The Studio CEO: Business Coaching For Yoga & Pilates Teachers & Studio Owners

How My Client Made $81,605 on Black Friday (Without Burning Out Their Team)

• Jackie Murphy • Episode 54

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What does a profitable, well-run Black Friday sale actually look like for a yoga or Pilates studio?

In this episode of the Studio CEO Podcast, Jackie Murphy breaks down how one of her private coaching clients generated $81,605 in revenue over Black Friday weekend — without chaos, burnout, or massive ad spend.

Jackie walks through the exact strategy behind the sale, including why repeating proven campaigns matters more than reinventing them, how omnichannel marketing drives conversions, and how paid ads can support organic marketing instead of replacing it. She also explains why Black Friday success starts months earlier, how nurturing your community impacts high-ticket purchases like annual memberships, and what data-driven decision making looks like in real life.

If you’ve ever wondered whether big sales weekends are possible for boutique studios — or how to run them sustainably — this episode gives you a clear, grounded roadmap.

Timestamped Outline

  • [00:00] Welcome + episode context
  • [02:30] The $81,605 Black Friday overview
  • [05:30] Why repeating campaigns beats changing everything
  • [08:00] Omnichannel marketing: being “everywhere”
  • [11:30] Building a waitlist before Black Friday
  • [15:00] Email + SMS strategy during Black Friday
  • [18:30] Using ads to support organic marketing
  • [21:00] The $226 ad spend breakdown + ROAS
  • [25:00] Top/middle/bottom funnel ads explained
  • [28:30] Why consistency with ads matters
  • [31:00] Longer buyer journeys + community nurturing
  • [34:00] Setting big goals without attachment
  • [37:00] Why this was sustainable (even with a newborn)
  • [40:00] CTA: Studio CEO Program

Key Takeaways ✅

✔ Sustainable profit comes from repeating what works
 ✔ Black Friday success starts weeks (and months) earlier
 ✔ Omnichannel marketing increases conversion
 ✔ Ads should support — not replace — organic marketing
 ✔ You don’t need massive ad spend for strong results
 ✔ Longer buyer journeys require ongoing nurturing
 ✔ Big goals work when you detach emotion from outcomes

Pull Quotes

“Change less. Evaluate more. Repeat.”
“Black Friday doesn’t start on Black Friday.”
“Omnichannel marketing makes it easier for people to buy.”
“You don’t need a massive ad spend — you need alignment.”
“Sustainable profit is built year over year.”


FAQ 

How can a yoga or Pilates studio have a successful Black Friday sale?
By planning early, repeating proven campaigns, building a waitlist, and using omnichannel marketing with strategic ads.

Do studios need to spend a lot on ads for Black Friday?
No. Ads work best when they support strong organic marketing and community nurturing.

What types of offers work best on Black Friday?
Warm-audience offers like annual memberships, class packs, and loyalty-based promotions.

Why is consistency important for paid ads?
Consistent ads help platforms gather data, improve targeting, and increase results over time.

