The Success of Exercise Right


As we reflect on the success of ESSA throughout the last 30 years, it’s important celebrate our public awareness platform, Exercise Right, which has played a key role in the promotion of exercise for everyday Australians and how to find expert advice from the most qualified exercise professionals in Australia.


What is Exercise Right?
Exercise Right is ESSA’s public awareness campaign, with the aim to inspire all Australians to be healthier and more active, and to seek advice from the right accredited exercise and sports science professional for their needs. ESSA wants to help educate the public as to who their members are and highlight the role they play in the allied health, fitness and sports industries.

Exercise Right is a brand built on providing evidence-based advice, exercise motivation and informative content to the Australian public. This is accomplished through a range of blogs and factsheets on the Exercise Right website, as well as via eNewsletters, social media platforms and industry partnerships.

Exercise Right’s major campaign, Exercise Right Week, is held throughout the last week of May each year. It is recognised by a large range of organisations and continues to grow in popularity.




History
Exercise Right was founded in 2014 when ESSA’s Marketing Manager, Zoe Bickerstaffe, realised there was a communication gap between ESSA and the general public.

“When I started in the marketing unit of ESSA, it was obvious to see that the key aim was to promote our professions to all Australians. This objective, coupled with a growth in ‘content marketing’, started the foundations of Exercise Right,” says Zoe.

And just like that, Exercise Right was born.

Even coming up with the term ‘Exercise Right’ was difficult. How do you package up everything we do in a couple of words? We focused on the idea that we are there to provide the right exercise prescription to the right person, yet we didn’t want to pigeonhole ourselves to a certain sector of the population. Our members can provide you with the right knowledge on how to exercise right for who you are, plain and simple.

Exercise Right started as a celebration and awareness week, with a website to support and provide additional information. The first Exercise Right Week in May 2014 was a small affair, averaging around 50-70 people visiting the website each day. The highlight of the week was the media interest received, allowing the awareness week to be listed through the Federal Government on the Department of Health’s national calendar. All of this allowed the platform to grow.

Within months of the website starting, we saw a huge gap in the market for an evidence-based exercise advice website where users could trust the content. We see health and exercise ‘expert’ bloggers popping up everywhere, so we wanted to position ourselves as the authority on exercise.

Fast forward seven years and we have seen billboards, digital and magazine advertising, thousands of member promotional packs, hundreds of local events, a catalogue of almost 600 blogs, media enquiries, multiple mini-campaigns, and much more.

Exercise Right is now becoming a known brand and one we want to develop even more to support our members and their work
.”
Growth
Exercise Right has grown exponentially since its humble beginnings. The website now sees over 70,000 users every month and almost 50,000 followers across its social media channels. In 2021, we will have over 1 million individuals accessing and engaging with Exercise Right content.

In the earlier years, ESSA noticed a significant gap in the market when it came to resources or information for the Australian public and parents that highlighted the importance of exercise for children, particularly those with chronic conditions and disabilities. In February of 2017, Exercise Right expanded to include ‘Exercise Right for Kids’, which offers downloadable resources for children with chronic conditions, such as factsheets, activity charts, eBooks and posters. Find out more here.

In 2018, Exercise Right decided to expand its audience and launch a new campaign. Partnering with Exercise is Medicine® Australia to target medical professionals, Exercise Right announced ‘Exercise Right for Doctors’. The main purpose is to highlight the crucial role that exercise plays for the prevention, management and treatment of chronic conditions, and that exercise is medicine when prescribed by suitably qualified professionals, like Accredited Exercise Physiologists (AEPs). The aim of the campaign is also to educate doctors as to who AEPs are, as well as when and how to refer to them. Find out more here.

The ‘Exercise Right for Active Ageing program’ has been designed for older Australians over 65. Funding from the Australian Government’s Move it AUS – Better Ageing Grants Program helps to subsidise 12 group exercise classes that are delivered by our Accredited Exercise Scientists and Accredited Exercise Physiologists. The program, which is offered in over 190 locations, aims to help older Australians to move more through affordable exercise classes, improve their quality of life and overall health, and connect with like-minded people in a fun and friendly setting. Find out more here.

When the pandemic hit and exercising in gyms was put on an (at the time) indefinite hold, we knew we needed to help find a way to bridge that gap of exercising safely at home. 'Exercise Right at Home' was launched in early 2020 and offers a range of workouts that you can do in the safety of your home, put together by our accredited exercise professionals, as well as downloadable resources to help educate and inspire Australians to stay active at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. The information produced was quickly utilised by many State Governments across their own health social media, this included exercise resources for hotel quarantine guests. Find out more.

Earlier this year, Exercise Right continued its partnership with Nike Australia by launching the ‘Exercise Right Performance Hub’ to further educate the everyday athlete. The Performance Hub is a research-based platform dedicated to helping you excel in your chosen exercise, sport or passion, with all advice provided by accredited exercise professionals. The Performance Hub includes educational videos and blogs which provides expert performance advice from our accredited exercise professionals and has reached over 20,000 individuals via the Exercise Right website. Find out more here.

The growth of Exercise Right Week is another indicator of the brand’s success. This year’s campaign (which ran from 24th—30th May) saw more than 60 members host Exercise Right events around Australia, almost 70,000 people visit the Exercise Right website and almost half a million people reached via social media. It also generated a high volume of media coverage and public participation.


What’s next?
There are plenty of exciting projects on the horizon with a determination to make 2022 Exercise Right’s biggest year yet. Suari Price, who manages the Exercise Right platform, says that there is so much potential for growth within the Exercise Right brand.

Exercise Right is still a relatively young brand and much of its success to this point has been mostly organic. Now that we have a decent audience, it’s not just the general public paying attention to our content. There is a real opportunity to capitalise on this momentum and expand our audience within both the media and the allied health space.”

The next 12 months will see Exercise Right forge more partnerships, as well as focusing on generating more media relationships and making ESSA members the “go-to” experts in the health, fitness and sports industries.

The next Exercise Right Week will be held from the 23 ‒ 29 May 2022, and we are determined to break all of our previous records. The theme and further information on this campaign will be released to our members in early 2022, so stay tuned.


How ESSA members can get involved
There are plenty of ways ESSA members can get involved with Exercise Right to help spread the word about seeking advice from the right exercise professional:
  • Blogs – Share your expertise by writing a blog for the Exercise Right website.
  • Videos – Share your knowledge, tips and training tips (and promote the work you do) by being featuring in Exercise Right educational videos.
  • Factsheets – Do you specialise in a specific condition/s? Help to contribute to our factsheets! These are used to help educate our audience about how exercise can impact a range of conditions.
  • Exercise Right Week – This is your chance to shine! When registrations open early next year, register to host an event during Exercise Right Week and help us raise awareness by sharing our content.

Read through the wide range of blogs, fact sheets and resources by visiting the Exercise Right website today.

Click here

Supporting health through exercise for 30 years 

To celebrate 30 years of Exercise & Sports Science Australia (ESSA), we are reflecting on 30 stories which commemorate the profound impact the exercise and sports science industry and its professionals have had on our communities, and how they have benefited the health landscape in Australia.

Click here to read more like this one