Building a Pilates Brand People Actually Remember

When I started PilatEASE in 2019, I definitely didn’t sit down with a brand strategy document and decide what our “market positioning” was going to be.

I started it because I was a bit of a broken biscuit.

After a back injury, Pilates helped me rebuild my strength, confidence and trust in my body. But when I started looking for somewhere to continue practising, I struggled to find a Pilates studio that felt like it was for people like me. People in the middle.

I wanted somewhere with really good teaching and high standards, but that also felt welcoming, relaxed and real. Somewhere you didn’t need the right leggings, the right body or any clue what you were doing before you walked through the door.

I couldn’t find it. So I created it.

Seven years later, PilatEASE has grown to six studios across the North East, we have our own Training School and we’ve trained more than 200 Pilates instructors - many of whom have gone on to create businesses and studios of their own.

And earlier this year, we were incredibly proud to be named Reformer Studio of the Year for the North East at the Reformer Pilates Awards.

But if you asked me what has made PilatEASE grow, I wouldn’t say it was our logo, our social media or a clever marketing campaign. It’s knowing exactly who we are, and being unapologetically consistent about it.

Your brand is how people feel

When people hear the word “brand”, they often immediately think about the visual stuff. Your logo, your fonts, your colour palette, your studio interiors, your Instagram feed. Of course those things matter. But you can have the most beautiful studio in the world and still be completely forgettable.

For me, your brand is what someone tells their friend about you when you’re not in the room.

Do they say, “You’ll love it there, everyone is so friendly”?

Do they say, “I was terrified before my first class but they made me feel completely at ease”?

Do they know what you stand for? More importantly, does the experience they have when they walk through your door match what you’ve been telling them online?

Around 65% of our new PilatEASE clients come through recommendations and referrals. That matters to me far more than how many likes a post gets, because it means people have experienced our brand strongly enough that they want someone else to experience it too.

Stop trying to look like everyone else

Pilates has an aesthetic. We all know the one.

Beige studios. Matching activewear. Immaculate people doing immaculate Pilates while looking strangely un-sweaty. And a Matcha after class… obviously. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that - but it isn't PilatEASE.

PilatEASE is blue, not beige. And we mean that both literally and figuratively.

We’re bright. We’re loud. We're friendly. We’re based in the North East. We're straight-talking. We like a laugh. We take Pilates seriously, but we don't take ourselves too seriously. We want our studios to feel full of personality and, most importantly, full of real people.

One of the best things we ever did was stop worrying about what we thought a Pilates business was supposed to look like and lean into who we actually were. Eventually that became “Nee Nonsense Pilates.”

And it sums us up perfectly.

No fluff. No intimidation. No snobbery. No making something unnecessarily complicated to make ourselves sound clever.

Just really good Pilates, taught really well, by people who genuinely care about the person in front of them.

That personality runs through everything from our social media to our classes, our emails, our events and the way our instructors speak to clients. You don't need to manufacture a personality for your business.

Quite often, the memorable bit is already there. You just need to be brave enough to turn the volume up on it.

Know what you don't want to be

This has probably been just as important for us as knowing what we do want to be. From the beginning, I never wanted PilatEASE to feel intimidating or exclusive.

I didn't want somebody looking through the window and thinking, “that's not for people like me.” And as we've grown, protecting that has become incredibly important.

Our clients span generations. Our instructors do too. We have people coming through our doors with completely different bodies, backgrounds, abilities and reasons for doing Pilates.

That's what I want a PilatEASE studio to look like. There's no such thing as a “Pilates body”. If you've got a body, you've got a Pilates body.

And I think people remember businesses where they feel that they genuinely belong.

Nicci Rowlands, founder of PilatEASE CIC, at her Pilates studio

Consistency doesn't mean everything being identical

When you grow from one studio to six, maintaining a brand becomes a very different challenge.

You can't personally stand at the front door of every studio, you can't teach every class, you can't speak to every new client, your people become your brand.

That means the experience matters just as much as the marketing.

We now have a team of more than 40 instructors, and while I would never want them all to teach with exactly the same personality or style, there has to be a shared understanding of what it means to teach at PilatEASE.

People should feel welcomed. They should feel supported rather than judged. They should receive excellent teaching.

They should be able to ask questions.

And ideally, there should be some laughter along the way.

Consistency isn't about turning your team into clones. It's making sure the things that really matter don't change depending on which class, instructor or studio someone visits.

Build a community, not just a customer base

I know “community” is one of those words that gets thrown around a lot in business, but you can't just put community in your values and expect one to appear.

You have to do things that demonstrate it.

Over the years, we've offered discounted introductory programmes, pay-as-you-feel sessions and free sessions for local organisations and community groups. We've collaborated with other North East businesses and created women-only sessions where the entire building is female-only, making Pilates more accessible to women who might otherwise not feel comfortable attending.

We've also become a Community Interest Company, which gives us an even clearer framework for putting that community purpose at the heart of what we do.

Not every community initiative needs to make money. Not every event needs to generate leads. Sometimes doing something because it is good for the people around your business is reason enough.

And ironically, those are often the things people remember most.

Give people something to talk about

One of the biggest lessons I've learned is that word of mouth isn't something you can demand. You have to earn it.

Winning Reformer Studio of the Year for the North East this year was obviously a massive moment for us, but what meant the most was that the award was driven by our clients.

Those people took the time to vote, write about their experiences and advocate for PilatEASE. That's your brand. Not what you say you are. What your clients say you are.

So rather than constantly asking, “How do we get more people through the door?”, I think it's worth asking:

“What are we doing for the people already through the door that they'll want to tell somebody about?”

That could be exceptional teaching. Remembering somebody's name. Helping a nervous beginner feel comfortable. Creating an event they'll talk about afterwards. Sending a message when you know they've had a difficult week.

Often it's the smallest things.

Don't dilute the thing that made people love you

Growth is exciting, but it can also be dangerous for a brand.

We've gone from one studio to six. We've launched a Training School. We've trained hundreds of instructors and watched graduates go on to build their own careers and businesses.

There have been plenty of opportunities along the way to become more polished, more corporate and probably more sensible. But I never want growth to mean losing the thing that made PilatEASE PilatEASE.

We're still going to take the mick out of ourselves. We're still going to tell people they don't need expensive leggings.

And we're still going to care enormously about standards and education behind all of that, because having personality doesn't mean compromising professionalism.

I actually think the strongest brands manage to do both.

You don't need everybody to love your brand

This might be the most useful thing I've learned. Trying to appeal to everybody is usually how you end up being remembered by nobody.

There will be people who want a very different Pilates experience from the one we offer - and that's absolutely fine. There are some fantastic Pilates businesses doing things completely differently to us.

Your job isn't to copy them, it's to work out why somebody should choose you.

For us, it comes back to the same thing it did in 2019.

Expert teaching without the intimidation, high standards without the ego, a place where real people can walk through the door exactly as they are and feel like they belong there.

Or, to put it much more simply:

Nee Nonsense Pilates.

That's us. And if someone remembers that - but more importantly, remembers how we made them feel - then we've built the brand I always wanted to build.

30 Blogs in 30 Days

Throughout October, we’re sharing one new blog every day, bringing together studio owners, instructors and industry experts to share their experiences, knowledge and perspectives on the Pilates industry.

Day 16 of 30, come back tomorrow for the next blog.