Work with Jackie Murphy


SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Studio CEO, the only podcast that empowers yoga and Pilates teachers and studio owners to step confidently into their role as CEO. If you are ready to show up with passion, take your business seriously, and scale to new heights without burning out, you are in the right place. I'm your host, Jackie Murphy, an award-winning certified business coach with over 12 years of experience inside the yoga industry. I have seen firsthand what it takes to build a profitable and scalable business. Join me as we dive into strategies, insights, and real-world advice that will help you grow your revenue, build a thriving team, and create a business that serves you as much as you serve your students. It's time to embrace your inner CEO and make more money without working more. This is just the beginning. Hello and welcome to the Studio CEO podcast. I am Jackie Murphy. If you are new here, go grab your cup of coffee, cup of tea. I'm so excited that you're here. Pull on up a chair to this episode. If you are a returning listener, hi, how are you doing? What's going on? How is your 2026 going? Send me a message on Instagram anytime, y'all. Let me know what's happening for you, your business, and in your life right now. I currently have a cup of breakfast tea, and I'm really ready to dive into this episode with you. We are talking about how one of my clients who owns a Pilates studio that has two studios or two rooms. It's a little unique in that situation. I'll maybe mention that in a little bit, but she had a$81,605 Black Friday weekend. So within three days, she made almost$82,000. And I want to break down how that happened, what we did to really set her up for success over Black Friday so that you can use that in your own business. So we're gonna go piece by piece. I have three points that I'm gonna try and focus on and stay with, but I actually have a lot to say here. So we'll kind of see how this episode unfolds. The first thing that I want to start with is that the Black Friday playbook, the Black Friday campaign planner, the Black Friday campaign retrospective, and even some templates to use all live inside of the Grow Mastermind. That is one of the things that I offer inside of the Mastermind is playbooks with literally step-by-step. Here's the strategy to use, not just for Black Friday, but for many different events, campaigns in your business. And so I want to start with that to say this is the Black Friday play that we have run two years in a row. Black Friday of 2024, we ran this Black Friday playbook for the first time. This client started with me in October of 2024. So we were very new in our coaching relationship. And the first time that we ran this Black Friday playbook, she made$13,000 additional in revenue that November, which is incredible. It was a very quick win. And we analyzed and evaluated and worked a lot over the next year. And then her Black Friday of 2025, that is the one that was$81,605. And so what that means for you is that change less, evaluate more, and repeat. And I talked about this a little bit in my episode with 2026 predictions. But one of the things that will help make your business more sustainable and at the same time more profitable is not always changing your marketing strategy for specific things or your offers for specific things. Because we ran the same play, the Black Friday playbook, two years in a row, it gave us the opportunity to do it once, see what worked really well, and then prep for doing more of that the next year and tweaking for whatever didn't work the first time so that we could do it differently. And this Black Friday playbook will get easier and easier for her team to run because they have done it before and they're only gonna get better and better at doing it every single time. And I think it's really common that we fall into the trap of like, oh, I didn't exactly hit the goal that I wanted with this campaign that I ran. So I'm gonna change the whole campaign. Instead of, oh, I didn't hit the goal that I wanted with this campaign this year. Let's evaluate that so that we can do it again better next time. And that is really where sustainable profit, that's like the secret hidden spot. That's where all your sustainable profit lies. That is how you start to create a business that feels easier and easier, but makes you more and more year over year. So we did it in 2024, and then we did it again in 2025. One of the things that I think worked incredibly well in 2025 when this team ran this play is number one, they were everywhere. In 2025, I spoke a lot about how omni channel marketing is really important for businesses in the yoga and Pilates industry. Meaning your website banner, your website buttons, your pop-up, whatever it says there matches whatever signage is in the studio, matches whatever's on your organic social media, matches whatever is on your paid ads. So many times I'll see a business come to me and they're looking for support and they're like, oh, I'm not getting the sales that I want. And I immediately go into their business as if I were a new customer. And is it easy for me to see at every point what is the main offer at that time? If I land on their link in bio in Instagram, is it obvious? If I go to their website, is it obvious? If I see an ad from them, is it obvious? If I'm in studio, is it obvious? And something that this team did really, really well is making it so obvious, and they were everywhere before and during the Black Friday time period. So part of what I teach my clients to do is get a wait list of people who are ready to buy for Black Friday. So I would say two or three weeks before you're actually going to open your Black Friday cart, your sale, we started putting out marketing specifically to their warm audience. So people on their email list, people who are already following them, people who are taking class that, hey, something is coming for Black Friday. You're going to want to know what it is. You're going to want to be the first to have a chance to get this opportunity, join our wait list. And what this effectively did was give us a list of hot leads who were really ready to buy and waiting to buy on Black Friday. It is a mistake to think that your Black Friday sale starts on Black Friday. Number one, because you are probably seeing Black Friday sales start in like October. Like people have pushed it earlier and earlier every single year. But there are so many Black Friday sales that if your people aren't expecting and waiting and knowing that something is coming from you, if you just release it on Black Friday, or if you just release it day of and don't do any warm-up, don't do any demand creation, don't pre-seed it at all, you're not gonna be able to see the same results as if you built the hype and the expectation and got your audience ready to buy before the actual open cart date or sale date. So they had a wait list, that's one channel. They transformed their website, meaning like they had an announcement bar and they had a Black Friday sales page, which we could go down that road. Like you actually do need a sales page for your Black Friday offers, but that's not what I'm talking about in this episode. They had a website page though. They were promoting and talking about the Black Friday coming up on social media. And we set up many different ads before Black Friday even happened, so that they were everywhere and they were so ready to go with SMS marketing and day of conversations. And I can't tell you how much that matters in terms of getting your hot leads to actually buy that day. One of the things that will happen on Black Friday is your email inbox will be flooded. And email marketing is probably harder than it has ever been. And so if you're just relying on emailing your people your Black Friday offer, you have to be emailing them multiple times a day in order to even get a chance at them seeing your email because it's just email after email coming in that your email might not even show up on the most recent and they don't even see it. So what we did is we emailed them three times a day for three days in a row, and that's after we emailed about the wait list, and we also texted the people, the list during the Black Friday sales. That makes it easier for people to buy, it makes it easier for them to actually see your offer, and it makes it easier for them to convert. So you want to make sure that you have a consistent message that is visible on all platforms, both in person and online, and is ready to go on Black Friday. That's something that they did incredibly well. And I will just put here it's not that someone is going to like see a social media post and then buy or see your website and then buy. Maybe that happens, but that's rare. What really happens is someone like sees your most recent social media posts, and then they go to your website to book a class, and then they come into the studio and they see signage, and then they get a text from you, and all of a sudden you have these different points of conversion where they're starting to see the offer multiple times. Think about the offer and be reminded that there's an offer and there's a time limit to buy. So that brings us to our second point. They, we, I'll say, worked ads so well for this Black Friday offer. It happened to be that for my private clients, I offer in-studio VIP days. So I go to their studio, and it happened to be that our in-studio visit was just a few weeks before Black Friday. So I was able to be there in person, literally line by line, helping them script out the ad, recording it with them, and then getting it up and running before Black Friday. So we set up a few different campaigns for their ads to make sure we could get the most of their Black Friday. We set up one ad that was intentionally just trying to reach new people, depending on the offer, right? So we were matching the brand new person with the brand new offer. I think it was Saturday of their Black Friday sale that they really focused in on their intro offer for this studio. It's a five-class pack for$100, and we gave a discount on that. And so we set up an ad to specifically talk to people who did not already know the studio or visit the studio. In addition to that, we also set up an ad that was specifically designed to only go to their current people. And the reason that we did this is because we wanted the ad to be a place where they were were reminded of what was going on. They were reminded at the time that they were scrolling and had free time, and they were reminded that there was a close cart to each offer. So, what happens when you run these types of ads is let's say that Mary is a great member and she is pumped about your Black Friday offer. But Mary just hosted Thanksgiving. And so Black Friday, she's cleaning up, she's with family, she doesn't check her email because she's not working, she doesn't really scroll that much until 10 o'clock at night when she's in bed. And at 10 o'clock at night when she's in bed, she sees the ad and she's like, oh my God, I totally forgot that today was the day for me to sign up for that thing. I saw their text message come in. Oh my god, but I didn't do it. She clicks the ad and she buys. That is why we supported all of the organic marketing that they were doing and organic sales conversations that they were having with ads to get in front of people more, to remind them to buy and make it easier for them to buy. Now, you may be thinking, Jackie, if she had an$82,000 Black Friday, then she probably spent thousands of dollars in ads. And I wanted to go back for you and make sure I had exact numbers because I want you to know that, in my opinion, you don't have to have a massive ad spin in order for ads to support your other marketing. So I say that very clearly because listen, if all you are doing is relying on ads and you aren't doing any other marketing, like you weren't doing SMS, you didn't have emails going, you weren't doing organic social media, you didn't have your website updated, and you're just like, oh, I want ads to bring in$82,000. I really don't think that's how it's going to work in 2026. I don't think you can just do ads. However, I think the sweet spot, the goal mine, is having your organic marketing incredibly dialed in and then supporting it with ads. And when you do that, you don't have to have this outrageous spend. So I actually went back and I looked, like, how much did we spend over those three days? And it was only$226. What? That means she got a$359 times return on her ad spin. It's called ROAS return on ad spin. Y'all, I don't want you to hear that and be like, I can spend$200 and make$82,000 because that doesn't tell the full story. But I do want you to know that you can have a low ad spin and be doing everything else and have an$82,000 campaign or launch or sale. That is incredible. That is unheard of. And part of the reason that I think our ads for this campaign did really well is because we were able to create top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel content and ads. I'm gonna get a little bit techie and nerdy for just a second because this is the type of stuff that I geek out on all the time. With Meta's new updates to ads, they are actually using the content you set up as the ad. So like the picture itself or the video as a way to target people who they think will be interested in your ad based on all of their data that they have about your spending habits and how you use Instagram and how you use Facebook and where you go. They have lots of data on you. So what we were able to do is make different types of content that met every single type of buyer. Meaning we had ads that specifically and clearly called out and spoke to the top of funnel person who maybe didn't know that this studio existed or didn't know that this offer existed. We had ads that specifically answered questions about the studio and the offer. And we had ads that were very clearly like bottom of funnel. This is your moment to convert. This is why. That is what made this perform really, really well because the right person, Meta can take these and then make sure the right person sees the right ad at the right time when they're most likely to buy and encourage your person to actually hit, click, and purchase. That's right, my friends. Meta knows when you are most likely to be scrolling on your phone and actually buy that thing that you've just scrolled past. For me, I'm sure it's like Tuesdays at 8 p.m. Meta knows that Jackie likes to buy. So that's when I see a ton of ads. So we're using that knowledge and that data, and we're taking that to the next level by making sure that our messaging and our marketing is supporting what Meta already knows. I hope that wasn't too high level, but that is part of why this did so well. The other part of why this did so well is because I have been running ads for this client since October of 2024. Meaning, this wasn't like we turned on ads for the first time on Black Friday. Her Metapixel already had data. We already had the audience going. We already kind of knew what to say. And that consistency makes ads work better and better and better. I cannot stress this enough. You cannot run ads for a month, turn them off, run them for a month, turn them off, run them for a week, decide they don't work, turn them off for six weeks. Literally, your account will get flagged. Like if you're in Google, it'll they'll just shut you down. But they, these platforms want you to consistently show up and run ads and get data over time, over time, over time. So it doesn't have to be this massive spend if that's what we're trying to do in order to get more data. The other piece that was really, really fun here is just the reminder that I wouldn't it be a lovely world. It would be so lovely if our clients who were our members are coming all the time, if they're like, you know what, I am ready to buy and I'm gonna go in studio and I'm gonna purchase after my class because that makes a lot of sense. And some people will do that. But even some of your best members, your best clients that have been around for years that come to class three times a week, they're gonna purchase online. And that's okay. We just make it, we need to make it super easy for them to purchase online. Like consumer behavior has shifted where, like, we would literally rather go home, get on our phone, and purchase versus stand at a front desk and ask someone to help us. Now, that's not obviously this is a big statement. It's not everybody, but it is a lot of people who are more likely to buy online. So when you have ads, it really just removes a few barriers from them having to do anything or go anywhere or even go into their email in order to be able to purchase what you're offering. Okay. The last thing that I want to say that made this Black Friday so incredible is that it wasn't just Black Friday, right? I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast that we ran this same playbook in 2024. We ran it in 2025, we'll run it in 2026. It wasn't just November that we started to think about Black Friday. Everything that we did from November of last year to November of next year built to this sale happening. Specifically, a lot of the cash that came in on Black Friday was annual membership purchases. And that doesn't have to be the only thing that you sell. It's not the only thing that they sold, but for the right group of people, it was the right offer on Black Friday. And so, in order to sell a lot of annual memberships, you need to have a really warm, loyal customer base that knows, likes, and trusts you, that they are ready to say, I'm here for 12 more months. I'm not going anywhere. I've been around, maybe I've been a member for a little bit. I know this is a great offer. I know I want to say yes to this. And so it would