In the public relations space, some are built with a natural passion or skill-set for the work, much like you’d say someone is a natural “go-getter” or “people person.” Nicole Dunn, CEO of Dunn Pellier Media, is all of the above.

Dunn Pellier Media has worked with top brands such as F45 Training, Les Mills, Orangetheory Fitness, and Club Pilates, establishing itself as one of the top public relations firms in fitness. But while Dunn has always had the personal tools to build a top agency, getting to this point still took determination and savvy, especially in her early days coming from another industry.

Grinding to the Top

Before starting Dunn Pellier Media, Dunn spent 14 years working in television, at one point helping to produce a Dr. Phil spin-off series called “Decision House.” She led a 50+ member team, overseeing all aspects of production from talent and guest bookings to writing scripts.

“The demands were intense, often stretching into 16-hour workdays,” Dunn recalled. “Amidst the competitive landscape, particularly dominated by men, I started to question what I was doing and how hard I worked for someone else.”

That questioning eventually led her to create Dunn Pellier Media. After receiving guidance from a business coach and an all-female “mastermind” group in Los Angeles, she went on to launch the PR agency. 

“Initially, I was hesitant to leave television, but I realized that with the versatility of my skill set in producing television and the potential for crossover into public relations, that it would work,” she said. “Encouraged by my mastermind group and my husband’s collective wisdom, I leaped.”

Amid that leap, she had an inspiring and helpful partner beside her in Tony Horton. The P90X star became one of Dunn’s first clients and was instrumental in helping her interest in fitness blossom into a true passion. 

“Witnessing the profound personal transformations sparked by his workouts ignited a fire within me,” said Dunn. “In our early days, Tony challenged me to reevaluate my fitness regimen, bluntly dismissing that my ‘daily dog walks’ just didn’t make the fitness cut. His insistence and encouragement to create a workout routine was a pivotal moment that marked a profound shift in my lifestyle and my future career.”

As their partnership grew, potential clients started flocking to Dunn Pellier Media, hoping to replicate the success enjoyed by Horton. From there, a thriving business unfolded, eventually growing to expand its portfolio beyond personalities and feature a wider spectrum of health and wellness organizations. 

Separation from the Pack

Besides its impressive client list, Dunn Pellier Media also distinguished itself from multiple competitors in the public relations arena. Working to be a “dedicated health partner” rather than just manning the PR department for its clients, DPM crafts and molds wellness narratives with impactful storytelling. 

The agency’s extensive experience and notable relationships across the industry also make a difference. Along with industry giants like Orangetheory and Club Pilates, Dunn Pellier Media also works with Bulldog Yoga, MyNetDiary and Essentia Mattress. 

“We have deep-rooted relationships with both the media and the wellness marketplace,” said Dunn. “For 17 years we have attended almost all fitness, wellness, and biohacking conferences to meet our community and make ourselves a part of this community.”

Those relationship-building skills trickle down from the top. 

“One of my greatest strengths lies in my ability to connect with people — a trait that has been evident since childhood, as my father often noted my natural gift for conversation,” Dunn said. “I’ve always been genuinely intrigued by people, eager to find out what drives them while learning about their passions. This innate curiosity serves as a significant advantage for our company, as it enables me to forge meaningful connections and foster growth opportunities in the fitness and wellness space.”

Additionally, Dunn Pellier Media’s specific focus on public relations in the health and wellness sector helps differentiate it from the pack. Few, if any, other companies stand so equipped on both the fitness and PR front. 

“What sets us apart is our genuine integration within the wellness community, a distinction few firms can claim,” said Dunn. “We’ve cultivated deep-rooted relationships and solid expertise in promoting fitness, health, and wellness brands.”

The Future of DPM & More 

Dunn sees merging Dunn Pellier Media with a prominent PR firm in need of DPM’s distinct health and wellness expertise as something to strive for in the long term future. 

“By joining forces with a much larger firm, we aim to bring our unique perspective and specialized knowledge to a broader audience, further solidifying our position as leaders in wellness-focused public relations,” she said. “Together, we can amplify our impact and offer clients a comprehensive suite of services that seamlessly blend expertise, community, and authenticity.”

