine tuning controls on mobile. The trick is if you are on the newer version of Squarespace, You do have to look at that and you do have to fine tune it.

Connie Holen: You can't just ignore it. Otherwise that mobile view is going to show items in the order that you added them on the page. You can rearrange them. You can make the buttons bigger. You [00:15:00] can fine tune it, but you do have to take that extra step. It's a great feature, but I do see that on a lot of sites too.

Connie Holen: Where they clearly didn't look at it on mobile and didn't adjust things. And so things are overlapping weirdly and in a weird order. So yeah, if you're on Squarespace 7. 1, be sure to click that little mobile. Preview, move things around, put them in a different order. The other thing about checking things on mobile that I love people to do is check on your actual phone, not in the editing mode of whatever platform you're in.

Connie Holen: Check that you're, if you have a messenger AI or some kind of chat bot. If you've got a pop up, if you have a cookie banner, all of those things, check that they're not conflicting with each other. You get in that situation where you don't see it when you're in editing mode popping up, but you get to the point where you can't close something because something else is overlapping it and it gets really clunky on mobile.

Connie Holen: So that's another great thing to do before you get into the busy season. Just check [00:16:00] those things and de conflict if you need to. 

Michael Jay: Yeah. Oh, you 

Connie Holen: forget. Or you have an old pop up promoting something old. An 

Michael Jay: old an old, yeah. That's quite common actually. I've seen that a few times. It is. Yeah.

Michael Jay: Yeah. Any other thoughts of year end checklist items for a website? 

Connie Holen: Yeah, I would say if you're looking at the one good thing of doing this now is if you is if your website really does need some work, you can probably get on someone's schedule and get it launched before the new year.

Connie Holen: You don't want to be doing a website redesign in January. The other thing that I would look at is if you're not going to do that, you're not doing a whole website refresh. Maybe you don't need it other than the things that we just talked about. Get, be comfortable with eliminating things, simplifying things, getting rid of things, moving things to the footer.

Connie Holen: Go in with the lens of, I'm gonna edit and I'm gonna simplify because that's gonna give you the better results. And then the second thing is if you're, looking at your whole website and you're like, eh, things are just not feeling right. They're not [00:17:00] necessarily reflecting my brand in a great way, but I don't have time or budget to redo the whole thing.

Connie Holen: Put a little bit effort into that hero banner. What's the image there? What's the headline there? What's the button? Like we talked about, what's the call to action intro offer there? Yeah. Like I said, with those heat maps and those Google analytics, like if you don't sell them on that very first top thing, when they load the page, they're not going to click around to the other pages.

Connie Holen: Yeah. Spend a little bit of time. Maybe refresh that area itself. Don't feel like you have to go through your whole site if you don't have the resources to do that, but a little bit. Of retooling that headline up refreshing that, that photo or that video, if you've got it and making sure that button is really clear, it can go a long way to help you out.

Connie Holen: Yeah. 

Michael Jay: Can we talk about that? Because I, that hero section, I think I did a post about this on Instagram not long ago a frustrated post about don't make me search for where your location is. It is yes It blows my [00:18:00] mind that I have to go through your website and search for your location. I have my studios on that hero section.

Michael Jay: I just we just did one in Fresno and it says, Hey, Fresno, exclamation mark. Like literally get it on the, get your location. Even if it is just a small area of your city that you're 

Connie Holen: focused on. It's so important, especially now, we can all list all the virtual yoga studios out there, all the video, only yoga platforms.

Connie Holen: And you can't be sure that there's not one of those that doesn't have your same business name or very similar business name if someone's searching for it. So one of the key things that website has to do right when you initially land on it. Is instill trust in people that they are in the right place and that means two pronged It means very literally am I in the right place?

Connie Holen: Is this the studio in my town that I can go physically to and that's what you're talking about And then the second thing is am I in the right place? [00:19:00] Do I trust this studio? Do they say that they can solve the problems that I have? Can I see myself there? Can I see myself there exactly? Would I fit in there?

Connie Holen: Would I be welcomed there? So you've got to do those things. You have to answer that. Am I in the right place question in both of those ways on that initial hero section when you load the website. Yeah. I 

Michael Jay: think you've got to show the vibe right away. I feel that's the thing that I try and get my, my studios, I want them to show like the happy people, coming out of the studio, holding their yoga mats.

