Email marketing continues to be a great tool for fitness businesses, with studies showing that the average return on investment for email marketing is about $40 for every $1 spent (Litmus). That provides a ton of opportunities for owners of fitness business in email marketing.
A solid email marketing strategy can help you nurture leads, build brand trust and stay ahead of your competitors, and even learn from successful brands like Planet Fitness, if you have insight into what they are doing.
From building your email list to crafting compelling subject lines and emails, we’ll cover everything you need to know to create a successful fitness email marketing campaign.
So, whether you’re just starting or looking to step up your game, read on for the ultimate guide to fitness email marketing strategy for fitness businesses.
What is Fitness Email Marketing?
Fitness email marketing is the use of emails to promote a fitness business and connect with its target audience. It is a form of digital marketing aimed at fitness and health businesses and organizations. Fitness email marketing involves sending promotional emails to an audience that is likely to be interested in fitness-related products or services.
Professionals usually use effective email marketing software to stay on top of all the emails sent and track their leads appropriately. You can think of this as a level of email marketing automation, and while it’s not critical for success, it can make things much easier for you.
In a highly competitive market, email marketing provides a valuable opportunity for fitness and health businesses to reach out to current and potential clients, build a strong connection with them, and even build new brands online. Through targeted campaigns and strategic content, fitness email marketing can help businesses gain more customers, increase sales, and boost brand awareness.
Fitness email marketing is a cost-effective way for businesses to reach a large number of people quickly. With a good email marketing strategy in place, it can effectively increase customer loyalty, generate leads, and boost sales.
The most important aspect of fitness email marketing is the ability to segment audiences and target them with personalized messages tailored to their interests. By sending personalized messages, businesses can reach customers more likely to engage with the company’s message and take action. That means attracting new members to your gym or landing new personal training clients.
Also, fitness email marketing lets gym owners send newsletters and updates about upcoming events, special promotions, and product launches to members and potential clients.
How Fitness Email Marketing Can Help Fitness Businesses
If you run a fitness establishment like a personal trainer practice or a gym, email marketing allows you to promote your services and increase brand awareness. By delivering targeted and personalized messages, fitness businesses can create a strong connection with their audience and differentiate themselves from the competition. Here are the tangible benefits of using email marketing for your fitness business.
It is Cost-Effective
Unlike Pay-Per-Click ads on Google which aren’t just expensive to run but also tiring, email marketing is inexpensive and straightforward. Also, clients prefer marketing messages as emails rather than ads.
Helps You to Retain More Customers
Your gym business can only grow when you turn new clients into loyal ones by retaining them. Email marketing can keep your clients happy and satisfied by sending them personalized fitness plans or programs.
The right targeted email can also help you land clients in unique situations, like landing a training client in a recession or showing them your expertise and land the client without a personal training certificate.
Helps to Build Brand Trust
When you send emails to both new and existing clients, it exudes professionalism, thus increasing your client’s trust in your brand. Remember to keep all emails professional yet friendly to help your dialogue flow better.
Examples of Fitness Email Marketing
You can utilize marketing emails for your fitness business, from newsletters to appointment reminders to abandoned cart emails. For instance, if a client subscribes to your newsletter or registers in your gym, a welcome email is an appropriate way of introducing your brand. Here are some common examples of email marketing in the fitness industry.
- Newsletters: Regular newsletters keep your audience informed about your latest offerings, events, and promotions. A well-crafted newsletter will keep customers updated on the latest events and give them the incentive to revisit your business.
- Promotional Emails: Use promotional emails to introduce personalized fitness programs to your members. Also, if you run a fitness store, promotional emails can inform your subscribers about products before they’re available in stores. This will excite them about your offerings and encourage them to return, thus, increasing sales.
- Welcome Emails: Welcome emails are a great way to introduce yourself to new gym members and make a positive first impression. Also, it’s one of the best ways of providing new members with essential information about your business.
- Abandoned Cart Emails: This type of email provides a gentle reminder for clients to complete the purchase of items in their cart. Abandoned cart emails are ideal for fitness and health businesses that run an online store alongside a gym.
- Milestone Emails: sending an email when a member accomplishes a milestone is one way to build a connection with your members. The milestone could be smashing their fitness goals or celebrating a year of joining your gym. Whatever the milestone, ensure your tone is celebratory and fun.
How do You Run A Fitness Email Marketing Campaign?
When a fitness business sends an email to its existing and prospective clients, it’s known as an email marketing campaign. Typically, an email marketing campaign should lead to more leads, urge members to take action and increase your engagement. You can create a successful fitness email campaign with the steps we highlight below.
Step 1: Create a Targeted Email Llist
Having an email list with target recipients is the first step in running a successful email campaign. Your list should be interested in your offers if you want to convert them and increase sales. Also, when creating your email list, ensure you segment them according to their relevance and demographics.
Step 2: Have Precise Goals
Knowing clearly what goals you want to achieve with your fitness email marketing campaign is fundamental. Are you interested in increasing your brand awareness, getting new customers, advertising your special offers and promotions, etc.? Your ability to answer these questions will help determine what kind of emails you will be sending out.
