CoreBody Asia: 4.7× More First-Time Trial Bookings for a Petaling Jaya Pilates, Hot Yoga and Barre Studio with Micro-KOLs
A full KOL programme for CoreBody Asia, a boutique Reformer Pilates, hot yoga and barre studio in Damansara Uptown: 28 Klang Valley micro-KOLs, in-studio creator experience events, scripted UGC and whitelisted creator-handle ads on Instagram and TikTok, measured in first-time trial bookings and studio fill rate.
The client
CoreBody Asia runs Reformer Pilates, hot yoga and barre classes from a studio in Damansara Uptown, Petaling Jaya. Its customers live close by: the campaign targeted women aged 22 to 38 within about 8 km of Petaling Jaya and Bangsar.
A studio like this grows one first class at a time, so the job was to fill trial slots with the right people, not to chase reach.
The problem
At the start of the six-month flight the studio was booking about 42 first-time trials a month, each trial booked through paid media cost RM 145, and classes ran at 44% of capacity. Its social accounts reached about 35,000 people a month. Brand-handle ads were earning a 1.15% click-through rate.
What we did
- Talent scouting in the catchment. 28 micro-KOLs chosen for where their followers live and train, not follower count: fitness creators for technique content and lifestyle creators for first-visit stories.
- In-studio experience events. Creators took real classes at the studio, so the content shows the room, the equipment and the instructors as a first-timer meets them.
- Two content lines. Form and posture guides from fitness creators, and first-timer studio vlogs from lifestyle creators, with UGC scripts written by the account team for each line.
- Whitelisted creator-handle ads. The best posts ran as paid ads from the creators' own handles — Meta partnership ads on Instagram and Spark Ads on TikTok — pointed at trial booking.
- Measured in bookings. Every result was read in the studio's own booking system and class schedule, not in views alone.
What we delivered
- 28 micro-KOLs contracted Fitness creators and lifestyle creators within the studio's Klang Valley catchment.
- 52 creator assets delivered Form and posture guides, first-timer studio vlogs and scripted UGC.
- 780,000+ views on first-timer vlogs At a 48% completion rate.
- 14,800 saves and bookmarks On creators' workout posts, from the creators' in-app analytics.
Deliverable counts, supplied by shakalakaa. Not performance metrics.
Results (Six-month flight (Q1–Q2), month 1 to month 6, with month 1 as the baseline)
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| First-time trial bookings a month | 42 | 198 (4.7×) |
| Cost per trial booking (paid media) | RM 145 | RM 46 (−68%) |
| Studio fill rate | 44% | 89% (+45 percentage points) |
| Monthly social reach | 35,000 | 480,000 (13.7×) |
| Cost per video view, creator-handle ads | RM 0.22 | RM 0.07 (−68%) |
| Click-through rate: brand-handle ads against creator-handle ads | 1.15% | 3.82% (3.3×) |
| Return on ad spend, creator-handle ads | — | 4.2× |
| Engagement rate on campaign content | — | 6.4% |
| Trial cost from fitness-creator form guides | — | RM 39 (lowest of the three content lines) |
Sources: Mindbody and the studio CRM (trial bookings), Meta Ads Manager (cost per trial, return on ad spend, creator-handle ad click-through), Meta Business Suite and TikTok (reach), the studio schedule and ClassPass (fill rate), TikTok and Instagram Insights (engagement rate), the creators' in-app analytics (saves), Meta and TikTok Spark Ads reporting (cost per video view) and the agency campaign tracker (creators and assets). The click-through comparison is creator-handle ads against the studio's own brand-handle ads over the same flight. Cost per trial is the client's media cost divided by trial bookings; it is not shakalakaa's fee, which we do not publish.
From the feed
Short videos from the engagement, shot and edited by shakalakaa. They play silently here; the originals, with sound, are on CoreBody Asia's TikTok.
What this means for your Pilates, hot yoga and barre studio
The plain-language version. In six months CoreBody Asia went from about 42 first-time trials a month to 198, each trial booked through paid media cost about a third as much, and classes went from under half full to nearly full. The ads that did the work ran from the creators' own handles, not the studio's, and earned more than three times the clicks.
More detail on what this means for your pilates, hot yoga and barre studio
What this says about shakalakaa: for a single-location service business, creator work pays when it is local, shot in the venue, and run as ads against a booking — the approach set out on our KOL and creator marketing page.
If you are comparing agencies, read this as a fitness studio KOL marketing case study Malaysia studio owners can check line by line: every figure on this page comes from the sources listed under the results.
Client results
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