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The marketing e-mail has become a cornerstone of promotional campaigns across nearly every industry and the fitness industry is no exception. From small boutique clubs to giant warehouse-sized gyms and chains, there isn’t a gym or fitness club that can’t stand to benefit from E-mail marketing.
But in a medium that has become famously oversaturated (to the point where the primary definition of Spam is no longer the canned meat product), how can independent gym owners and managers make the most of this powerful format?
Well that is the question we will be tackling here at the Gym Owner’s Forum. As always, we’ve talked to our members and our associates to understand how gym owners are getting the best out of e-mail marketing and combined it with our own experience.
E-mail marketing is a method of communication and promotion that gym owners overlook at their own peril. Used correctly it can play a vital role in growing membership, retaining existing members, and promoting services within the gym itself. With the right strategies, e-mail marketing can enhance a gym’s outreach efforts and assist in building a thriving community.
So why should independent gym owners and managers consider e-mail marketing? Simple, done correctly it can be cost effective, personal and highly measurable. Unlike the algorithmic limitations of social media, marketing e-mails have only one guaranteed destination, the inbox of your target audience.
This direct access means the marketed message will reach your target audience. While this guarantee comes with some responsibilities, it is a great way to ensure information is communicated at the correct time. Whether a new class is being launched, a discount is being debuted or a community event is upcoming.
Not only that, but with modern mailing list management tools, e-mails can be specific and highly personalised. We will develop this topic later but the era of one giant marketing mailing list is over. The ability to effortlessly and easily divide members and non-members up into the categories where e-mails will be most effective helps reduce e-mail fatigue and increase the effectiveness of messaging.
For gym owners and managers, these metrics can be used to understand what has been effective and what hasn’t landed, translating to a steady growth in memberships, better engagement and increased revenue.
In order to maximise the potential of e-mail marketing, it is important to set up a clear and actionable strategy. Sending out a hurried e-mail every few days or few weeks isn’t going to cut it. Starting this process from scratch can be a daunting process, so we’ve put together a list of steps to get started:
An e-mail marketing campaign isn’t going to be very effective if very few people are on the mailing list. It is also important to make sure that the people on the list actually want to be on the list. This isn’t the 90s, spamming the unwilling won’t get us anywhere. Building a strong e-mail list will be the foundation of the project and marketing efforts. This will also be a contentious process, a marketing list should be constantly maintained and expanded to account for the attrition of people unsubscribing.
Offering a free trial class, e-book, or discount in exchange for a member or prospective member’s e-mail address can be a great way to get their contact details. In the case of free trial classes and 24 hour passes, this can also be a clever way to incentivise them through the door.
This means that when they receive the e-mail, they will have the (hopefully) positive experience that they had at a given independent gym or fitness club in their head, legitimising the e-mail marketing. It has been proven to be much more effective if the e-mail comes from an organisation the person has been to. In the murky line of online marketing, seeing is believing!
Adding an e-mail capture form onto your website can be a good way to cast a wide net. While it won’t land mass sign-ups, it will ensure a steady stream of interested individuals, especially if placed on pages that receive high volumes of traffic such as the gym’s homepage or class schedules.
Promote the same methods of e-mail sign-up we discussed above on an independent gym’s social media platform can help open up e-mail marketing to a different demographic. Shifting communication from an algorithmically dependent platform to a direct messaging format can bring significant benefits such as increased engagement.
Motivation to sign-up such as exclusive offers or limited time promotions and competitions can help drive sign-up numbers from social media platforms for an independent gym.
As we discussed earlier, sending out every e-mail to every person on the master e-mail list is not a good strategy. Not all gym members are the same and not all people have the same interests. An effective e-mail marketing campaign will reflect this reality and ensure that the right e-mail is reaching the right group of members or prospective members.
Understanding how to split up an e-mail list will greatly increase the effectiveness of an independent gym’s e-mail marketing campaign.
Send welcome e-mails with facility tours, beginner tips, and orientation offers. Focus on introductory offers, class explanations, ‘Staff meets’ and community activities.
Shares some crossover with New Members. Keep the focus on introductory offers, class explanations, ‘Staff meets’ and community activities and expand on more retention bolstering topics such as loyalty rewards, discounts and secondary spend offerings.
Share updates about new classes, personal training, or fitness challenges. Focus on community events as established members are more likely to attend. Use this category to push any loyalty schemes in order to bolster retention.
Use this category to try and re-engage with inactive and lapsed members. Utilise special offers, improvement updates and reminders to return.
By tailoring your messages, you’ll see higher engagement and conversion rates.
