How Life Fitness is winning the race in B2B sales of its new Symbio range

Designed for the premium segments of health clubs and luxury hospitality, the new line of fitness equipment aims to once again position Life Fitness squarely at the cutting edge of fitness industry innovation. The story of how Symbio has come to market offers an interesting insight into B2B marketing’s challenges, its power to shape brands and the importance of creating emotional resonance with a highly exclusive target audience.

Repositioning an industry leader

The seeds for the Symbio range of equipment – which incorporates the Symbio Runner treadmill, the Symbio Switchcycle exercise bike and the Symbio Incline Elliptical – were planted during a strategic re-evaluation of Life Fitness’s brand identity. A company long known for its innovation since creating the original LifeCycle gym bike in the 1960s, Life Fitness found itself needing to reaffirm its position as a premium player in the mid-to-high market segments.

The journey from concept to finished product was anything but simple. Developed over 10 years, the Symbio range showcases the pinnacle of technology in fitness equipment. Damen and his team worked hand-in-hand with Life Fitness’s product and engineering experts, ensuring every feature was designed to resonate with their intended audience – premium hotels and high-end gyms.

A Targeted approach to premium buyers

For a B2B campaign like Symbio, targeting the right buyers was critical. Life Fitness took a focused approach, identifying elite buyers who could set trends across their regions. “We wanted to target the key influencers within premium health clubs and hotels, those that others look up to,” explains Damen. The goal was to use these leading establishments to set a benchmark, positioning Symbio as the standard-bearer in fitness equipment.

“We specifically targeted locations, such as Chelsea Piers in Manhattan and the exclusive Polo Club in Barcelona. These are not just fitness hubs; they are brands in their own right and they shape the expectations of the entire fitness market,” Damen adds. Life Fitness opened ‘experience hubs’ in both Barcelona and the US to create highly curated opportunities for potential customers to interact with the equipment before the official launch.

Elevating launch through experience hubs

One of the most effective parts of the Symbio strategy was the use of these exclusive experience hubs. These dedicated locations allowed potential buyers to test the equipment, experience the brand’s values firsthand, and see how the innovative features of the new range aligned with their own standards of excellence. As Damen puts it: “You can’t sell this kind of specialist technical fitness equipment online or with a simple brochure. People need to experience it for themselves, feel the quality and understand the benefits firsthand.”

The hubs also served as testing grounds for early customer feedback, helping Life Fitness further refine the products before their broader release. These experiences were complemented by private showings at trade shows such as FIBO and IHRSA, where Life Fitness revealed prototypes behind closed doors, allowing a select group of B2B buyers to preview the equipment early.

“We wanted our target customers to feel special, to feel that this launch was about them,” says Damen. By the time the full marketing campaign rolled out, Life Fitness had already secured strong buy-in from influential partners, including Fox Hills Golf Club and Hyatt Hotels.

Crafting a story that stands out

Behind all this marketing activity was Syn, Life Fitness’s creative agency. The Leeds-based agency helped craft the story of Symbio, from creating the name to developing a multi-channel campaign that seamlessly blended emotion with information. According to Syn’s creative lead, Adam Clark, the agency worked closely with the Life Fitness team, spending time at the experience hubs, speaking with engineers and trainers, and understanding the essence of the product. This culminated in a campaign that was fully integrated across digital, experiential and physical channels.

“Life Fitness has always been an industry leader, but we knew it was time to re-establish that reputation,” says Clark. “With the Symbio range, we wanted to signal a clear return to our innovation roots. We wanted to move beyond the cold, hard specs that usually dominate B2B marketing. We created a brand that represents the synergy of body and machine, a concept that we translated into everything from product names to visual identity.”

The name Symbio itself draws inspiration from symbiosis – two entities working together for mutual benefit – encapsulating how Life Fitness envisions the connection between user and machine.

Syn’s work was not just about designing a striking visual campaign. They were also instrumental in ensuring the messaging connected deeply with a select group of buyers. This included everything from the creation of bespoke digital content to developing campaign guidelines, ensuring that every piece of collateral remained consistent across Life Fitness’s global markets. The campaign also utilized interactive experiences online through a dedicated landing page, allowing potential buyers to get a taste of the product’s innovative features.

The challenges of selling to B2B buyers

Selling premium fitness equipment to health clubs and hospitality groups is vastly different from consumer marketing. The B2B sales cycle is considerably longer, the investments larger, and the buying journey more complex. Damen explains that targeting hotel owners is particularly challenging, as fitness is often just a small part of their overall budget compared with health clubs and gyms, where equipment is a core offering.

“With hotels, we’re often working with procurement managers who have an array of priorities. They need to understand how fitness equipment fits into the larger guest experience,” Damen notes. Syn recognized this complexity and created a content strategy tailored to different decision-makers within these organizations, from the C-suite to the operational level, ensuring all stakeholders felt informed and involved in the purchase journey.

For health clubs, on the other hand, the focus was on creating a clear distinction of the Symbio range’s benefits. As Clark at Syn puts it: “These clubs need to feel that Symbio isn’t just a piece of fitness equipment, it’s an experience. It’s something that allows them to market their own offerings better, enhance their brand image, and improve member retention.”