However, a more immediate goal involves combating gender discrimination in health and wellness. In the current calendar year, Dunn mentioned an intent to address the disparity in funding for research into women’s health. 

With help from the Goldman Sachs 10K Small Business Program, from which Dunn recently graduated, she plans to launch an online platform that will fill the gap in research and data for women aged 45 years and older. The project is still in its development phase, as Dunn noted she’s currently preparing a pitch deck to engage leading female funders invested in women’s health to have them help support the platform. 

“We can’t improve what we don’t measure, and this platform brings the data and research together for better health outcomes and reducing the cost of disease for women,” Dunn said. “We have been left out of critical health and wellness research studies and that needs to change!”

The post Nicole Dunn, Founder of Top Health & Wellness PR Firm, Wants a Better Future for Women appeared first on Athletech News.

In today’s age of social media and instant advertising, PR often gets the short end of the stick in the marketing mix of companies, including those in the fitness franchising space. That may be a costly mistake though, both for fitness brands and their franchisees. 

For fitness franchises, investing the time and resources necessary to build an effective PR strategy usually pays dividends in the long run: a 2014 Nielsen study showed that PR was 90% more effective than advertising in influencing consumers.

Statistics have also shown that compared to traditional forms of marketing, PR can be more beneficial for brands in building trust, enhancing credibility, increasing organic reach and building long-term brand recognition, according to research aggregated by Society 22 PR. For those reasons, PR is often more cost-effective than advertising. 

Nicole Dunn, CEO of Dunn Pellier Media, a Health & Wellness PR Agency that’s worked with top franchises including Club Pilates, Orangetheory Fitness, F45 Training and Perspire Sauna Studio, spoke with Athletech News about how fitness franchises can build a winning PR strategy and the business benefits of doing so. 

Hire a PR Firm That Specializes in Fitness & Wellness

For fitness franchises looking to reap the brand-building benefits of good press, it’s best to hire a PR firm that knows the space intimately. This has many benefits, including getting an expert’s take on which PR strategy to pursue in the first place. 

Dunn notes that for some fitness franchises, it makes sense to target national media outlets. For others, seeking coverage in B2B publications will be more beneficial. 

When Dunn Pellier Media was working with Club Pilates, the PR firm got the Pilates franchisor a spot on “Extra,” the popular celebrity news show filmed in Hollywood. 

“We actually brought reformers to the Universal Studios set,” Dunn recalls of the spot, which aired in early 2017 and featured Extra host Charissa Thompson doing a Pilates workout on-air. “It was just great for the brand.”

A national TV spot made sense for a big brand like Club Pilates, which was going for a more direct-to-consumer play with its PR.

For Perspire Sauna, a rapidly growing franchisor of infrared and red-light therapy studios, the Dunn Pellier Media team pursued a B2B approach that included placements in franchise-focused publications. The idea was to get Perspire’s name out there to potential franchisees.

“It wasn’t all the splash and gold and Hollywood,” Dunn says. “They used us instead to set a presence and build awareness and visibility for the brand.”

Whether it’s getting featured on national TV or generating a solid reputation in the industry, at the end of the day, PR, like almost everything else in business, is about relationships. 

“We have a competitive advantage over other PR firms because we’re in this space,” Dunn says of her firm’s fitness, health and wellness expertise. “We know the players, we know the people and we know the brands. We also have relationships with all these media outlets because we’ve been doing PR for 17 years.”

Tell Good Stories To Drive Media Interest

The process of getting your brand covered in top media outlets – whether TV, online or in print – may seem shrouded in mystery, but a large part of it comes down to having a good story to tell.

According to Dunn, fitness franchises whose founders have compelling backstories about why they started the brand tend to pique the media’s interest. Dunn mentioned Anne Mahlum, the founder of Solidcore, and Mahlum’s story about being so enthralled with her first Pilates class back in 2013 that she decided to start her own boutique fitness concept based on the modality. 

Fitness franchises can also leverage “before and after” testimonials from customers, like a member that lost a bunch of weight or transformed their body by doing a certain workout style.

“The media loves those kinds of stories,” Dunn notes.

Fitness franchises should also think long and hard about creating a concept truly actually innovative, and then craft a compelling narrative about what makes them new and different from their competitors. That’s tough to pull off, but it’s a surefire way to drum up media interest. 

