No Fluff, Just Results: How LNDR Use Strava to Grow a Global Tribe of Women Who Train

How LNDR Leverage Strava to Scale with Substance

When LNDR launched their performance apparel brand, they wanted to cut through the BS – and that ethos runs through every thread of their marketing strategy. With a clear tone of voice, a laser-sharp customer profile, and some key market leading styles, LNDR has managed to build a high-impact brand by refusing to compromise on quality, style, or values. Recently, they extended this approach to a new platform: Strava.

In early 2025, LNDR launched a Sponsored Challenge on Strava with the goal of expanding their global presence and introducing their brand to highly engaged, like-minded athletes. The results? A 90% new contact rate, a wave of user-generated content (UGC), and a significant lift in brand visibility across key markets.

We sat down with Lauren Houghton, LNDR’s Digital Brand and Content Manager, to gain a clearer insight into the brand’s unique marketing strategy and vision.

Who is LNDR? A Brand with Backbone 

LNDR is a female performancewear brand that takes a long-term view of its products. They focus on a simple yet differentiating ethos of making less, but making them better - for us and for the planet.

“We’re not the same average apparel dressed up in a different lurid design or aspirational slogan,” says Lauren. “We’re about premium, high-performance clothing that sculpts, supports, and performs. No fluff, no ‘you got this!’ messages - just better products, painstakingly developed to enhance workouts.”

LNDR focuses on high-quality gear built for performance across disciplines, rather than chasing seasonal trends. Take The Chisel, LNDR’s pioneering super-sculpting legging, engineered for performance and versatility, whether for weightlifting, running, HIIT, or Pilates. LNDR customers aren’t driven by fashion and trends - they're looking for understated quality pieces that come with the classic European style of the brand. They prioritize longevity and performance.

The result? A laser-focused brand that speaks directly to its audience.

A Mighty Marketing Machine: Small Team, Big Results

LNDR’s marketing team is compact but powerful. “We run a tight ship,” says Lauren. Co-founder Joanna Turner leads the charge alongside Lauren, who steers digital brand and content. A contracted Performance Manager handles paid digital activity, while a global team of freelancing creatives supports on-demand. 

This focus is especially important for a 100% online business with global ambitions. Their primary customer base? Women aged 30–60 who work out more than four times a week, and who care as much about quality and function as they do about fit and feel.

“Our customers are smart and know themselves – they’re not chasing trends or looking for t-shirt slogans to motivate them. They’re accumulating a wardrobe that performs – timeless, flattering, and built to last,” Lauren explains.

This commitment to ‘less but better’ is mirrored in LNDR’s channel strategy. They rely heavily on Meta, Google, YouTube, and organic social media to drive awareness, supplemented by a growing ambassador program that showcases real women sweating in LNDR gear. “As a D2C digital business, we understand the importance of seeing real women who really work out wearing our kit,” Lauren says. “So we’ve focused on building our ambassador program and gaining UGC from all different types of athletes.” 

This commitment to authenticity also shapes how the team evaluates success. “Our key metric is customer growth - new but maybe more importantly the percentage of returning customers, people coming back to us is what’s most important as it means we're producing something better."

The Strava Fit: Why LNDR Took on a New Challenge

In 2024, LNDR identified Strava as a high-potential channel for both awareness and acquisition. With a target demographic that trains regularly and seriously, the alignment felt natural. “We’re currently 100% online so it’s important that we use methods to grow our key territories with a focus on digital and global strategies, which connects nicely into Strava - being able to connect with active people within their local communities in a global and digital way,” explains Lauren.

“Our surveys also told us a good percentage of our customers work out 4+ times a week,” says Lauren. “They invest in their performancewear and take training seriously. That sounded a lot like the Strava community.”

On top of that, “Our goal was to reach a wider audience — but in a way that stayed true to us,” continues Lauren. “We saw Strava as a space full of real women investing in their fitness. The kind of people who would resonate with our ‘No Bllsht’ approach.”

The brand launched their Strava Club in January 2025, followed by a Sponsored Challenge – ‘LNDR Life Not Resolutions’ – in February that invited athletes to complete 300 minutes of activity over two weeks. The reward? A 30% discount on LNDR gear, plus the chance to win a pair of their bestselling leggings.

The results were both impressive and revealing.

The team far exceeded KPIs for database growth, reach, and visibility by 121% in their key markets of the UK, US, and Australia.

The brand also saw significant engagement within their newly launched Strava Club, which gained over 1,700 members during the campaign. More than 2,500 user activities were tagged with LNDR’s name during the two-week period, further amplifying reach through authentic, community-generated content.

Building Community Through Content 

One of the unexpected highlights of the campaign came from the daily giveaways hosted on LNDR’s Club page. To be eligible, participants had to tag LNDR in their activities – a move that sparked a global wave of UGC.

“It was genuinely heartwarming,” Lauren recalls. “Women were getting back into movement just to complete the challenge. We were tagged in hundreds of runs, lifts, walks – it created a community moment that was really special.”

Partnering with over 20 Strava athletes worldwide, LNDR also seeded products to sweat-test during the challenge, resulting in credible content from real users who worked out in their new LDNR gear and shared their experiences organically.

While the team was thrilled with the awareness lift and engagement, they did note some areas for improvement – particularly around converting reward engagement into final sales. Still, the LNDR team views their Strava experience as a strong foundation for future growth. “We hit our goals for database growth and saw strong brand lift in our key markets,” Lauren says. 

Looking ahead at how Strava could continue enhancing LNDR’s marketing efforts, the brand is “enjoying the new Strava activity stickers for pasting to creative for other socials, and we think there’s far more content from Strava that people are wishing to share that could really benefit brands and challenges in the future,” says Lauren.

Trends Shaping the Strategy: Community, Strength, and ‘Less But Better’

Strava insights from its Year in Sport Trend Report align closely with consumer trends that LNDR is already tapping into: a rise in strength training and a preference for coordinated, versatile workout sets. 

“Strength training is now the number one sport among our customer base,” Lauren explains. “Especially with women approaching menopause, there’s a deeper understanding of the long-term benefits of building muscle. That’s reflected in how we shape our content and campaigns.”

As for fashion-forward trends like oversized fits or fast-moving color cycles?

As a brand that does not respond to fast-fashion or trending seasonal changes, LNDR stays the course. “We’re not trend-focused,” Lauren emphasizes. “We create timeless pieces that people can mix, match, and wear season after season. It’s how we stay sustainable – and authentic.”

That mindset extends to marketing. As AI and automation tools become more prevalent, the team is exploring ways to use these resources to work smarter, not louder. LNDR uses AI as a creative resource support “with content briefs and storyboarding for our contractors and partners, as a research tool for creative campaigns and copywriting, for post-production retouching. We're currently Alpha testing with a group that allows input of content to generate multiple outputs of video with variations of hooks for paid creative testing,” shares Lauren.

“Content plays a big role, especially with a global customer base. AI could help us move faster while still creating human, compelling content,” says Lauren.

Conclusion: A Bold Brand Meets a Bold Platform

LNDR’s journey with Strava proves that digital teams with sharp vision can make a global impact – especially when they meet their audience where they already are.

By staying true to their tone, tapping into the right partnerships, and using authenticity as a growth driver, LNDR not only reached thousands of new customers but built genuine connections with a global community of women who train hard and demand more from their gear.

As Lauren says: “There’s no bllsht in our brand. We’re not a life coach or a cheerleader. We offer the support of functional, technically innovative designs — and then we get out of the way.”