Three Ways You Can Use Email Marketing to Grow Your Fitness Business

If you’ve ever purchased anything online, you likely have also received a follow up email that offers you additional items that you might be interested in. I have two school-aged children who seem to grow out of clothes as soon as we rip the tags off. As a result, I’m a frequent flier on sites like Hanna Anderson and OshKosh for kids. In turn, these companies frequently send me emails with their latest sales, discounts or notification about new products. No surprise that these emails often get me to click and buy even more. As my credit card company can tell you, it is indeed a vicious cycle for me, but obviously incredibly lucrative for these companies.

Now let’s talk about how that can translate for fitness businesses.

Bring New Members into Your Gym or Studio And….?

Most fitness business owners spend a ton of time, effort and money attracting new members. Offers such as “buy one month and get another month free” or “try us for free for one week” are popular for many gyms or studios. These offers may bring folks in the door that would not have come in otherwise. But, how these first-time visitors are followed up with is as important as getting them in the door. If you just bring someone in, but don’t have a methodical way for following up with them, then you may be wasting those promotional and marketing dollars. This is where email marketing can help.

1. Turn a Free Trial Into a Paying Gym or Studio Member

Let’s say someone comes in for a trial membership or a free class. Once they leave your gym, there are a million other things that they may be thinking about – work, what they’ll be making for dinner, childcare or an upcoming weekend trip. Your gym or studio needs to compete with a wide range of other things for this visitor’s attention. In order to stay top-of-mind, you can set up an automated email that would go out to any first-time visitor that would say something such as, “Thanks for checking us out, here is some additional information about our gym.” You can include information in this email about your coaches, a weight loss success story of gym member or your schedule. The email serves to remind your first-time visitor that you are thinking about them and may make this person pause to add “follow up with ABC gym or MA studio” to their “to do” list. In fact, you can send a series of emails starting with “Thanks for checking us out” and followed by a series of emails to stay top-of-mind to your gym member. If you’re not doing this now, just create one email that you can send automatically to any first-time visitors.

2. Get Folks Back Who Came Into Your Gym or Studio Last Year (or the Year Before….)

Now that you have a plan for first-time visitors, let’s think about that list of folks who visited your gym or studio last year (or the year before). These past visitors are also fantastic targets for an email marketing campaign. Sending a follow up email or a series of emails that says something like, “We’d love for you to visit us again” may give a one-time long-ago visitor the motivation to come back to your gym or studio to check it out again. A series of emails could include subject lines and related content such as “visit us again” with a promotional offer, an email that talks about your coaches or instructors, information about your schedule and/or a success story of one of your members. In fact, to make things easier, you can use the emails you created for first-time visitors with a few tweaks.

3. Talk to Your Current Gym Members

Improving communication to your current gym or studio members can dramatically help keep them coming back to your fitness business. You can set up emails to congratulate a member when she reaches a key milestone, such as a new personal record or when she attains a weight loss goal. You can also set up emails to automatically go out on member birthdays or on other key milestones, such as the anniversary of joining your gym or studio. Don’t forget to use emails to keep gym members up-to-date on schedule changes, new classes or upcoming community events. Make sure the information you send out is timely and relevant for the majority of your members and try to be consistent with the timing. For example, if you send out a newsletter, send it at approximately the same time each and every month.

Now that you have some easy-to-implement email marketing tips, take the next step in expanding your marketing efforts by getting your copy of our 10 Step Gym Marketing Guide. From social media tips to persona development, this informative guide contains everything you need to beef up your marketing strategy this year.