One of the key elements when it comes to maintaining member retention in an already saturated and competitive fitness industry is constant outreach to members. Therefore, behavioral email marketing could serve as a great tool for fitness brands looking to connect with their members. By sending emails based on a member’s actions and by taking into account preferences and habits, a fitness brand can directly reach its segmented audience with the most niche details about what they would appreciate at that moment. Since the campaigns are based on the activity and decisions of the recipients, they are more likely to inspire, increase loyalty, and engagement. This article examines the top ways fitness brands can use behavioral email marketing to connect.
Understanding Behavioral Email Marketing in Fitness
Behavioral email marketing is emailing people who sign up for a class or sending a follow-up to those who do not attend, those who meet their goals, or asking people what goals they have or what classes they might be interested in. Instead of an email blast sent to everyone with general information, the behavioral email is sent on a more intimate level because it adjusts to what someone has done at the gym or what it perceives someone may want to do next. Improve email deliverability by tailoring content to user behavior, ensuring messages reach the inbox and resonate with relevance. Therefore, it seems more effective for maintaining continued momentum with workouts and increased involvement.
Welcoming New Members with Targeted Onboarding Emails
Without that early support, there’s a chance that new members might go unaccounted for. But utilizing behavioral onboarding emails can make them feel part of the community before they even get there and offer information they need when classes start, what equipment is available, and how they can kick off their exercise routines. Triggering personalized communication that comes after first-time experiences whether it’s attending that inaugural class or signing onto your gym’s app creates an instant relationship that fosters retention and puts them in a position for ongoing engagement.
Encouraging Consistency Through Activity-Based Emails
Fitness firms can implement behavioral emails relative to how much members work out for added promotion of continued engagement. For example, if a member attends a lot of classes, an email sent to them congratulating them on their hard work and subsequent growth will inspire them even more. If a member starts to lose interest and not come to class as frequently, an email sent to them based solely on their decreased attendance can help urge them to get back on track before they give up completely. It’s this type of motivational outreach relative to the person’s activity levels and not a blanket campaign that makes members feel special and grateful for the efforts acknowledged and prompts them to continue.
Celebrating Personal Milestones and Achievements
Crucial to reenergizing a member’s path to fitness is celebrating their successes. Whether they’ve worked out for another month, lost pounds, or taken more classes than ever, sending behavioral emails when such milestones are reached shows members that their hard work has been noticed and appreciated. This kind of personalization can not only elevate emotional engagement but also improve the member experience and motivate them for the next success.
Leveraging Member Interests to Offer Personalized Recommendations
Fitness enthusiasts have specific go-to classes, trainers, or machines. With behavioral email marketing, a company can add this data and tailor the messaging. If a person attends a yoga class three times a week, they’re more likely to receive an email about an upcoming yoga workshop or a class with the head yoga instructor than someone who never participates in yoga. These types of suggestions make your communication more relevant, and it makes the member feel that this one-time marketing opportunity is customized precisely for them, which enhances enjoyment.
Reengaging Inactive Members with Tailored Emails
Every gym has members who, unfortunately, fall off after some time. Due to the nature of the fitness world, unless a diligent manager reaches out to find out who hasn’t been in for a time, it usually goes quiet. This is where behavioral email marketing comes in, detecting a lapse and automatically responding with reengagement efforts. An automated email featuring a subject line like “We Miss You!” paired with a discounted class or free trainer assessment can resurge interest. A lapse reactivation campaign reinforces prior intentions and offers an almost inevitable incentive to get back on track.
Upselling and Cross-selling Through Behavior-Driven Emails
Furthermore, behavioral data enables the upsell and cross-sell of on-brand services or products. For instance, if members are frequenting classes, they may be recommended personal training for extra advanced classes or nutrition classes, or they may be pitched specific branded apparel. Because these pitches stem from what people are already doing and enjoying, fitness brands are more prone to upsell successfully while simultaneously improving the member experience.
Optimizing Email Timing for Maximum Impact
When do fitness brands need to be in touch with their members to ensure successful behavioral email marketing? With the opportunity to communicate effectively with members and cultivate long-term engagement, it’s not just about the message being received, but the message being sent at the perfect time to the member. Therefore, fitness brands must consider when the members are most engaged and most emotionally invested to send potentially actionable information at the best time. Such trigger events come right after a good sweat session or a long cooldown, when a member reaches a milestone, or during a downtime when someone is less engaged or less motivated.
For example, celebratory emails sent right after a member reaches a fitness goal or executes a bonus difficult workout tap into the high of the achievement and solidify motivation and pride in accomplishment. Likewise, motivational emails sent during times when someone takes a break can help quickly dispel ruts and avoid drop-off with the brand altogether. Therefore, the mere addition of such personal touches creates an employee reaction that the brand most definitely cares and is paying attention, which does miles for the overall member experience.
In addition, fitness brands can rely upon analytics and a data-driven approach to continuously optimize and adjust the timing of emails based upon the unique and personal experiences of each member. When brands can see when certain members open and react to emails the most, they can base their timing success on previous data, which allows for an even higher percentage of on-target receive-and-respond interactions. Therefore, this allows for better open rates and further satisfaction of experience through more engagement and emotional connection to the brand.
