What is it, Exactly?
The mobile fitness training app market may appear to be saturated, but there's a newer approach catching fire. It's giving fitness entrepreneurs a chance at building brands and making money using live video. Salut is one of the earlier entries to the market. It's a mobile app designed to help fitness instructors monetize their workouts and is available on the Apple and Google Play stores for download.
Source: Salut
What’s the Cost?
Salut is free to use. Apps like Salut often charge a fee for making their platforms available. In Salut’s case, there isn’t a fee that’s charged by the app, however, there are standard Apple and Android fees that apply. According to Salut, these fees are 15 cents of each dollar on Apple and 30 cents of each dollar on Android. Instructors get the rest.
Is It Easy to Setup and Use?
Salut has an easy-to-use interface that offers a seamless transition across features. After downloading the app, setup is quick. To create your first video, you’ll use the “Go to My Studio” button. Because content you create will be live first, you’ll need to schedule an event in your calendar so attendees looking for events can be aware of yours and when you go live.
On a side note, Salut’s thought about managing this process, too. A push-to-calendar integration has been added to the app and it automatically adds events to attendee calendars so they never miss classes they’ve signed up for.
Going live is simple and you can view comments but there are limitations. Salut currently only offers two-way video without two-way audio, something we’re hoping they find a way around. Another bone of contention for instructors may be the recording format. At present, Salut only offers portrait mode, making it hard to stay in frame, especially when performing movements in a tight space. And lastly, the app doesn’t provide analytics on video consumption, or a list of attendees. Salut has plans to add both features in a later update.
How to Make Money With Salut
To make your first dollar on Salut, you’ll need to schedule a class. Currently, instructors can only make money from donations, and the app includes a donation button that’s available on instructor profiles and during live video broadcasts and on replays.
Source: Salut
To create your first event, head to the “Trainer Schedule” area. Here, you’ll “Add a Class”, enter a class name, select a discipline that your class falls under, add a description of the class, along with a date and time.
At the time of this writing, instructors can monetize their content by accepting donations from class attendees. This may not be a big drawcard for instructors as their content can be consumed for free and the option to pay is at the discretion of attendees. To remedy this challenge, Salut has committed to memberships as a payment option. The membership feature is on their roadmap and slated for delivery in February 2021.
When donations are made, they appear in your trainer dashboard. Payouts are made by Salut twice a month on the 15th and 30th, and you don’t need to worry about handling any of the backend admin associated with getting paid by users.
Source: Salut
Sharing through social media and email to drive referrals is also available and a smart addition. Because of the intimate nature of live instructor-led fitness classes, a referral from a friend has the potential to help grow attendance and donation numbers.
Instructor profiles also come with Facebook and Instagram handles, making it possible to cross-pollinate your audiences between platforms and create a stronger, branded ecosystem.
The Bottom Line
Salut is a novel idea and is off to an okay start. The idea of using live video is powerful. It’s a more intimate medium. Taking donations is great, however, if you want your side hustle to bloom into a more reliable revenue stream, membership options would be more advantageous. The good news is that membership features are slated to arrive in early 2021, along with the chance to gather contact details on attendees and analytics, giving instructors the chance to learn about who is watching their content and to create better live videos.
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