Summary: In this article I explore how MrBeast would market a fitness business, and what fitness professionals can learn from his approach to attention, storytelling, referrals, content, and growth.
5 things you’ll learn in this article
- How to make your fitness business website more clickable, clearer, and easier to act on
- Why storytelling and client journeys are powerful fitness marketing tools
- How MrBeast’s approach to content marketing can improve your reach and engagement
- What fitness businesses can learn from Feastables and MrBeast Burger about referrals and shareability
- How to build a stronger fitness marketing system across email, paid ads, offline marketing, and promotions
How would the most viral content creator of our generation market a fitness business?
Success leaves clues, and I was interested in the clues that MrBeast’s digital empire would leave for health and fitness business owners. I wanted to unpack his approach to business and see what we can borrow for our industry. I did a similar deep dive to how Elon Musk would disrupt the gym industry, which you can read here or listen to here.
If you’ve ever turned on the internet, you know MrBeast, or Jimmy Donaldson. He’s one of the most successful creators on YouTube, building an audience of more than 100 million subscribers by creating videos that are impossible to ignore. His content usually involves huge challenges, massive giveaways, and large-scale acts of generosity.
But MrBeast is not just a YouTuber. He is also a very switched-on entrepreneur. He has built several businesses off the back of his audience, including MrBeast Burger, Feastables chocolate, and the viral mobile game ‘Finger on the App’. He has also donated millions of dollars to causes such as food banks, environmental projects, and people in need.
What makes MrBeast interesting is not just the scale of what he does. It is the way he thinks about his businesses. Everything he does is designed to capture attention, hold attention, and be shared. He constantly experiments, studies what works, and reinvests almost everything he earns back into making even better content.
So what can he teach us?
I’ve studied his approach and broken it down into what I see as the eleven most important marketing strategies. I covered each of these in more detail in my article and podcast ‘The One Page Fitness Marketing Checklist’, which you can check out on episode 79 of the podcast. You can also download the one page marketing checklist here.
The eleven areas we’ll be examining through the lens of MrBeast are:
- Website
- Documentation and Storytelling
- Content Marketing
- Micro-Influencer Marketing
- Referral Process
- Email Marketing
- Customer/Member Reactivation
- Paid Social Media Advertising
- Paid Search Engine Advertising
- Offline Marketing
- Promotions and Tactics
Website
Your business needs a simple, professional website that clearly explains who you help and how you help them, builds trust with social proof, and makes it extremely easy for the right people to take the next step.
So how would MrBeast create a website for a fitness business?
One of his biggest obsessions is making people feel like they have to click. He spends an enormous amount of time on the thumbnails for his YouTube videos because he knows that in an impatient, short-attention-span economy, first impressions really matter.
MrBeast talks a lot about the idea of a ‘purple cow’, which is borrowed from Seth Godin’s book of the same name. The idea is that if you’re driving past a field full of cows, the only one you’ll notice is the purple cow. In the Diary of a CEO podcast MrBeast said the best ideas should make people say, ‘What the fuck, I’ve never seen that’.
If he were building a website, he would be looking for a clear and unusual homepage that looks different from everyone else. If we look at the Feastables website, we can see that it’s built around really low-friction next steps. It’s very easy for people to purchase the product, find stores where they can buy it, or get support.
He would build a website for a fitness business that acts as a central hub with clear calls to action and very obvious next steps. Ultimately, the business needs a website that not only looks good, but actually converts, captures leads, retargets visitors, and feeds the rest of the marketing machine we’re building.
Documentation and Storytelling
You need to consistently document the life of your business and share client journeys so potential clients can see people like them overcoming problems with your help.
Storytelling is at the heart of MrBeast’s digital empire. It’s worth looking at Beast Philanthropy to see how he uses real-world documentation to shape behaviour and tell powerful stories. The official positioning of Beast Philanthropy is to use social media to ‘educate and inspire’ an entire generation. Jimmy Donaldson has often talked about his desire to inspire a movement.
This is exactly the way he would approach documenting the inner workings of a fitness business. It’s about showing the life of the business in a way that builds emotion, gives people a story to tell, and creates belief in the outcomes you promise.
