Discover what kind of email marketing works for fitness businesses.
Everyone is talking about how great email marketing is.
How you can grow your business…
Or earn extra revenue…
Based on everything we hear, email marketing truly sounds fantastic!
But does it actually work for fitness businesses?
Well, yes! It works!
It can work for modern fitness studios and small family gyms.
But, you need to know what to send.
If you are already collecting emails from your members and looking for ideas, this guide is for you. Here you will find new ideas that can improve your email marketing and increase engagement.
On the other hand, if you don’t have an email database, this will help you see why it is important to have one and how it can help you grow your business.
Why should you send emails to existing members if they are already paying?
As you have probably experienced, people come and go. It is totally natural. But even if it is natural that people stop coming to your place after a certain time, you want to make that relationship last as long as possible. There is a simple reason for this – it takes much less money, effort, and time to keep existing members at your place than to attract new ones.
Forbes’s conclusion based on research and surveys is that increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profit by 25% to 95%.
With this in mind, let this guide help you to retain your customers!
Welcome email
If you are obtaining email addresses from people when they become members, you should wish them a warm welcome.
This is a great chance to catch the momentum and start building relationships.
Here are few things you can do with your Welcome email:
Introduce new members to the loyalty program.
Tell members what they can expect to receive in the following emails (warming up is important with email communication also).
Ask your members to whitelist you.
Provide information about any special offer they may have purchased while joining.
Pro tip: Even if welcome emails have the highest open rates, you don’t want to put too many calls to action. Focus on ONE crucial goal. Why? The less option you give to your members, the easier it will be for them to choose one. Multiple calls to action can confuse people. And in that case, high open rates don’t mean much if no one is clicking to grab a special offer, learn more of like you on Facebook.
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Milestones
Fitness and a healthy lifestyle require a lot of passion and motivation. And it is always nice when someone acknowledges it.
Use achievement and milestone emails to remind members of their progress. If you are keeping track of members’ visits, turn that data into strong motivation.
New members made their first 5 training sessions? Mention it! 3 months of training? Make it special! One year of hard dedication! Celebrate!
Special deals
Take advantage of holidays and special occasions and start running special deals.
But here is a catch with special deals for existing members.
It is not about lowering your prices, it is more about getting them to stay longer with you.
Use holidays to offer your members 20% off on a 6-month membership. They can save long-term while you are making sure that they will stay with you.
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Challenges
If you like to create challenges to engage your members, you should definitely use emails to make a big announcement.
You are not only going to break a boring cycle, but you will also create friendly competition among your members.
But why stop there?
Invite your members to share the announcement with friends — and with a simple email, you’ve created an opportunity to sign more members.
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Educational
Even with the internet, people still don’t have time to research the best exercise and diet plans.
If you already have a blog or educational material, make sure that your members get it.
Giving something of value without asking for anything in return will help you make your relationship with members even stronger.
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Review requests
The more positive reviews you have, the easier it is for you to get new members.
If you are not getting enough reviews, try to ask for them.
And by ask, I don’t mean to mention it casually. People forget.
Use emails to ask for a friendly favor.
But remember, if you are already asking for a favor, make sure it is super easy for people to do it.
This means, give clear instructions and make it possible for them to do it in 2-3 steps only.
Need cool ideas for fitness marketing? Check out How to get more paying members – 4 powerful methods for fitness businesses.
Happy Birthday emails
Depending on the content management tool you are using, or how you collect members’ data, you may have information about their special days.
Whether you are planning to give them a small gift or you are going to wish them the best, people will appreciate that you have remembered.
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Ask for referrals
Encourage people to talk about you and boost word of mouth marketing.
You can target one group of loyal members and send personal emails or target all of your existing members.
Statistics show that more than 50% of people are looking for some kind of reward for referrals.
So yes, rewards and referrals go great together.
But it doesn’t mean people won’t talk about your business for free if they really like it.
Win back campaigns.
Your members won’t stick around forever. That’s the fact.
But even when someone stops visiting your studio, that doesn’t have to be the final goodbye.
Instead of putting money into attracting new members, it is much easier and cost-effective to bring back old ones.
Win-back campaigns work great with special offers.
But sometimes you won’t have to offer anything. A simple reminder will be enough to re-engage people.
Announcements
New products are coming?
Have a new loyalty or referral program?
Changing operating hours?
Starting a new training program?
Announcement emails are a great way to get people caught up with new things that are happening.
And when done correctly, you can generate sales or attract new members using emails only.