“We’ve all done the same old Pilates workout or the same old HIIT workout,” Dunn says. “What’s something that’s new and inventive? How are people doing well utilizing this program? The media looks for that.”

Fitness franchises should also take advantage of seasonal opportunities to tell interesting stories. Themes like New Year’s resolutions and getting your ideal body in time for the summer are common themes that media outlets look for year after year. 

“It’s a regurgitation of the holidays, but as a PR player, you figure out how to make it exciting,” Dunn says.

Find a Spokesperson 

Media outlets are after clicks, views and ratings, so finding a celebrity or an otherwise engaging spokesperson to tell your brand’s story is vital. 

Dunn Pellier Media helped position Mark Wahlberg as the face of F45 and the brand’s functional training workouts. While F45 has experienced some financial difficulties as of late, the franchise exploded onto the scene several years ago, thanks in large part to Wahlberg’s constant promotion. In a testament to the long-lasting effects of positive PR, F45 still maintains a flock of loyal fans despite its recent troubles. 

Dunn Pellier Media also worked with an Orangetheory franchisee in Los Angeles to secure TV segments featuring Britney Spears, who had attended the boutique fitness studio’s locations in Southern California. Orangetheory was even featured in Spears’ 2016 music video for the song “Make Me.”

“Aligning yourself with somebody that can speak to the masses is always good,” Dunn says. 

For fitness franchises, finding celebrities is great, but a brand spokesperson can come from within a company as well. 

Some brands find success in positioning their CEO as a thought leader and educator. During its work with Les Mills, Dunn Pellier Media helped grow the profile of Sean Turner, CEO of Les Mills US, getting Turner interviews in leading industry publications. 

The executive-as-a-thought-leader approach works particularly well for a brand like Les Mills; since the group fitness company licenses its workouts to gyms across the world, a B2B approach makes sense. 

On the direct-to-consumer side, fitness franchises can leverage personal trainers or instructors who have big personalities. Dunn mentioned Stacey Zielinski, a trainer at AKT, Xponential’s dance-inspired fitness brand, as the type of energetic and engaging personality that’s tailor-made for media. 

“She’s awesome on camera, she’s smiling and she’s happy, she just kills it,” Dunn says of Zielinski. “Brands can utilize someone like that.”

Create a PR Playbook for Franchisees

Fitness franchises make painstaking efforts to give their franchisees all the tools they need for success on the business side. However, they sometimes overlook the PR part of the equation. 

“A lot of franchises don’t pay enough attention to instructing and teaching their franchisees how to build a media portfolio,” Dunn believes. 

Dunn encourages fitness franchises to create a “PR playbook” for their franchisees to equip them with a solid understanding of how to manage media endeavors. A playbook should include things like how to pitch stories to the media, what kinds of stories resonate with the media and which parts of the brand a franchisee should focus on while doing interviews.

“It’s just the basic training of what PR is, how it’s going to help you and how you use it,” Dunn says, noting that Dunn Pellier Media has helped companies create PR playbooks. 

For example, franchisees often need help figuring out which types of events and announcements warrant a press release and which ones aren’t worth the trouble. 

“If you’re doing a special event like raising money for the community at your location, that could be news,” Dunn says by way of example. “But on the other hand, people come up with these ideas that just aren’t newsworthy, and it’s a waste of everyone’s time.”

Having a PR playbook for franchisees can pay off, especially in smaller markets that a parent brand might not target with its own company-wide PR efforts.

“They always have key locations that do the PR in places like LA, New York, or Seattle, but what about the inbetweeners that could be doing localized PR in their own state and their own town to gain notoriety?” Dunn says. “I think that’s equally important, and some franchises don’t emphasize that enough in growing their brand.”

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

While taking the steps to build good PR is highly effective in the long run, Dunn cautions that it typically takes time for brands to see real results in terms of favorable coverage,

That’s getting harder to accept given the instant gratification of social media, but Dunn believes fitness franchises that focus on PR will be rewarded for their patience. 

“I believe in the power of PR,” she says. “You’re reaching a completely different audience than you would if you were just doing social media.”

The post How Fitness Franchises Can Craft a Winning PR Strategy appeared first on Athletech News.