One thing MrBeast does exceptionally well is show the before-and-after narrative. This is not just a visual transformation like weight loss. It’s a deeper emotional storytelling arc.
MrBeast isn’t using storytelling just for entertainment. He’s using it to create behavioural change. That’s exactly what a fitness business should do. The purpose of storytelling is to influence behaviour, encouraging people to start with your business and commit to long-term change.
Ultimately, people watch MrBeast’s content because of the storytelling. It just happens that the moral of the story often has a philanthropic or legacy-building impact.
Content Marketing
You should regularly create useful educational content that solves the problems of your target avatar and positions you as the obvious expert in your niche.
One of the big lessons from MrBeast regarding content marketing is the importance of making something people actually want to watch. Too many fitness business owners focus on the process of creating content or the systems they use to produce it.
Instead, MrBeast judges content on three simple criteria: do people click it, do they keep watching it, and do they feel good about it afterwards?
I often reference the Steve Martin quote about being ‘so good they can’t ignore you’. I think MrBeast would strongly agree with this idea. He aims to create content that people simply cannot ignore.
He also talks a lot about the purple cow effect. If he were running your content marketing system, he would strongly discourage boring, interchangeable content that everyone else is posting. Instead, he would push you to create content with a stronger premise, clearer packaging, and higher curiosity. Ultimately, something different.
Micro-Influencer Marketing
Your business needs systems that encourage clients to share their experiences publicly so their stories create authentic social proof for people just like them.
MrBeast leveraged his viral presence to launch MrBeast Burger. Originally it was a pop-up burger joint that has since evolved into a delivery-based burger brand. The initial MrBeast Burger launch was essentially a marketing stunt designed to be shared.
This wasn’t Kardashian-level influencer marketing. It was much smaller, but far more widespread micro-influencer marketing. On the MrBeast Burger website it describes the launch as a ‘one-of-a-kind experience’, featuring branded packaging, uniforms, signage, and a free meal. They even described it as the world’s first free restaurant.
This was perfect fuel for micro-influencer marketing. The whole point wasn’t simply to get people trying the burgers. It was to get people posting about them. A fitness business should think the same way about member experiences.
If we look at the Beast Philanthropy YouTube channel, we see the same strategy. Supporters are constantly encouraged to watch, like, and share the videos, with 100% of the revenue going to charity. In the fitness industry, the equivalent is creating shareable moments so your audience becomes the distributor of your message.
I talk a lot about the importance of remarkable experiences. If your business gives people ordinary moments, they won’t post them. If you give them extraordinary experiences, they will share them for you.
Referral Process
You need a clear and consistent referral system that makes it easy and rewarding for clients to introduce their friends to your business.
Ultimately, the whole point of a referral process is bringing someone you care about to experience a business. One of the cleverest examples I’ve seen comes from MrBeast’s Feastables products.
Out of curiosity when they first launched, I bought a Feastables chocolate bar. As soon as I opened the wrapper, I saw the marketing genius behind the product. The first square of chocolate had the word ‘share’ embossed into it.
MrBeast had literally built the referral process into the product. The idea is that the first square is designed to be shared with someone else.
The best way to test a product, whether it’s a chocolate bar or a personal training session, is to experience it. By making every chocolate bar shareable, every purchase becomes a potential referral. If MrBeast were applying this logic to a fitness business, he would look for ways to make the experience itself shareable.
Email Marketing
Your business should regularly email your network with helpful, problem-solving content that builds trust and keeps you top of mind.
One of the big challenges MrBeast faces is that much of his empire is built on rented attention. YouTube owns his subscribers. Social media platforms own his followers.
If we look at Feastables, we can see how he pushes visitors towards channels he controls. As an ecommerce brand, it moves people towards owned customer relationships. The lesson for fitness businesses is simple. You shouldn’t rely solely on social media. You should build your own database.
In terms of email content, we can again look at Beast Philanthropy for inspiration. Emails shouldn’t just announce offers. They should tell stories, share wins, provide social proof, and teach useful things. Ultimately, the goal is to make readers feel like they are part of something bigger.
Customer / Member Reactivation
You need a system to identify past or disengaging clients and reconnect with them in a thoughtful way that reminds them they are valued.
