Don’t Procrastinate, Automate!

How Email Automations Reduce Administrative Time

I’m a huge fan of the saying, “work smarter, not harder.” While a ton of hard work is required to run a business, there are small adjustments you can implement in your everyday life that will save significant time, allowing you to indeed work smarter, and not harder. This motto should hold true for administrative tasks because lets face it, who enjoys spending hours on manual tasks that could be automated?

With the technology available today, there are several manual time-consuming, and even downright grueling, tasks that become instantly become simplified through the power of automation. A good example of life-changing automations for fitness business owners include automated billing and automated email communication. Today, we’re going to discuss how everyday emails at your fitness business can be automated to save you time.

What Types of Emails Can You Automate?

You can and should setup automations for just about any type of email outside of responses to questions you receive. The goal of automating your email communication is to save you time and build relationships with current and prospective members.

When someone new walks through your door to try out a class, do you send a thank you email to follow up with them and encourage them to sign up? How long does that email take to write and send? How many first-time visitors do you typically get a week? Let’s say you get five new visitors a week and each email takes about five minutes to write and send. That’s over 1.5 hours a month that you’re sending follow-up emails alone.

For current members, do you send regular emails to check in with them or check up if they haven’t attended class in a while? Email communication is an excellent way to show your members that they’re valued and that you’re thinking about them. Emails can also act as a valuable asset in your member retention strategy. However, sending these valuable emails on a weekly basis can quickly become a huge time suck.

Before using Zen Planner, Tony Redmond, owner of Oasis Martial Arts spent several hours each week sending emails to his students. “With automating emails, we easily save 12-15 hours a week. I can use this extra time to focus on teaching,” Redmond states.

What Type of Solution Do You Need?

A good fitness business software solution will make it easy for you to automate your daily business emails. This eliminates the need for you to sort through endless spreadsheets and engage in time-consuming measures to convey important messages to your members. Email automations should be integrated with your system so that they can be easily driven by all of the important member information you already have for your clients. For instance, you can use automation to remind your clients when they need to pay their membership fees and encourage your students to take a new class or try a new program. You can also direct your team to reach out to members who need a little extra attention via emails.

Email Automation Tips

As discussed throughout the article, there are several different types email communications you can automate. Here are some of the most common ones.

• Problem: A specific member hasn’t been to class in a while. You’re beginning to worry they might be close to dropping their membership.
  • Solution: Setup an automated email to be sent out to any member who has not checked in for class in two weeks. This email should let them know that they’re missed and that they can quickly get back on track by coming in that week.
• Problem: You are looking for ways to make your members feel valued and to show them that they matter to you.
  • Solution: Create automations to wish members a happy birthday or to celebrate their one-year anniversary at the gym. Let your personality shine through by getting clever and creative with these emails (a simple “happy birthday!” might not seem genuine enough).
• Problem: You feel like your gym is growing and you worry you’re losing the personal relationships with your members that you’ve worked so hard to build.
  • Solution: Create automations to be sent out to each member on a quarterly basis. This email can encourage members to schedule a free 15-minute check in session with you to discuss accomplishments, establish new goals and answer any questions or concerns they might have about their training.

Save time anywhere you can so you can focus on doing the things you actually want to do like instructing your members, developing amazing programming and building solid relationships. We guarantee that doing this will make your job much more enjoyable and fulfilling.

Are you evaluating member management software solutions for your fitness business? There are several things you need to know before selecting one. We have developed a helpful checklist so you know which questions to each provider your analyzing. Download your free checklist, 9 Things to Know Before Buying Software to Run Your Business.