If you are a gym owner, then one of the things you may have noticed is that a large number of people who often sign up for memberships do so with great interest, motivation and good intentions. However, due to the unending demands of their professional or personal life, they slowly stop visiting the gym regularly and seemingly may even forget that they even have a gym membership altogether.

This member oversight may, very well, have nothing to do with your health club facilities or services. So it is important to remind your members about your gym and why they signed up for it in the first place. One of the most effective and the easiest ways of getting those members back through your gym doors, before risking their cancellation, is through email marketing.

How does email marketing work?

One of the important reasons why email marketing works is because you are targeting only a specific group of people that are actually interested in your facilities and services. As a result, there is a greater chance to obtain more business and greater business retention compared to buying ad space on a billboard or any other form of conventional marketing (like using a giant, angry gorilla –>). Thus, the chances of people responding to the email are greater since people in this day and age make it a priority to check their emails daily. Finally, email marketing enables you to form a relationship with your subscribers turning them into potential followers and then eventually leading to more conversions through referrals.

Types of emails you can use for email marketing

Newsletters are among the most popular means to reach out and send marketing messages to your target audience. These can be sent on a regular basis to your subscribers. Newsletters are also an excellent medium to send information about new offers, latest developments in your establishment, new equipment as well as tips on how to train better, dealing with injuries, how you can help them, and much more. One great way to kick off a newsletter subscriber campaign is to list it on your gym website, blog, and social media sites. Inform your followers that the first 50 subscribers will have their name entered in a drawing to win a service at your facility.

Another popular technique to send out marketing messages is through broadcasts. These are one-time emails that address a specific issue. Broadcasts often contain information about a specific event that you can simply not wait to announce till you bring out your next newsletter. Information such as special events in your gym, class cancellations or upcoming workshops can be included in the broadcasts.

RSS feeds are another avenue (although they are slowly starting to diminish) that you can look at when it comes to email marketing. RSS feeds are nothing but a summary about your blog that your members can subscribe to directly from your blog. This has two benefits of reaching out to customers through email and providing a mechanism for effective content marketing directly from your blog. This can also be optimized for search engines and you may even get new leads from people searching for fitness centers in their area.

Scheduling your mails

Finally, you must also consider how to schedule your emails so they will have the best results. During specific times of the year, a large number of people look out for gyms and other fitness centers. It is a known fact that many people resolve at the beginning of the year to lose weight and this can be a good opportunity for your business. Scheduling a special email or a newsletter around losing weight at the beginning of the year can lead to a large number of conversions. Similarly, when summer arrives, people start thinking of pulling off a swim suit and again you can use this as an opportunity to get back your clients. The holidays also can trigger some conversions as customers are looking for gift ideas through gift cards.

Get your email marketing campaign going today!

Topic for Discussion:

What has been a successful newsletter or broadcast that you have use that lead to a great conversion rate?

How often do you send out newsletters? Or how often do you like to receive newsletters that you have subscribed to?

Do you think that texting is the new email marketing phenomenon?