Michael Jay: It's the feeling that you want people to leave with, but you have to get that across in the website as well. 

Connie Holen: Yep. And what you just said with the happy people and the smiling when I've tested different images on different social media ad campaigns, nine times out of 10, the one that does the best has somebody smiling.

Connie Holen: There's just some sort of reaction we all [00:20:00] naturally have as human beings of feeling positive and like we're in the right place when we see somebody else smiling. So that's a really powerful thing. And I think to like, To your point of getting that vibe across, back up our secret shopper scenario and say, it's January.

Connie Holen: I have a new year's resolution. I go to Google first and I type in yoga studio near me. open up those tabs of everything that pops up including your studio. Now, at first glance, how does your vibe come across as different or better than those other competitors? Because that's the context they're going to be viewed in.

Connie Holen: You're going to pick, we all know that's how we shop for things, right? We maybe open up a couple links and then we're like, okay, I feel like this website. Get it. And then you're going to go deeper into that one. And that's going to be your first option. So yeah, back it up and see how your vibe compares with the other fitness options that they would have in that same area.

Connie Holen: If they were looking at maybe I try yoga or bar or, whatever. They might not be just other [00:21:00] yoga studios, but start on Google, see where you fit in that context. Yeah. 

Michael Jay: I'm also seeing a lot of people the buy button. Quite often goes too soon to the software. So for example I was, there was an LA, I'm in LA right now and there's actually a well known coach.

Michael Jay: And I was looking at one of the things that they had going on this week, but it took me straight into the mind body page, the general mind body or full page that does, then you, and I literally went. Ugh, I can't be bothered and closed it. And so it was something I was interested in, but it's I need more information about the event until before you, I'm in the software.

Connie Holen: Yeah. They're just skipping the whole sales conversation. If you translate that to, a real life conversation of someone walked in and they're like, yeah, I'm interested in this event, or I'm interested in getting started. And then you're like, okay, hand me your credit card.

Connie Holen: That's basically the equivalent of that. You're skipping that whole.[00:22:00] 

Connie Holen: You decide if this is a great fit for you. We're really excited about it because of this. Other people like you have also done it and they've gotten these kind of results. Like that whole sales conversation is completely skipped. If you, introduce the thing and then you send them right to the checkout.

Connie Holen: And that's where that new client page for the new client conversation really is necessary. You're having that sales conversation online, but I think to your point, that's, it makes total sense for workshops, for any other, things that should have gone to an event 

Michael Jay: page on the website, right?

Michael Jay: That should have given me all the details with some more 

Connie Holen: details. Yeah. And you can't do that in the scheduling software. So there's not enough space to do that. The scheduling softwares are. The check out experience. They're not the whole sales conversation. So yeah, maybe have an events page, have a sales page for your teacher training and all of that.

Michael Jay: Yeah. One of the things I remember you did a post you probably do this year end, but it was, I remember you saying always remember to go to your website and change the copyright date. 

Connie Holen: Yeah, [00:23:00] that's usually a January thing and some people are looking at their websites right now, and they're like, oh, it says copyright 2018 oops that is a clear this website isn't necessarily updated very often kind of indicator, not like everyone goes down and looks at that.

Connie Holen: But if I see a website that says, in the footer, copyright 2017, I'm like, I don't know how much I can trust this, right? 

Michael Jay: So Connie, we're heading to the end of the year. Got any trend alerts for websites or marketing heading into 2024? 

Connie Holen: Oh, I got all kinds of Oh, good. Please. Yeah. What's happening?

Connie Holen: Yeah like you mentioned, like video backgrounds, and that's not something new. That's been a while. But I think in this industry it really does show that vibe very quickly to have a under 30 second video background that shows smiling people that shows, the how clean your space is all of that.

Connie Holen: I think that's, we're going to continue to see that. Also along those [00:24:00] notes, we've got, the video backgrounds and the big banner. But we also see things like high quality gifts or, little slideshows automatically moving this kind of micro animations throughout the site.

Connie Holen: Some more movement that comes in those little kind of micro animations. Maybe it's a little video that's like playing a little loop of a preview as the thumbnail. You also see this extended. It's more and more into like micro interactions that have movement. So getting people engaged in the website a little bit more.

