Email remains one of the most effective methods of marketing a fitness business. Its return on investment is one of the highest, compared to most of the other fitness marketing strategies.
But, with millions of fitness emails being sent every day, standing out in a cluttered inbox is always a challenge. Hence, there’s always the risk that a prospect will not open your email. And this means you will have wasted your resources sending those emails.
So, how do you implement an effective fitness email marketing strategy, which will help you to get the results you are looking for? This guide has the answers. In this article, we will walk you through key strategies and tips for using email marketing to welcome new clients grow your fitness business.
1. Importance of Email Marketing for Fitness Businesses
Email marketing may be considered an older marketing method, compared to other strategies like social media or influencer marketing. But, it remains one of the most powerful marketing methods for fitness businesses. Besides, it comes with some unique benefits, which you may not find elsewhere. Some of the benefits of email marketing for fitness businesses include:
1.1 Cost-Effective
Perhaps one of the most appealing benefits of fitness email marketing is its cost-effectiveness compared to other marketing methods. Its return on investment is one of the highest. For every $1 you spend on fitness email marketing, you can expect an average ROI of $44.
While attending conferences, printing and mailing flyers, advertising on billboards or placing ads on TVs can all help you to earn more clients, most fitness businesses cannot afford them, especially the smaller ones.
Hence, if you operate a small fitness business and you are looking for a cost-effective method of marketing your business, then you should consider email. With emails, you can reach thousands of prospects at a minimal cost.
1.2 Reach Prospects in Real-Time
Considering that emails are delivered almost instantly, they provide the perfect means of delivering time-sensitive news to prospects. For instance, you can use emails to send a message announcing flash sales to thousands of prospects.
And considering that most people check their emails at least one to three times per day, an email will provide you with a more efficient and quicker means of reaching your prospects.
1.3 Easy to Get Started
With email marketing, you don’t need to have a huge marketing team or extensive marketing skills to be successful. As long as you have an email list, you can get started right away. You simply need to create the message you want to send out and then hit the send button. And from there, your emails will be on their way to your prospects’ inboxes.
Besides, there are plenty of email marketing software out there, which can help to automate the entire process, thus saving you time. And, most of these platforms come at an affordable cost.
1.4 Easy to Measure
Another benefit of email marketing for fitness businesses is that it’s easy to measure. Most email marketing platforms will allow you to track the click-through rate, open-rates as well as conversion rates.
And with this information, it’s easy to see how your fitness emails are performing and undertake the necessary changes. Besides, you can implement these changes right away, which cannot be said of broadcast or print advertising.
2. Fitness Email Marketing: Success Tips
Without a doubt, email marketing comes with numerous benefits. And, it’s essential for your fitness business. In this section, we will walk you through some fitness email marketing success tips to boost your conversion rate.
2.1 Have a Clear Call to Action
The whole point of your fitness email marketing campaign is to drive traffic to your landing page. So, if your emails are not driving traffic to your landing page, then it’s almost impossible to convert your email subscribers into clients. And this is where a call-to-action comes in. Hence, make sure you include a clear call-to-action in the email message.
It’s worth mentioning that you should only include a single call to action. Having more than one call-to-action will distract the recipient. And eventually, they may end up clicking none, meaning they will either delete or leave your email.
2.2 Personalize Your Messages
According to email marketing statistics, personalizing emails with a personalized subject line have a 26% higher open rate, compared to those without. Also, emails that utilize personalization generate revenue that is approximately 5.7 higher than those that lack personalization. As you can see, personalization is key when it comes to fitness email marketing.
So, how can you personalize your fitness marketing emails? Well, you have several strategies that you can employ. One of the easiest ways of personalizing an email is by addressing the recipient by their name. Addressing the recipient by their name will add a personal touch to your fitness emails, thus increasing the open rate.
You can also personalize around the recipient’s interests. Browsing through your recipient’s social media platforms will help you to unearth a great deal of information about their prospects. You can then personalize the emails around those interests. For instance, if the recipient supports a certain soccer team, you can mention that in the email.
2.3 Use a Catchy Subject Line
Approximately 47% of email recipients open emails based solely on the subject line. So, if the subject line is not catchy or compelling, it’s highly likely that the recipient will not open the email. Consequently, that email will end in the trash folder.
Simply put, your subject lines can make or break your fitness email marketing campaigns. Some of the strategies that you can employ on your subject lines to nudge the recipient to open your emails include:
Urgency: Using urgency on your emails’ subject lines will create a fear of missing out. And, it’s highly likely the recipient will open your email, to avoid missing out on your offer.
Promotional offers: People love freebies. Again, offering something free on your subject line will instantly make them want to open your emails.
Curiosity: Hinting at a benefit the recipient will get when they open their email on its subject line will pique their interest and entice them to open the email.
2.4 Optimize for Mobile
Studies show that approximately 49% of all emails are opened via mobile devices. Therefore, to get maximum returns from the fitness emails that you send, you should ensure you have optimized them for mobile devices.
Ensure all the relevant text in those emails can be comfortably read from one screen, without the user having to change the orientation or other settings. Also, the font size and type that you use should be easy to read on mobile devices.
It will also be advisable to break down the text into smaller paragraphs since text-heavy emails tend to perform poorly on mobile devices. Also, you should keep the pre-header text short, and easy to read.
2.5 Include Links to Your Socials
As much as the primary goal of your fitness email marketing campaign is to reach out to prospects, it doesn’t hurt to include links to your social media channels. Including links to your socials will provide an opportunity for the recipient to engage more with your fitness brand.
And, they may even end up sharing your social media content with their followers, further increasing brand awareness, reach and visibility – which translates to more potential customers. Hence, you will have killed two birds with one stone.
2.6 Send the Emails at the Right Time
Message timing is equally important when it comes to fitness email marketing. When you choose to send the emails for your fitness email marketing campaign will determine their open rate. The question is, when is the best time to send fitness emails?
According to Omnisend, the best time to send an email is around 8 am. Emails send around this time tend to have an open rate of around 20% and a click-through rate of approximately 8%. Click-through rates are highest around 5 pm. As for the best days of the week to send your emails, Thursday is the clear winner, followed closely by Tuesday and Wednesday.
However, it’s important to mention that these timelines are simply benchmarks, and your target audience may respond differently. So, ensure you conduct different sending times and then identify the optimal time when your fitness emails deliver the best results.
2.7 Track and Measure
You can only tell whether your fitness email marketing strategy is delivering the expected results if you are tracking and measuring. As earlier mentioned, most email marketing platforms come with tracking mechanisms. So, ensure you are using the tools provided in these platforms to track and measure how your email marketing for fitness campaigns are performing.
Some of the metrics that you should be tracking and measuring include open rate, click rate, unsubscribe rate, conversion rate, non-opens, and time of the day when most of your emails are opened. And with this information, you can then undertake the necessary modifications.
3. Wrapping It Up
Whether you run a fitness studio, a gym or a personal training business, email marketing should be part of your marketing strategies. It’s quicker, easier and cheaper, compared to other fitness marketing methods. And with the tips and strategies we’ve provided above, you should be able to come up with an effective, fitness email marketing strategy, which will help you to capture leads, nurture them and convert them into long-term clients for your fitness business.