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How to promote and boost your fitness class schedule through email

With the seasons changing, many people are looking for new ways to stay in shape. While some are perfectly content with their own regimens, others are in search of a new fitness class schedule to get them out of the house and into a healthier routine.

Sure, placing ads in public venues - or sending them through snail mail - are great options for many fitness brands. However, they aren’t all that effective when compared to digital channels, such as social media, email, and paid search engine ads. In fact, our friends at Campaign Monitor recently did a study into the state of small business. And when asked, the majority said their best bet for attracting new customers was through the use of digital channels.

Source: Campaign Monitor

The top two methods of gaining customers and building brand awareness come via social media and email marketing. Social media is an excellent platform. But the majority of customers prefer to get promotional content - like your class schedule - through email. Only 17% said they preferred to get promotional material through social media.

So put that envelope away. Let’s discuss email marketing.

Email marketing and the fitness industry

There’s more to email marketing and the fitness industry than customer preference. Sure, meeting your audience’s preferences is crucial. But it’s also essential to do what’s best for your brand as a business. The good news? Email marketing is the top channel when it comes to overall return on investment (ROI). In fact, 59% of marketers back this up.

Source: Campaign Monitor

Health and fitness email marketing benchmarks

When it comes to building your email marketing strategy for your fitness brand, knowing where you stand in your industry is vital. Have you taken the time to work on your strategy - or study your competitors and their email marketing benchmarks? If not, you should.

Email marketing benchmarks are key performance indicators (KPIs) that tell you just how well your email campaigns are performing. When it comes to the average email marketing benchmarks for the health and fitness industry, these are three figures to know:

Open Rates: 20.06%
Click Rates: 2.18%
Unsubscribe Rates: 0.37%

Knowing these will help compare your email marketing success to that of the industry.

For example, if you notice a dip in your open rates or click rates, you know your readers are not so keen on the content you’re sending them. So maybe it’s time to rethink your email marketing strategy. The same idea applies if you notice an uptick in your overall unsubscribe rates. This means, again, something isn’t sitting well and they’re choosing to remove themselves from your email list.

Building your fitness brand’s email marketing strategy

Now that you understand how vital email marketing can be to your fitness brand, it’s time to put your strategy together. The ultimate goals for most fitness brands include:

Recruit new clients
Encourage clients to bring in new potential clients
Increase client retention

To do the following, make sure your email content fosters a sense of community and wellbeing - not one filled with sales pitches. To do this, start with an email list sign-up. And make the sign-up process inviting. Don’t focus on your brand during this stage. Instead, focus on the reader.

Lululemon does a wonderful job of this in their newsletter sign-up form.

Source: Emma

Once you’ve received your leads through the sign-up process, the fun can begin.

Promote your fitness class schedule with these four email ideas

Trying to promote your fitness class schedule can be difficult for some marketers because they don’t yet realize consumers are looking for content that benefits them - not the brand. Which means slipping fitness class schedules into email messages won’t always do the trick.

Luckily, there are several methods of including your fitness class schedule into email marketing campaigns. These not only help you spread the word but peak the reader’s interest. That said, here are four creative ways to promote your fitness class schedule via email.

1. Welcome email

The welcome email is an excellent place to incorporate your fitness class schedule because it shows your new sign-ups that you want them to have all the information right at their fingertips.

Peloton uses their welcome/on-boarding email to explain how to set up a preferred class schedule.

Source: Really Good Emails

Each step is clearly labeled and explained, making it easy for their readers to understand so they can quickly get started on their own.

Takeaway: Use your welcome email to inform your new clients about the classes you offer and tell him how they can go about joining your next session.

2. Member exclusives

Member exclusives may not seem like a great way to promote your fitness class schedule. However, when done right, they not only give your clients an opportunity to get involved with your brand but bring in their family and friends to build a more supportive community.

In this example from Planet Fitness, they offer a variety of different member exclusives for the holiday season. The best part of this promotion? Members are invited to “forward this email to friends and family.” There’s also a special promotion that allows a current member’s friend/family member to join at a discount.

Source: Pinterest

These offers can easily be spun to promote your fitness class schedule. By allowing current customers to get their friends and family involved in what your brand has to offer, they’re more likely to take advantage of your classes.

Takeaway: Very few people want to partake in a fitness class alone, so make creative use of member exclusives to help promote your fitness class schedule - encourage current members to bring their family and friends along.

3. Personal recommendations

Maybe some of your email subscribers have taken advantage of your fitness classes, but you haven’t seen them come back for more. An excellent way to encourage repeat attendance is to segment your email list and then send out custom, personal fitness class recommendations to your subscribers.

Strava does a great job of working segmentation by offering their subscribers an opportunity to find “clubs” near them.

Source: Really Good Emails

What makes this email different is that the brand focuses on helping users track various fitness activities. So, by suggesting local clubs and fitness class schedules for their email subscribers, it encourages them to take advantage of local classes while putting their apps and services to good use.

Takeaway: Use email list segmentation to sort out what your client’s preferences are and make class recommendations to meet their individual needs.

4. Special event invitations

Is your fitness institution looking to draw a crowd? Alternatively, are you looking to promote a new class format? Why not send out special event invitations to your current clientele?

For instance, if your fitness classes typically focus on activities like Zumba, and you’re looking to bring in a new format that introduces your clients to high-intensity interval training (HIIT), then you can set up a special instructor meet-and-greet event and invite your clients to a free class. Better yet, ask them to bring a friend.

Fitbit is another fitness accessory brand that doesn’t promote fitness classes, but they do an exceptional job of inviting their users to try new, local activities on a regular basis.

Source: Really Good Emails

Instructors can use special events to promote alongside their fitness class schedules. This will help raise awareness for larger events, and for their small businesses.

Takeaway: Use special events, such as a new class format or instructor, as a way to promote your fitness class schedules.

Wrap up

Promoting your fitness class schedule via email marketing doesn’t have to be a daunting task. In fact, there are many ways to include them in your existing email campaigns, such as: