The engine was already there. It needed restarting.
Brand, content and marketing systems for a boutique Auckland reformer studio - rebuilt from the inside out, then handed back so the studio could run it without us.
+174%
Reach growth in a month
Combined Instagram and Facebook, December to January. Consistency alone, with no paid spend behind it.
+952%
Facebook organic reach
284 to 2,988 people month on month, on a platform most boutique studios have already written off.
2x
Enquiries by DM
Instagram DMs doubled from 7 to 14. At this size, a DM is usually the step right before a booking.
16+
Lifecycle emails kept running
Already firing quietly inside Glofox. The audit changed our recommendation, not the studio's setup.
A studio with everything in place except momentum.
The Pilates Club is a boutique reformer studio in Coatesville, north of Auckland. Small classes, expert instructors, a genuinely loyal community, three years of trading. What it did not have was a marketing rhythm. Posting had gone quiet, the content library had scattered, and the systems humming away in the background had never been properly mapped.
Heather came to MEL with a clear brief, and an unusual one: restart the engine, then make sure the studio can run it without us. Most agencies would treat that second part as a problem. We wrote it into the scope.
Restart it. Rebuild it. Then give it away.
Three phases across eight months, each one built so the next person could pick up where it left off.
01
Phase one · Restart
Find out what is actually running.
Before anything new went out, we audited Glofox, Mailchimp, Canva and Meta, mapped the data and automations, and organised a content library that had scattered across three years of trading. Posting restarted quietly at two a week, using what was already there.
02
Phase two · Rebuild
Give the studio a voice it can repeat.
A written brand story, tone of voice with range from grounding to dynamic, seven content pillars, a hashtag bank, visual guidelines and a weekly posting rhythm. Then monthly content calendars, and on-brand HTML email built to replace the platform-generic sends.
03
Phase three · Hand over
Write it down so it outlives us.
A full email and automation audit, a two-platform model that stopped the tools fighting each other, and a plain-English System Playbook covering what runs, when, why, and what is safe to touch. Built to be picked up without a handover meeting.
One month of consistency, and the algorithm noticed.
December to January is the hardest stretch of the year for a studio. The doors were shut for three weeks over the break. Even so, the first full month of deliberate posting moved every number that matters at this size.
Facebook organic reach grew more than tenfold on a platform most boutique studios have given up on. Instagram DMs doubled. None of it was paid. All of it came from showing up on a rhythm, with content built to a standard.
December to January, combined channels
"We went into the email audit planning a migration. We came out recommending the studio keep almost everything it already had. Sixteen-plus automations were quietly doing their job well, and tearing them down to rebuild elsewhere would have been weeks of work for a marginal gain. The work a business does not need is as much a part of the advice as the work it does."
Tracey Hazelwood, Founder, My Engine Lab
Two platforms. No overlap. No tools fighting each other.
The audit settled a question the studio had been carrying for months. Rather than consolidating onto one platform, we gave each one the job it is actually built for, and documented the line between them.
Platform 01
Glofox + XLerate
The lifecycle engine
Knows the moment someone signs up, starts a trial, books a class or lets a membership lapse. So it runs the automated journeys: welcome, a six-touch lead nurture, trial conversion, member onboarding, booking reminders and every transactional message.
Scope
16+ emails, left running
Platform 02
Mailchimp
The relationship engine
Everything that needs a marketer's judgement: the monthly studio newsletter, seasonal campaigns, event follow-ups, segmented re-engagement, and the sixty-day Welcome Back flow for members who have drifted. Designed in on-brand HTML rather than a stock template.
Scope
Campaigns and re-engagement
A playbook written for the person holding the studio, not the agency that built it.
The engagement finished with a System Playbook: a plain-English guide to what is running, when, why, and what is safe to touch. Every automation documented. Every platform's job spelled out. The small cleanup items flagged, with the reason each one matters.
It was written to answer the questions a studio owner actually has at 9pm on a Sunday, which is a different document from the one most agencies leave behind.
The Pilates Club · June 2026
Your System Playbook.
A plain-English guide to what's running, when, why, and what to watch for.
A small business does not need a big campaign. It needs a system it can keep.
01
At this size, consistency is the strategy.
No new channels, no paid budget, no rebrand. Reach climbed 174% in a month because the studio turned up in the feed on a rhythm it could actually keep. Small businesses rarely need more ideas. They need the ones they have to happen reliably.
02
People-led content does the heavy lifting.
The owner's introduction post and an instructor spotlight were the two highest performing posts of the period by a wide margin. In a studio where the whole proposition is being known by name, the content that works is the content with a face in it.
03
Good advice sometimes means less work.
We went into the email audit planning a migration. We came out recommending the studio keep what it already had, because sixteen-plus automations were doing their job well. The work a business does not need is as much a part of the advice as the work it does.
04
The handover is the deliverable.
This engagement was scoped from the start to end with the studio holding the keys. Documented systems, a written playbook, templates that do not need us. Marketing that only works while the agency is in the room is not a system. It is a dependency.
Brand foundations, a content rhythm, and the systems underneath both.
Has your marketing gone quiet while you ran the business?
You do not need a rebrand or a bigger budget. Usually you need the engine restarted and the systems written down. That is exactly what we did for The Pilates Club. Let's talk.