Connie Holen: A common one there would be hover effects on buttons where the button changes colors. It does something when you hover over it. Hovering over images and it changes to another image. Yeah. That kind of thing. So seeing a lot more of that in the industry as general. And that's starting to trickle into fitness website design specifically.

Connie Holen: Just making it a little more and you have to be careful not to just do it, make movement for movement. That gets overwhelming. So it's subtle. 

Michael Jay: It's just subtle animated things. It's just, it [00:25:00] is, it just adds a little dy dynamics to the side. 

Connie Holen: Yep, definitely. So just intentional.

Connie Holen: You want to use that movement intentionally, where you want people to focus their attention. But it keeps people interested and then it draws attention to the things that you want them to draw attention to. So micro animations, micro interactions are definitely, I think on the trend list for 2024.

Michael Jay: What's the difference? The difference is the rollover. 

Connie Holen: Yes. So the micro animations would be just things that happen without you doing anything. It's just happening on the, moving on the site. Micro interactions are with like a hover where you actually move or like scroll effects too. So you've seen those sites where you scroll down the page and things fly in, but if you scroll back up the page, they fly out.

Connie Holen: So they are linked to the action that you as the visitor is doing. So either way, they're real similar, but I think that's going to, that's going to continue to be common. I think, let's see, [00:26:00] AI is coming to websites. You'll see even on Squarespace in the back end, there's now a writing assistant that's plugged in.

Connie Holen: Okay. It's just becoming more and more incorporated that's more of a, as a backend as you as a website builder studio owner, not so much from the outside, but you're going to see that incorporating more and more into the backend editors also, I think chatbots as much as I don't really love chatbots a whole lot, I think they're going to probably continue to get better.

Connie Holen: I don't know if that's a 2024 thing or 20 or after, but I don't think they're going away. I think they'll probably continue to get better as AI gets better as well. 

Michael Jay: I know that the mind body mind body AI works really well. Are you seeing any others work? I 

Connie Holen: haven't, that's the most common one that I'm seeing.

Connie Holen: Yeah, I just hesitate on. Chatbots, especially answer, yeah. And I think it is confusing for [00:27:00] people who might be hesitant already. You have to know your audience and the people you're bringing to your website. Chatbots can make you feel dumb as a user when you, if you don't know that there's not a real person there and when you figure it out.

Connie Holen: So I think you have to be careful about that as well. And I think as they get better though, and if there's somebody on the other end I think we'll see more and more of them. I don't think they're for everybody, but... 

Michael Jay: I got one for you. Leads. Leads is becoming a big deal now with the software companies, Moments, MindBody, Waller.

Michael Jay: I'm definitely seeing that lead forms is becoming a bit of a bigger deal that integrates in with the fitness booking software. 

Connie Holen: Yeah, and it's, and it's the fact that, like you said, that those scheduling software's are now, making those forms embeddable and they're making it as a part of those those CRMs that now, as they're adding in marketing tools, texting and emails as well.

Connie Holen: It really is just the [00:28:00] next iteration of, your constant contact. Sign up for our newsletter form, but now we can do a lot more with it really is the same. It's are you a newsletter subscriber for a lead or a lead? It's the same thing. You've only given your email address. It's what you do with it as a business owner that is changing in the industry.

Connie Holen: I think the difference is it 

Michael Jay: used to go to a constant contact or something like that, but now it's different. It's going directly into your fitness booking software 

Connie Holen: because you don't need the constant contact anymore. Your fitness booking software is now your marketing tool. as well. So that's a great point.

Connie Holen: I think where websites are going is what's your strategy behind that getting that lead? Are you, how are you following up with them? Is it just, I never was a big fan of people just slapping like an email subscribe form on your website when it just goes into your bulk contacts list and they just start getting your newsletter.

Connie Holen: Like it's [00:29:00] not that person. It's a long way before they are ever going to actually pay you money and become a client. If that's the only action they're doing, it's signing up for your newsletter. This, I think, opens up now the conversation of, okay, what are we, what is even on our website where we are asking for that?

Connie Holen: Is it sign up for our newsletter or is it, I know sign up to be entered into a drawing. We give a free month of yoga away every month. So sign up to be entered into that. And because it takes, and now you have the contact information takes into the email. Yeah. Yeah. So what are you doing with it?

