Text Message Marketing for Fitness Centers
As you already know, the fitness industry is a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States. In 2022 its revenue market share is expected to exceed 32 billion dollars and grow by over 4% over the foreseeable future.
Fitness has always been a big business in America. When something is profitable, there will be a lot of competition eager to get its share of the success. You must be innovative with your marketing to ensure you remain competitive. SMS services are the most effective way to accomplish this affordably.
Why is text message marketing important for fitness centers?
Text message marketing is important for fitness centers because it helps you stand out in a crowded market space and gets results. The costs of operating a gym are high, and gym members expect to get high-quality equipment and training at a reasonable cost. This means your marketing efforts to find potential clients and stay connected with your current members must be cost-effective and results-driven.
- Convenience
- Cost-effectiveness
- It gets results
Convenience
Running a business requires a lot of work and focus. There are distractions, issues, and concerns that need addressing daily. From employees calling out to equipment needing repairs, running a fitness center is a marathon and a sprint all at once. With all that heavy lifting, it’s a good idea to make your marketing efforts simple and convenient.
SMS marketing and business texting are the answer. For starters, gym members prefer texting over emails, traditional mail, or phone calls. Studies consistently show that American consumers like doing business with companies that text.
Text message marketing gives your customers what they want and is easy to use. TextSanity’s platform is designed to make creating keyword and marketing campaigns simple and convenient.
For example, with templates, you can draft and compose marketing campaigns for future use that can be fine-tuned based on your needs. Combined with our message calendar, you can fully automate your marketing and text messaging.
Cost-effectiveness
Your marketing needs to be cost-effective to be sustained. Due to the competitive nature of the fitness industry, gym ownership provides razor-thin margins between profits and losses. SMS marketing is both cost-effective and productive.
Our plans start at under $30 a month and can be used with your existing office equipment, like your laptop. We want you to be successful, and so do your gym members. Let’s face it, they have several options when it comes to fitness centers, but they choose you. Your success is their success also.
It gets results
Text message marketing gets results, and that’s a fact, Jack. SMS text messages have an open rate of 98% within five minutes compared to under 20% with email marketing. Over 6 billion people have smartphones and don’t leave home without them. That’s over 83% of the entire world’s population! This means that your well-timed message will be received wherever they are.
SMS marketing will sustain and fortify your gym membership retention, attract new clients, and open up an entire world of opportunities for your business. In 2021, SMS text marketing generated $1.1 Billion on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, accounting for 30% of all sales.
Whether you’re a new gym or have been around for a while, this level of proven results while being highly cost-effective makes adding SMS marketing to your advertising budget and portfolio a no-brainer.
How to use text message marketing for fitness centers
Now that you have seen how cost-effective and productive SMS business texting and marketing can be for your fitness center let’s look at a few ways to use text message marketing to your advantage.
- Information and advertising campaigns
- Member rewards and engagement
- Membership renewal
- Motivational messages
- Signup campaigns
Information and advertising campaigns
Information and advertising campaigns are the meat and potatoes of SMS marketing. Sending out information to your clients, such as equipment notices, emergency closures, and pandemic-related health and safety announcements, is simple and effective with business texting.
While placing these types of information on your social media and email is also effective at reaching some of your gym members, only SMS texting guarantees universal delivery to all of them. Once subscribed and opted in, your gym members will immediately access pertinent information.
Advertising is also easier than ever with SMS texting. For example, promoting new fitness programs, gym equipment, and personal trainer services via automated SMS texting will increase sales and keep your gym members engaged.
TextSanity makes sending these messages easy. Keyword campaigns, for example, are a great way to send out information and advertising campaigns. They also encourage engagement with a Call-to-Action (CTA) that directs them to your website or your gym to sign up.
Member rewards and engagement
Member rewards are a great way to encourage gym members to be loyal to your fitness center. Competition is fierce regarding fitness center options, so keeping your gym members happy and engaged is paramount to your long-term success.
SMS texting tools like keyword and drip campaigns help you ensure the greatest efficiency in implementing member rewards, tracking which customers engage with them, and collecting customer data for future marketing. Customer data collection is one of the greatest benefits of SMS texting.
With parameters determined by you through tags, you can place your customers into different defined groups. For instance, you may have a group for men, just women, athletes, those wanting to bulk up, those wanting to tone up, those looking to lose weight, etc. These tags make it easy for you to tailor your marketing message to a target audience that is likely to be the most responsive.
Membership renewal
Automated membership renewal is an instrumental tool that supports continued gym membership and loyalty. SMS texting allows you to remind your members of upcoming renewals and subscriptions to help mitigate missed payments. We mentioned previously that fitness center budgets are razor thin, so ensuring your gym members renew their memberships on time helps keep you profitable and competitive.
Motivational messages
Fitness goals are often abandoned due to a lack of motivation. It takes years to put on excess weight, yet we all want to see results from our new fitness and diet routines in days. Unfortunately, this is now how the human body or fitness works. One of the greatest marketing messages your fitness center can send is results. Therefore, if people see that your gym helps them achieve their goals, they will likely become new gym members.
In other words, your actions are speaking louder than your words. Sending motivational messages to your gym members, and encouraging them to stay focused on their health and fitness goals, is a great way of showing you are committed to being a partner on their journey.
Our tools help make sending motivational messages simple and easy to track. Automation means less work for you. By setting up keyword and drip campaigns, you can ensure motivational messages are delivered to your clients at just the right rhythm to maintain accountability and ensure they remain goals focused.
Signup campaigns
Have a big event for a new program you are starting? Are you starting a personal trainer subscription service? Are you hosting a big membership sign-up sale? Whatever the reason, sending out signup campaigns via SMS is the best way to ensure that most people are reached with the highest level of engagement possible.
What to do next
After learning about all of the ways SMS texting can simplify and enhance your marketing, it may seem very expensive, but the truth is it’s far from it. Our plans start at just under $30 a month. With most gym memberships costing between $25 and $70 a month, just one member pays for all of your SMS marketing.
Shoot us a text, visit our website, or give us a call to connect with our team and discover why we are your trusted partner in providing your clients and business with high-quality automated SMS texting services.
While on our website, you can also visit our blog page and find articles about all of our tools, how to use them, and how to maximize your SMS marketing. Click here to explore our vast library and take the next step in elevating your marketing and amplifying your success.
