The importance of email marketing for fitness businesses

The business of attracting new customers and staying relevant to current ones is evolving. Few approaches are as lucrative as email marketing when it comes to pricing, return on investment (ROI) and improving brand awareness. 

The large volumes of prospective consumers that you can reach with email are unmatchable through traditional marketing channels. 

For gym owners, a compatible email marketing strategy could mean a growing clientele. 

That’s because worldwide, the number of email users is growing. And it’s estimated that there’ll be around 4.3 billion email users by the end of 2023. That’s almost half of the world’s population! 

This makes email marketing a wonderful opportunity that small business owners can’t afford to miss out on. 

In this article, we will look at the importance of email marketing, the benefits of email marketing and list some top tips to help you become successful with this marketing channel.

Skip ahead to:

• Why do gyms need email marketing?
• Importance and benefits of email marketing
• for effective email marketing

Why do gyms need email marketing?

Email marketing is a way for brands to send carefully curated emails to their target audiences. The purpose is to lead potential customers to your business website in order to increase sales.

It can help gym owners take their business to the next level. Email marketing campaigns are a cost-effective way to gain personal, day-to-day access to your customers. 

Emails help accelerate your marketing efforts and build relationships with your clients. 

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Some more reasons to add email marketing to your to-do list are:

Personalized experiences 

Your gym members might need personalized content that you can’t put on social media. This can include meal plans, workouts, progress reports and discount offers. 

Email marketing allows you to offer these to your customers much more efficiently. 

Cost-effective to enter 

The low investment makes email marketing a remarkable low-risk marketing strategy for small businesses and new gyms. Plus, it can give you the highest ROI. You can expect around a 42$ return on every marketing dollar you invest in email marketing.

Emails inspire actions 

Email marketing makes it that much easier for potential clients to take action. A simple click leads them to your landing page, canceling out the extra steps of searching for your accounts on socials or looking up your website on Google. 

Whether it’s old members or new customers, email marketing makes it straightforward to book a meeting or check out your website. 

Email marketing makes for smooth communication 

Email marketing betters the flow of communication between you and your customers while improving the user experience. 

For example, suppose a new customer signs up for a membership. You can then send them a welcome email to provide complete information on your personal trainers and keep them updated about upcoming group classes. 

You can also prompt answer questions and give updates to your members via email. 

Get more reviews 

Gyms like many other small businesses rely on reviews and customer feedback. You can combine your promotional emails with a friendly reminder to share a testimonial. 

Customers will be more likely to leave a review when it’s as easy as clicking a star rating on your website or page. 

Importance and benefits of email marketing

The current business climate is a highly competitive one. 

Your gym is most likely facing so much competition that it can be laborious and pricey to reach your marketing goals. If you need a more cost-effective and streamlined way to market your brand, email marketing provides it.

Here are some reasons that show the importance of email marketing for gyms. 

1. Open rates

Open rate means the number of people who open and read your email. Emails have some of the highest open rates – 21% according to a MailChimp survey. That means you can get many more eyeballs on your marketing material in emails than through other forms of marketing. 

2. Cost-effective 

Email marketing software are cost-effective in two ways. Firstly they cost just a fraction of what other methods such as renting a billboard or taking out a magazine ad cost. 

Secondly, it allows you to spend your investment on a target audience that is much more likely to convert into customers. Email marketing guarantees the highest ROI as compared to other tactics. 

3. Reach mobile users

According to research, people check their emails 3 times more on mobile devices as compared to their desktop computers or laptops. Thus by using emails to distribute your marketing materials you can increase brand awareness and publicity that much more. 

4. Supplement your entire marketing strategy

Email marketing is quite versatile.  

You can combine it with other marketing channels such as social media marketing or content marketing to design a more wholesome and balanced marketing strategy. This can have a higher impact and you can increase brand awareness more diversely.

5. Helps you build relationships 

Not all emails you send out will be the same. Different members in your email list will receive different emails. You’ll have one strategy for your potential customers and another for your loyal gym-goers. 

Email marketing allows you to personalize and better the user experience in a way that social media can’t. 

6. Email marketing is measurable 

With more orthodox methods of marketing such as pamphlets, it can be difficult to accurately measure results. But email marketing provides real-time feedback and analytics. 

For that, you can use key performance indicators (KPIs) such as open rate and click-through rates. 

It lets you take out all the guesswork, making it simpler to monitor your campaign and measure your marketing efforts in numbers rather than assumptions. Email marketing helps you figure out what’s working, and double down on that approach. 

7. Better than social media 

Social media is a great tool for brand awareness and for starting the conversation. But email marketing is what keeps the conversation going. 

