By Mark Aquino/Konnectme.ca
The drip campaign is an automated direct marketing initiative where your messaging and content is ‘dripped’ out to your members and prospects over a period of time.
3 important Stats you should know before you read further:
- According to a recent IHRSA study, members are 45% less likely to cancel a membership when your studio uses an automated system to reach out to members every month.
- For every 3000 marketing messages, the average person will notice only 6 ads, and retain 2.
- It takes 6-13 personal touches (such as call, email, or text) to get a chance to turn a prospect into an appointment.
Who should you send your fitness drip campaigns to?
All of your leads, except one: Your fitness studio should have individual drip campaigns set up for all categories. That includes new and old prospects, referrals, members, and personal training clients. The exception is the sleeping member.
How should you set up the drip campaign properly so that you don’t initiate cancellations from sleeping members?
When creating a drip campaign for all membership categories, avoid sending emails to anyone who hasn’t been in your studio for the past 3 months, as we consider these memberships to be “sleeping” and we don’t want to wake these memberships up, especially if their agreement has lapsed!
Drip campaigns are utilized to retain members, get more members and referrals and promote personal training. But how often should you send the email or text (SMS)?
We recommend once every 21 days. While this could possibly ‘annoy’ the member, we’ve developed a way around it: Contact the member starting from the day they sign up using a revolving topic sequence. During the course of a year, this might include work-out tips, referral bonus offers, personal training offers or club and staff updates.
Drip Campaigns for New Member Acquisition
Since it’s understood that you may need to contact a lead/prospect at least 6-13 times to get a chance to bring them into your facility, we recommend using a combination of text and email, plus an initial phone call to reach out to them during the first month.
If your campaign or salesperson is not successful in converting them as an appointment or a member, set them up for a monthly recurring follow-up to entice them to come back.
Getting More Referrals and Reviews
Make sure that your new member is asked to review your studio during the first 30 days because this is when their emotion of joining is HOT!
We start them up with a welcome email, then ask for a referral, followed by asking if there is anything we can do to further help or support them, and finally we ask them to write a review. It’s vital that this follow-up process follows a specific sequence.
Drip Campaigns to acquire more Personal Training Clients
There are two ways we use Drip Campaigns to gain more personal training leads and clients:
- Contact prospects directly to offer a personal training assessment. It’s well known that new members can be intimidated by other ‘fitter’ looking or more experienced members. We recommend setting up your new lead/prospect drip campaign to provide reassurance starting in the 2nd week of prospecting.
- Incorporate the Personal Training drip campaign into your member follow-up sequence, which also starts during the 1st week. Most of the time, your front desk or membership salesperson may not be able to book the personal training assessment, so it is very important to add the personal training offer into your drip campaign.
Konnectme is a Canadian Digital Marketing Agency specializing in fitness studio marketing. We understand the sales process that gyms need, but do not have the time to do. We create a digital marketing process tailored to your gym and implement it for you so you can accelerate the growth of your membership and personal training clients.
Contact us today to book a Strategy call with us and receive a complimentary digital marketing audit: https://konnectme.ca/book/