One of the things MrBeast often talks about in interviews is the importance of mistakes and weak performance. In the Lex Fridman podcast he said, ‘They don’t lie, the surveys’.
His point is that businesses shouldn’t guess why people disengage. They should go directly to the source and ask. Every departure is an opportunity to learn.
MrBeast also talks about quality at the product level. In the Diary of a CEO podcast he explained that he didn’t want customers to receive a broken Feastables chocolate bar because that would be the worst customer experience possible. The lesson is simple. Retention is not just about follow-up messaging. It’s about fixing the experience that caused people to disengage in the first place.
Paid Social Media Advertising
Your business should run well-targeted social media ads that guide cold, warm, and lookalike audiences through the journey from awareness to action.
MrBeast would take a very straightforward approach to paid social advertising. Creative beats everything. He says the key metrics are click-through rate, watch time, and satisfaction.
Your ads shouldn’t be judged by how clever they sound or how polished they look. They should be judged by whether they make the right people stop and take action. MrBeast often summarises the whole game like this: get people to click, get them to watch, and make sure they’re happy.
If he were running ads for a fitness business, they would need to hook fast, hold attention, and leave the viewer better off. He also emphasises constant experimentation. Compare outcomes, take notes, and remove emotion from the process. This is exactly the approach he uses with his videos.
Paid Search Engine Advertising
You should run Google search ads that capture people actively looking for your service and direct them to a clear next step.
MrBeast would use the purple cow concept to make search ads stand out. But standing out alone isn’t enough. The message also needs to make immediate sense.
Search advertising works differently from social media. Instead of pushing a message to someone, you are responding to something they are already searching for. If MrBeast were running search ads for a fitness business, he would likely be ruthlessly focused on conversions. If the ad isn’t generating conversions, it isn’t working, and it should be changed.
Offline Marketing
Your business needs to be visibly active in the local community so people regularly see you, know you, and talk about you.
For someone with such a massive digital presence, MrBeast also understands the power of real-world experiences. MrBeast Burger is a great example. Thousands of fans attended the launch because it was marketed as the world’s first free restaurant. This real-world event created huge online buzz.
Once again, we come back to the purple cow principle. People remember unusual things. If you want to become locally famous, it’s not enough to simply be visible. You need to create moments that people actually talk about. That goes far beyond flyers and posters.
Promotions and Tactics
You should use occasional promotions to create bursts of new clients, but only as a supplement to a strong long-term marketing system.
MrBeast cleverly combines promotions with content. He sometimes posts YouTube Shorts where he offers people money if they’re subscribed to his channel. These short-term tactics aren’t as powerful as his main videos, but they generate attention and tell stories.
Again, MrBeast Burger is a great example. The launch wasn’t just a promotion. It was a spectacle. The key lesson is that promotions should tell stories and create emotion. When done well, they become content and a referral engine at the same time.
However, there is also an important lesson here. Over time, MrBeast Burger faced quality issues that damaged brand perception. This brings us back to an important truth. No matter how good your promotions are, they must sit on top of a remarkable customer experience. Promotions cannot replace quality.
Final Thoughts
Jimmy Donaldson has shown himself to be an incredibly smart businessperson. Although asking how he would run a health or fitness business is a bit of fun, it also allows us to apply an outsider’s perspective to our industry.
By benchmarking outside our own field, we can draw inspiration from other entrepreneurs and industries. That is often where the most interesting ideas come from. And sometimes those ideas help us create our own purple cow.
Your action steps:
- Make your website easier to act on. Review your fitness business website and make sure it clearly explains who you help, how you help, and what the next step is.
- Share more real client stories. Use your marketing to document real client journeys so potential clients can see proof, progress, and people like them succeeding.
- Create content people actually want to watch. Judge your fitness content marketing by whether people click, keep watching, and feel helped afterwards.
- Build shareability into the experience. Look for ways to make your service easier to share through referrals, guest passes, memorable moments, and client-driven word of mouth.
- Strengthen the full marketing system. Treat email marketing, paid advertising, offline marketing, and promotions as connected parts of one fitness business growth strategy.