With the appropriate membership management software, keeping track of which members and which e-mails fall into which categories becomes streamline and simple. While it is possible to do this process manually, it will be comparatively time-intensive, requiring manual reconciliation of e-mail and member criteria.
Generic e-mails can be a significant turn-off. Those that lived through the 90s and 2000s have seen enough to last a lifetime and anyone born after deems them to be annoying and antiquated. The members and prospective members of today expect relevant and personalised content.
By utilising tools and services provided by the likes of Mailchimp, Constant Contact and HubSpot, independent gym owners can effortlessly personalise and automate parts of their e-mail marketing campaign:
Whether it is being used to send birthday offers, renewal reminders or an automatic thank you notice, automated workflows can show members that an independent gym is paying attention without the costly man hours such attention would cost.
Address members by name and customize e-mails based on their preferences and behavior. Using further subcategories can help break down members into groups that can be addressed in specific ways and with specific deals.
A good example of this is a series of subcategories that reflect the classes members attend. Having a category for the members that regularly attend Yoga classes or spin classes can allow for custom and bespoke promotions, merchandise and further classes.
The content of your e-mail will ultimately decide whether or not it is opened, read or ignored all together. Often this decision will be made within less than five seconds, so every word counts. Here are some key elements independent gym owners can focus on to make sure their content is sharp enough to make the cut.
Keep them short, intriguing and active. Ask questions and keep them oriented around action.
Use high quality images or videos of your gym, instructors, or success stories. Poor quality images are a significant turn-off. Eye-catching images can help focus and retain attention.
An all-important strategy across hundreds of sectors, it is no less effective in the fitness industry. Including clear CTAs such as “Sign Up Now,” “Secure Your Spot” or “Join the Challenge” increases the chance of grabbing a reader. They are short, snappy and make the reader more likely to respond to the call.
As we said in the introduction, one of the most significant advantages of an e-mail marketing campaign is the metrics that are available, both immediately (as the campaign is ongoing) and long term data. Compared to many more traditional marketing options, it is easy to track the effectiveness of the campaign as it is happening. Track your e-mail campaign performance to understand what works. Key metrics to monitor include:
This is the most basic metric but also one of the most pertinent. How many recipients opened your e-mail is a vital stat. Low open rate means that a gym ought to consider changing the nature of their subject header, opening sentences and categorisation.
The percentage of people who clicked a link in your e-mail. The second tier of engagement after opening rate. Understanding who clicked on what and in what numbers is vital information. It is important to understand which links appealed and which campaigns appealed.
Look at e-mails that had a very high CTR as the proof of concept for future e-mails.
How many people took action after clicking. The third tier and the most important. If a particular e-mail or campaign had a high conversion rate, it is important to understand why. Was it trying to attract new members to the gym? Retain members? Some campaigns will naturally appeal more than others and having the hard data to show which can help focus a gym’s marketing strategy.
Using these insights, it is possible to steadily and sustainably refine the campaigns of a gym over time.
How many people took action after clicking. The third tier and the most important. If a particular e-mail or campaign had a high conversion rate, it is important to understand why. Was it trying to attract new members to the gym? Retain members? Some campaigns will naturally appeal more than others and having the hard data to show which can help focus a gym’s marketing strategy.
Using these insights, it is possible to steadily and sustainably refine the campaigns of a gym over time.
Welcome Series: Introduce new members to your gym’s culture, staff and services.
Monthly Newsletters: Share upcoming events, member spotlights and fitness tips. Useful for keeping general engagement up.
Seasonal Promotions: Offer discounts for New Year’s resolutions, summer workouts or any local events.
Event Promotions and Invitations: Promote workshops, open days, charity fundraisers or fitness challenges.
Former Customers/Dormant Member E-mails: Win back inactive members with special offers or personalised messages.
Used correctly, e-mail marketing has the potential to be a game-changer for independent gym owners looking to build stronger relationships with members, reach out to prospective members and grow their member base. By focusing on the available data metrics, the segmentation of members into specialised interest lists, personalisation and performance tracking, an independent gym owner or manager can especially elevate their e-mail marketing effectiveness in very little time and at very little cost.
And if you are an independent gym owners, manager or staff member who thinks there is something we missed out or didn’t fully develop, feel free to leave a comment. Our research and articles are powered by our conversations with people working in the fitness industry.
Equally, if there is something you wish to see discussed or an issue you think we could help with, don’t hesitate to reach out! We want the Gym Owner’s Forum to be a discussion that anyone within the fitness industry feels comfortable to get involved in.
We’re bringing together the expertise of hundreds of gyms from across the UK and Europe, to help gym owners grow their business.
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