5 Tips for Improving Your Fitness Email Marketing Strategy

Email is a low-cost, easy to use, and highly personalized form of marketing communication. If it isn’t already an essential piece of your marketing mix, it should be. 

In fact, most people prefer companies contact them via email.

A successful fitness email campaign takes a healthy balance of strategy, creativity, and data. With the five tips below, you’ll learn how to improve email marketing campaigns for your gym so you can get your open rates up, unsubscribes down, and your club flooded with new members. 

1. Segment your audience

Emails should feel like a one-on-one conversation — in person, you’d speak to your past, current, and future members differently (and tailor the conversation to their needs and interests). You need to make sure you’re doing the same in your emails. 

That’s why it’s imperative to segment your email lists to ensure each receives relevant messaging and offers created specifically for them.

Current members

With your current members, email provides an opportunity to create a deeper relationship. Instead of emails about free trials and low joining fees (which aren’t relevant to them), your current members might want to know more about nutrition tips, member spotlights, or fun events going on at your club. 

Though emailing current members is mostly about strengthening your existing relationship, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an opportunity for ROI. You also have the chance to drive referrals from your members or upsell them with emails highlighting some of your premium services, like personal or small group training.

Prospects

Speaking to prospects isn’t a one-size-fits-all situation, either. The more granular you are with segmenting prospects into different buckets, the better your results will be. 

At the very least, it’s good to segment based on gender and/or age, to ensure your messaging, imagery, and promotions are relatable and relevant to each person that receives the email.  Nothing sends unsubscribe rates soaring like irrelevant content.

2. Get the timing right

The time of day when you send your emails can have a huge impact on your open rates, and can be the difference between ten new members and zero. 

According to CoSchedule, the most successful days for email marketing are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with Tuesday being the best day overall. However, the only way to be sure of what will work for your club is by A/B testing and tracking results. 

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach that holds true across all models and markets. Don’t be afraid to test and retest until you find the best day and time that works for you. If you can increase your open rate by a few percent, that will really add up over the course of a year.

Changing the time of day when you send emails can make a big difference for your results. 

3. Don’t say too much at once

Single offer emails generate a 57% higher conversion rate than multiple offer emails, so even if your club is offering several promotions at once, it’s best to use only one call to action (CTA) per email. 

To make sure click-throughs lead to conversions, connect your CTA to an offer-specific landing page that mirrors your email’s design. There is nothing worse than a CTA that links to an irrelevant page (like your homepage) with no mention of the promotion offered in the email.

It’s also important not to bombard your audience with too many emails. If you want to send multiple emails each week, make sure that the content is different enough to remain interesting, and give your contacts the option to opt out of certain types of emails if they don’t find them relevant. 

[UpSwell specializes in marketing for the fitness industry. Contact us for a free marketing assessment!]

4. Nail your subject line

Your subject line is usually the deciding factor between your email being opened or ending up in the junk folder. 

Making your email stand out against the dozens of others that are received each day can seem like a daunting task, but there are a few strategies that have been proven to work. One of the most effective strategies is personalization. 

Would you be more likely to respond to someone who yells, “hey you” or “hey, (your name)”? Mentioning your target’s name in the subject line helps you stand out in the crowd and gives your message a human touch — increasing open rates by 28%.

Another tactic is to create a sense of urgency. Including phrases like “last chance,” “limited time only,” or “3 days only” emphasizes to prospects that they’ll be missing out if they leave your message unread.

Having an open house or special event? Stating “[Name], you’re Invited…” in the subject line is more effective than simply naming the event.

5. Let your data do the work

Email marketing is one of the most quantifiable marketing channels, with the ability to test and track your campaigns every step of the way. That means you can eliminate the guesswork and discover exactly what kind of messaging your audience wants, when they want it, and how often. 

A/B testing is the only real way to find what works best for your club and your market. Just make sure you’re only testing one component at a time so that the results are clear and you truly understand what’s causing the needle to move up or down.

If you have low open rates, try switching up the email sender, subject line, or send time. If your open rates are good, but conversions are low, work on improving the content within the email, and take a closer look at your landing page to see how that could be improved (landing pages should also be A/B tested).

Conclusion

Email marketing is underutilized by many clubs and gyms, and that’s an easy, low-cost opportunity for you to get a leg up on the competition. 

Email marketing is low-hanging fruit, and when properly executed, it can provide significant boosts to both member retention and new membership.

Incorporate the five tips above and you’ll be well on your way to better email campaigns. It may take time (and many A/B tests) to get your results where you want them, but continual improvement to your email strategy can make a huge difference long-term.

Ready to execute a next-level email marketing campaign? Contact us for help!