Ultimately, strategic and timely sending transforms behavioral emails from simple communications to intentional communications that resonate with members on a more profound level. Since the optimal time to receive such communications is when members are active and, more importantly, emotionally active, this fosters a better response even beyond what fitness brands anticipated for in marketing potential to foster such relationships and enhance loyalty and satisfaction for members.
Tracking and Analyzing Behavioral Email Performance
Behavioral email marketing is a continual effort and is as effective as the data gathered and analyzed. Open rates, click rates, conversions, and engagement rates help fitness firms gain a clearer picture of how members respond to email efforts. Therefore, they figure out what’s most effective and continually re-evaluate to create and refine subject lines, times of day, and personalization, easier than ever for sustained growth in member engagement.
Respecting Member Privacy and Preferences
There is no better way to cement relationships with members than through a custom approach; however, nothing should be above privacy concerns. Therefore, fitness brands need to anticipate and communicate to their members how their personal data will be used, collected, stored, and applied in the email marketing experience. Whether it’s within the emails themselves or through social interactions, communicating the usage fulfills the legal requirements GDPR, CCPA but also builds the trust that a brand has the best interests of its members at heart and continues to foster that trust going forward.
Furthermore, members should be given the ability armed with the resources to dictate their experience of what emails they receive and potential overload. Dropdowns of simple, easy-to-control links or bigger options where members can not only control the frequency of brand-generated outreach and topics of interest, but also give them the choice to get less or more (even segmented emails that don’t align with their fitness goals can turn off many) create an atmosphere of appropriateness and transparency that champions personal privacy and personal space.
In addition, fitness brands must continuously remind members of privacy, and any opportunity to give accolades for attempting to protect private information goes a long way. Continuing access to the privacy policy and a channel through which members can inquire and receive feedback makes them feel more at ease that their information is secure and their privacy appreciated. Thus, if done correctly, behavioral email marketing can be a positive experience unexpected and appreciated. Instead, it bolsters emotional appeals and attempts and keeps the member-brand relationship intact instead of negatively impacting it.
Ultimately, through transparency, avoidance, and compliance with the law, fitness brands position ethical, quality, and appealing correspondence for behavioral email marketing. They never risk their brand image, trust for expected engagement with members is created, and personalization becomes a benefit instead of a liability.
Integrating Behavioral Emails into a Broader Engagement Strategy
Then, the power of behavioral emails is enhanced when they are sent as part of a comprehensive, omnichannel member engagement initiative across various digital engagement touchpoints mobile apps, social media images and status updates, website member portals, and content-based endeavors. An omnichannel strategy ensures that various channels work together, supporting one another to create consistent messaging and unified experiences that mean so much to members.
For instance, behavioral emails can be sent simultaneously with targeted push notifications on the mobile app, generating a call to action with equally weighted communication class reminders or acknowledgment of achievements. In addition, social media can bolster this effort with member-driven comments, re-sharing of members’ videos, and FAQs or Q&As relative to the subject matter explored in the email.
In addition, customizing content opportunities on the site from recommended workouts in the member section to nutrition blogs to goal-tracking tools makes for a seamless integration with your behavioral email strategy. Members receive pertinent content always emailed or in other transactions because their interests, updates, and needs are simultaneously updated based on their fitness journeys across various engagement platforms.
When email, app, social, and web interactions are aligned with similarly timed outreach, messaging, and opportunities, fitness brands create an omnichannel strategy that champions members every step of the way. Members enjoy a cohesive and encouraging experience that fosters deeper emotional engagement, brand loyalty, and trust.
Thus, the power of behavioral email marketing is only increased when it’s partnered with other member engagement efforts because it adds to the efficacy of the approach, enhances the brand/member relationship, and champions engagement and satisfaction.
Unlocking Higher Engagement with Behavioral Emails
Fitness brands that employ a behavioral email marketing tactic will inevitably enhance member motivation, engagement, and retention as their connections are made so seamlessly with every person’s journey. By monitoring and utilizing specific member activity and achievements, brands can create meaningful, appropriate, and timely email communications that mean so much more to their members. Such a personal appeal not only creates an emotionally invested bond but also spurs activity and engagement as members feel so energized in this specific moment.
Furthermore, this targeted messaging practically ensures that members do not drop out or cancel due to disinterest, lack of accountability, or even forgetting to exercise.
Through such behavioral email marketing, fitness companies position themselves in the way of such deterrents with motivational emails, reminders, exclusive offers, member recognition for accomplishments, and praise, all of which keep members involved, inspired, and adhering to their objectives. This consistent custom communication cultivates member interest, encourages sustained success, and enhances the experience for members in a supportive and positive atmosphere.
Moreover, fitness brands use behavioral email marketing to their advantage because they learn from member feedback and interaction with their communications. As brands receive reports on open rates, click-through rates, conversions, and engagement metrics, they better customize who they reach, when they reach them, and how to most effectively reach certain members over time. The evaluative measures that determine the effectiveness of marketing campaigns are intangible and ever-changing, so this ongoing evaluation allows brands to optimize their emailed efforts over time.
Ultimately, with the power of behavioral email marketing, fitness brands have the ability to control and nurture their members through all applicable phases of their predetermined journeys. The more a brand can consistently depend upon behavior-driven communication, the better the relationship with the member which translates to longevity, satisfaction, and thus brand efficacy through high levels of member loyalty and retention.