Connie Holen: Otherwise it's valuable. It's a valuable spot on your real estate or real estate on your website. So yeah, you need to have some type of plan for it. But I think now that it is incorporated, those forms are incorporated with booking softwares. You have more, more you can do 

Michael Jay: with it. It's like, how do you convert that person through that?

Michael Jay: Yeah. So Connie I want to end it here, but I want to tell everybody that you are the best. And the reason I think that you're the best is when I send my clients to you, the [00:30:00] process is so easy. Like you just have got that process so down. And I also like the fact that, you go down to mission, vision, values.

Michael Jay: in the beginning, right? And I think that's such an important. I start everywhere with that, but you're the process that you make, I think people get overloaded with. The process of a new website and I want to tell people Connie makes it super easy because she has this form I've seen my clients fill it in but it is like you literally just fill in this form She asks you all the questions that you need to know and then it's hey, here's your Google Drive box load all your images into here And you just make it super easy.

Michael Jay: And if anybody's thinking about a brand new website or a refresh you are the go to person. 

Connie Holen: Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, that comes from, this is my full time job. This is what I do. And I work almost exclusively with Boutique Fitness Studio owners. A good amount of them are [00:31:00] yoga studio owners.

Connie Holen: So there's a little bit of layered in consulting with. And, I, if you go to another web design. agency, which there are great designers out there, you as the business owner need to be very clear about what you want, where you want it, because they're not going to be able to advise you on best practices for this industry and how it works for boutique fitness.

Connie Holen: So I think that's where thank you for the shout out that I think that's where I really do bring value to clients. And love working with yoga studio owners. You have great clients. So yeah, 

Michael Jay: and I want to encourage Everybody to go and listen to your podcast and that is boutique fitness marketing.

Michael Jay: And that will be linked up in my show notes as well. And so how do they, how does everybody find you or book a meeting with you? Or I know you have different packages, like you'll do a an assessment of a website. So can you go over what you offer? 

Connie Holen: Yeah, you can find all of that at PixalityDesign.

Connie Holen: com and that's P I [00:32:00] X A L I T Y design dot com. You'll see up at the top, web design, if you know you need a new website, you can click there and see my web design packages. I've got three different kind of sizes there. I know you work a lot with studios too that are just getting started. I do have, Yeah, I do have a specific package that is I'm with you for that whole launch phase and the different phases of your site.

Connie Holen: So that's one option as you're growing and there's a lot of different iterations of launching your website. There's one that, that is the most popular, that's a up to 10 page website package that fits most studios. If you have a really, multiple locations. A lot of content already, a big blog, a lot of events, that type of stuff.

Connie Holen: I do have a larger package as well. So that's under the web design tab. And then there's also a consulting tab where if you want to just book a one off call with me, we can take a look at your website, give you feedback. If you have a web designer you're already working with or if you are doing it yourself just a one off call is definitely an option.

Connie Holen: And then I have a website audit package too, if you want[00:33:00] that that feedback in a more documented form that you could send off to somebody else as well. Yeah, pixalitydesign. com. I'm also real active on Instagram at pixalitydesign there. Lots of little short reels, videos, 

Michael Jay: really active on there.

Michael Jay: You up leveled in the last. Couple of years on there. 

Connie Holen: It's been fun. I have a person that helps. 

Michael Jay: Maybe we'll have another episode about that. 

Connie Holen: Yeah. It's a whole thing, I find that it's just those short videos, easy to consume, get a little tip and move on with your day is it's fun.

Connie Holen: And it's the way I like producing content. Can we say that probably wasn't 

Michael Jay: easy at first, right? When you started doing your posts, it wasn't easy, right? And now it feels easy. 

Connie Holen: I'm guessing. I have a total flow. Every other week, I batch record. Yeah, this could be a totally other episode, but you get it, you get in the whole kind of systems flow of what you're doing and when you're doing it and yeah.

Connie Holen: Yeah. So that's the two spots where you can most find me. And then boutique [00:34:00] fitness marketing. com is the home for my podcast. It's also on my actual website, or you could just Google boutique fitness marketing and you'll see You should find it on all the places you listen to podcasts.

Connie Holen: So love to have you over there. Hey, 

Michael Jay: Thank you so much, Connie. I'm sure you'll be on again. 

Connie Holen: All right. Thank you, Michael. It's great talking with you. Thank you.