Conversion rates from prospective to permanent clients are enhanced with email marketing. According to the WRB Digital and Emarsys survey, 81% of small businesses use email marketing for customer acquisition while 51% use social media. 

Social media also comes with the inconvenience of unpredictability. Email marketing saves you from the ever-changing advertisement policies and algorithm upgrades. 

8. Increases brand awareness 

There are so many ways email marketing can help with brand awareness. Be it newsletters, seasonal discounts, promotional emails, or any updates about internal upgrades about your gym. 

Email marketing delivers your logo and brand name directly into your possible clients’ inboxes. Even if they don’t open or buy something right away, you can rest easy knowing that you’ve advertised your gym to them. 

And since we’ve already covered that emails get opened much more than notifications and social media posts, it’s great for brand awareness. 

9. Reach customers in real-time 

Since emails get delivered almost instantly, it makes them perfect for time-sensitive matters such as flash sales or filling up exercise classes because of sudden cancellations.

Effective email marketing is the proactive approach towards advertising. It can help you reach your customers quicker and more efficiently, helping with customer retention. 

10. Helps drive traffic to websites 

Email marketing helps make your SEO efforts more successful by increasing your website traffic. You can lead your subscribers directly on your website by using catchy subject lines and relevant email content. 

10 tips for effective email marketing

Now you know why email marketing is essential for your gym. So your next step should be to create a marketing campaign. Here are some tips to get you started: 

1. Create an email marketing strategy

Email marketing is a tool like any other. You need to have a solid strategy in place to make it work for your brand. 

Make sure that your email marketing strategy is reflective of your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) approach. The first step is to identify your target audience and then work on creating engaging email content. 

You can try different approaches, such as segmenting your email list to reach maximum new customers. Or pair it with your social media or SEO marketing campaign. 

2. Grow your email list

Actively work towards growing your email list. 77% of people favor permission-based promotional messages via email over other marketing channels.

Recruit subscribers from your frequent gym users and social media. Design a welcome email using a template proven to bring results. Use personalization to your advantage to stay relevant. 

And make sure to remain consistent with emails that are interesting to your readers. These can be newsletters, diet plans, reminders of upcoming classes, and events that they might enjoy. 

3. Develop your email marketing campaign

There are many elements you can incorporate into your email marketing campaign. Welcome emails, teasers of any new products, pricing guides, and details of collaborating retailers are some options that can elevate your campaign. 

All these are instruments to target potential customers and optimize brand awareness.

4. Mobile device optimization 

Leverage the power of hand-held devices to your advantage by designing your email accordingly. 

Customers who open an email first on their cell phone, then open that exact email again on another device, are 65% more likely to click through to your website or promotion. 

This is an especially clever way to reach a younger audience. Nearly 73% of 18-24-year-olds use their phones to check email. 

5. Automate the process 

Automation is how you streamline the process of email marketing. It’s less labor-intensive and the key to organizing your gym’s advertising efforts. 

Email marketing automation makes the process of distributing your content focused and to the point. There are many email marketing services you can utilize for this purpose such as MailChimp, Drip and ConvertKit.  

6. Troubleshoot your unsubscribe rates 

Expanding the number of subscribers is important but equally crucial in lowering your unsubscribe rates. It’s much easier today to grow your email list and understand the dynamics that caused its decline because of the advancement in tracing and analytic tools available now.

Try out your email content on test groups through a/b testing and dig deep into the analytics. This might help you understand the metrics and what prompts customers to unsubscribe. 

7. Improve your subject lines of promotional emails

The subject line is the predecessor of your entire email marketing effort. Writing effective emails is the key to a good email marketing strategy and that begins with the subject line. 

Put in the time to understand market dynamics and increase your know-how about what your readers want. This might enable you to meticulously plan your subject lines to be intriguing and interesting. 

8. Use templates 

Instead of re-inventing the wheel, make use of countless resources available online. Use email templates to draft marketing emails. 

9. Segment your email list 

Segmentation can help you target users in different stages of the funnel. User segmentation enables you to use diversity to your advantage by aiming different marketing content towards different types of users within your email list. 

This is a less strenuous and more effective approach than a generalized advertisement campaign. 

10. Don’t forget to follow up 

Follow up with a consistent trickle of emails to keep engagement high. This could be an automated birthday email with a discount code or freebie or a twice-monthly newsletter. Keep your call-to-action phrasing short and sweet yet compelling. 

In summary

The business environment is transitioning and with that, so should your approach towards marketing. Email marketing could prove to be the missing element you need to accelerate your business growth. 

You can use our gym management software to automate messages for your customers and get analytics that can help you create an effective email marketing strategy.