Step 3: Choosing an Effective Email Marketing Software
The next step involves selecting the right platform to launch your email marketing efforts, ensuring that has the right automation features and tools for your desired email marketing campaign. These tools include email personalization and audience segmentation, subscription form creation, and marketing automation.
Step 4: Planning your Campaign
Before diving into content creation, the final thing you need to do is to outline your campaign calendar clearly. It will be a crucial part of your fitness email marketing strategy and you need to be clear on the order of sending the different email types you have in mind, email frequency, and what action you want subscribers to take after reading.
How to Build a Fitness Email List
Building an email list is necessary before starting an email marketing campaign. Remember, you can only send out emails if you have someone to send them to. Let’s quickly walk you through three methods for building a fitness email list.
Using Strategic Opt-in Forms
You can place opt-in forms in strategic places on your site, such as the website footer or the home page. You can also use pop-up forms. Design these forms in a way your website visitors will want to subscribe to your emails.
The Use of Gated Content and Lead Magnets
This method allows you to create site content that only members who subscribe to your email marketing campaign can access. You can also produce checklists, ebooks, and white papers that are free but which require an email subscription.
Remember, the people that will sign up will, hopefully, become your members, helping you stay open even in tough economic times (essentially recession-proofing your fitness and health business.) It’s important to only use gated content that will get them interested and keep them interested.
Creating Sign-up Forms for Promotional Offers
Advertise your gym’s promotional offers and unique services and require interested customers to fill out a sign-up form to register. If there’s a special event coming up, you can also get people to register using sign-up forms.
How to Nurture a Fitness Email List
Following up on your email marketing campaign subscribers after sending out the first email is crucial. If you want to retain your subscribers and successfully convert them to leads, you need to devise a nurturing strategy.
Again, the right email marketing software can make this an absolute cakewalk. Here is a post from WpBeginner on some of the best email marketing software out there.
Let’s get into some tips that can help you nurture your fitness email list.
Engaging Your Subscribers with Interactive and Educative Content
One effective way to nurture your email list is to feed them with relevant content. This content must be interactive and educative for them to make sense of it. Segmenting your email list and personalizing your emails will make this process less cumbersome.
Focus More on Educating than Selling
Nurturing an email list is a crucial stage that needs you to prioritize your subscribers’ above your sales promotion. For example, you can create content to educate them on how to reach their fitness goals.
Share Your Reviews and Success Stories
Your subscribers are bound to gain more confidence in your fitness business if they read your success stories. It’s an effective way to win their trust and convert them successfully.
5 Great Fitness Email Templates
An email template can take the stress off crafting an email anytime you need to. Whether it’s a welcome email or you’re informing your members about a special offer, fitness email templates are an easy way out. The good part about email templates is that you can always tweak them to suit your niche and audience. Here are five top fitness email templates for your email marketing campaign.
Welcome Email Template
Hi [NAME],
Get ready to work out and have fun!
Welcome to the {name of your gym} family
We are so excited that you’ve chosen us for your fitness journey. With our world-class trainers, nutrition experts and state-of-the-art equipment, we can help you reach your goals in no time.
Sign up for a free tour today!
Member Referral Email Template
Hi [NAME],
Share the love!
Get 15% off with our referral program.
We know you love working out at {insert studio name}, so why not share that joy with others? For every person you refer who signs up for a membership, you’ll get 15% off your next month’s membership. It’s a win-win!
Refer someone now and start saving.
Special Offers Template
Hey there {client name}
Invest in yourself and your health this year by taking advantage of our special offer at {insert fitness studio name}! At our gym, you can get access to high-quality classes, state-of-the-art equipment, personal training sessions, and more.
This offer runs from {insert start and end date}
Respond with “I’m in!” to show your interest,
Looking forward to your response.
Class Reminder Email Template
Hey {client’s name}
Here’s a gentle reminder for your next class coming up on {insert date} by {insert time}
If you’d like to reschedule, please respond to this email.
Looking forward to seeing you.
Reconnecting With Inactive Client’s Email Template
Hey {client’s name}, we miss you.
Been a while since we saw you hit it in the gym. Since you last visited, we’ve added new services like yoga and pilates.
We know how busy life can get; that’s why we now offer online classes allowing you to work out from the convenience of your home.
Here’s a special offer just for you.
Hoping to see you soon.
5 Fitness Email Marketing Tricks
Here are some tips that you should apply if you want to make the most of your email marketing campaigns:
- Ensure your welcome emails provide a sense of warmth.
- Always include CTAs (call to action)
- Prompt your subscribers to visit your gym. You can encourage them to fix a workout date in their calendar.
- Your emails should always be personalized.
- Never fail to follow up.
The Bottom Line
One way businesses in the fitness industry can build a tight-knit community and keep their customers engaged is the use of email campaigns. By leveraging the power of an effective email marketing strategy, a gym or fitness studio can send targeted messages to their customers, promote their services, and increase sales. Also, you can connect with potential customers, nurture relationships with existing ones, and create loyalty among your followers using email marketing.
In this article, we explored the best practices for optimizing your email marketing campaigns for maximum impact. With this article as your guide, you can build your email list and create a successful email marketing strategy.