not have been the same if, like, a month before we're like, oh my God, we need leads for Black Friday and let's help people that don't know us and haven't been in are ready to commit for 12 months. The trust just really isn't there in 2026 for people to like walk into a studio, try a few classes and buy for a year. The buyer's journey is longer. Again, I talked about this in the predictions for 2026 episode. But it does work if you are committed to the long game with your people. If you're not just like, I'm gonna pay attention to them and talk to them the first three times or there and then forget about them, or I'm not gonna, you know, celebrate them when they become a member in month one, but then not check in with them for the next few months. Like you actually have to be continually nurturing the nurturing the people who are in your business, which this studio does so, so, so well. One of the things that they do that I love, because I benefit from it, is that they send out recipes that you can try. So in their emails, I won't call them newsletters because they're not just newsletters, but in their emails, they will be like, you know what? Here's the recipe of the week and cook this. And I made a few things from it. Amazing, so good. But it makes their people feel like they actually really care. This isn't just the place where I pop in, pop out, take a class. They're they're really here for my whole person well-being with my nutrition, with Pilates, with community. Like everything was nurtured for the entire year. And I can't just gloss over how important that is for this Black Friday to go really, really well. The last thing that I want to say, so we use the Black Friday campaign planner, which is in the Grow Mastermind. And I was in person with them. So we opened this up and we're like, okay, let's break it down. Let's figure out what we want our Black Friday goal to be. And at that coaching session, we decided that the Black Friday goal was$71,000. And I remember saying, like, hey, I think you guys are primed to do$71,000. Like, I think that's realistic. And they were like, that's crazy. No way that's gonna happen. I mean, we can shoot for it, but like that would be incredible. Kind of that vibe of like, let's go for it. But like, who knows? And I want to say that to say, like, they did 10K over that. They did 10K over what they weren't sure that they could do. And that is what happens when you set a big goal and you prep and you go 100% in on the big goal without fear of failure. They weren't like, oh my gosh, if we don't hit this Black Friday sale, then that means X, Y, Z, right? People don't like us. We're not successful. That didn't work, ads don't work. They were just like, yeah, we're gonna go all in for this. We're gonna do everything that we know how to do, everything that's within our control, everything that's in our responsibility. And we're gonna see where the cookies crumble. We're gonna see what happens. And when you're able to do that, like set the big goal, detach any personal meaning from the big goal and work together as a team, which could be a whole nother point. The studio has an incredible team that we've spent since October of 2024 building. But when you can align all those pieces, yeah, you can exceed your goal. You can exceed your goal and have fun with it. You can exceed your goal and not have it feel like a huge push or like very, very stressful situation. That is possible for you. I didn't even mention this guy, but guys, but the owner of the studio had a baby, like I don't know, a few weeks before this. Like, this wasn't like all hands on deck, team working 20 hours a day. Let's hustle, let's push. Like, no, this was planned well in advance. It was set up successfully, and it was executed flawlessly. I mean, like, team functioning on every single level. I was actually at my parents' house for Thanksgiving with my family, and I remember like getting the updates and seeing the text come in and like talking to the team, and I was like, whoa, they are firing on all cylinders. It was impressive to see them all work together so well. And it paid off in the long run. Now, if this is something that you are ready to experience, like I know that maybe it seems like a far-fetched dream that your studio could be having 100K months. And I'm here to tell you it's not. It's really not. It's not far-fetched for your studio to have an$82,000 Black Friday. This isn't a studio that sees, you know, 20 people in every reformer class. I think they have six and eight reformers in their rooms. This isn't a studio in a city either. Like, this is possible for you when you are strategically working together. And I just want to say that you can really change what happens year over year if you are running ads consistently in your business. And listen, my friends, ads for the yoga and police industry, they're unique and they are specific. They are very different than if you were running product ads. They're very different from the ads that I run as a coach. So, really knowing how to run ads for this industry is part of the reason why we had such a low ad spin and such a high return. I think I'm gonna do an episode on kind of like my journey, my history with ads. And so maybe that'll be next week. Come back, we'll talk more about ads because I do think people are realizing, like, oh, this is a need to be a key part of my strategy for 2026. Y'all, if you want to do a Black Friday like this, I would highly suggest popping into the studio CEO program because the Girlmaster mine right now is sold out and um there is a wait list for that, but that will open up in a few months, I want to say. If you want support before then, the studio CEO program is the way to get coaching from me. We have written coaching available, we have weekly coaching available, and you can really start to figure out how to take your business to the next level. All right, my friends, I will talk to y'all in the next episode.