B.Well Consulting: Complete Guide to Fitness Studio Automation

YOUR COMPLETE GUIDE TO FITNESS STUDIO MARKETING AUTOMATION As the owner of a fitness studio, you have some unique branding challenges: you need to create loyalty among customers who have lots of objections (“it’s too expensive,” “I’m not strong enough,” etc.”) while selling intangible benefits. In other words, you’re marketing an experience and culture more than products and services.

For physical products, consumers may buy the same brand (e.g. of clothing) of habit. However, keeping them engaged with your fitness studio requires you to maintain a conversation. The easiest way to continually provide value to your customers is to use marketing automation.

Here’s why this tool is crucial to creating a passionate group of loyal studio members.

WHAT IS MARKETING AUTOMATION? Marketing automation is just what it sounds like: a system in which marketing messages are automatically sent to leads and customers. This includes everything from email drip sequences to scheduled social posts to automated referral programs. Obviously, this is a lot of work for your marketing team, so automation is an excellent time-saver. However, its real benefit is that you can more easily keep your customers engaged with your brand.

Marketing automation streamlines the various steps of your customers’ buying journey. Fitness studios and gyms often use the flywheel model, a circular version of the classic sales funnel. It looks like this:

MARKETING AUTOMATION 1. Leads convert to customers.

2. Those customers continue to purchase from your business (e.g. through a gym membership or class pack).

3. Your customers become loyal to your studio and refer others to it.

4. The more regular customers you have, the more the flywheel gains momentum.

However, the flywheel requires maintenance to keep spinning.

If someone signs up for your New Student special, you’ll want to keep in touch with them and convince them to buy a monthly membership. If someone attends class with a ClassPass, you need to follow up with an opportunity to buy another class.

YOUR TURN 1. How do people enter your flywheel, i.e. first become clients of your gym or studio?

2. What makes them go from one-time visitors into regular customers?

3. How can you entice them to become loyal clients?

All that follow up and client management is tedious. As a fitness studio owner, you’d probably rather be teaching classes or improving your gym. Marketing automation allows you to create messaging pipelines that re-engage your leads and customers — without your needing to send emails and texts manually.

HOW MARKETING AUTOMATION WORKS Marketing automation is based on a set of rules and triggers. The most common type is email automation.

For example, when someone registers for a class or buys a membership at your studio, they hand over their email address. Now, you can add them to your New Student drip sequence, which introduces them to your studio in more depth.

By segmenting your email list into specific groups, you can send more relevant messages. The beauty of marketing automation is that you can divide your customer base by their current status and recent activities. Some common trigger-based emails include

• If they attended one class but haven’t been in recently, you can set up an automated email to remind them to come back.

• If their membership is about to expire, send them an email alert.

• If they’ve been taking your yoga class and you’re about to offer aerial yoga, invite them to be the first to sign up for the new class.

AUTOMATION WORK Automation can also be used to engage and reward current customers. Many studios use an SMS marketing system that sends class and training session reminders, special deals, and event information. Get your customers to opt-in to the list, then let your marketing automation system handle it. This prevents lost revenue and boosts loyalty while you don’t have to lift a finger.

YOUR TURN 1. When do you first capture your clients’ contact information?

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2. What are some of the triggers you can build automations on?

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HOW TO GET STARTED WITH MARKETING AUTOMATION FOR YOUR FITNESS STUDIO R eady to make marketing automation part of your engagement strategy?

Follow these steps: STEP 1. MAP OUT YOUR CUSTOMERS’ BUYING JOURNEY. A. How are you recruiting new students and clients? (Instagram, Facebook, etc.)

B. What convinces first-time customers to buy a membership?

C. What automated messages could streamline their path to becoming a loyal customer?

STEP 2. LOOK FOR WAYS TO AUTOMATICALLY PROVIDE VALUE TO YOUR AUDIENCE. A. How can you keep your clients engaged? (e.g. fitness tips newsletter, Student of the Week, etc.)?

B. At what point will new customers be introduced to these materials?

STEP 3. IDENTIFY AREAS WHERE YOU COULD AUTOMATE AND STREAMLINE YOUR MESSAGING. A. How do your clients and students hear about new classes? (e.g. mailing list, texts, etc.)

B. What reminders or notifications would be useful to your customers? (e.g. membership expiration reminder, new class alert) STEP 4. DECIDE HOW YOU’D LIKE TO RE-TARGET LEADS AND PREVIOUS CUSTOMERS. A. How will you retarget potential customers? (e.g. people who engaged with you on Facebook) B. How can you turn a one-time customer into a regular client? (e.g. New Student specials, discount codes) C. What would convince your regular customers to become loyal clients? (e.g. bundled class pricing, referral program) With marketing automation, you can configure emails or texts to go out to people based on the funnels and triggers you’ve identified above.

WRAPPING UP Marketing automation is particularly helpful for fitness studios that need to provide both convenience and value to their customers. By automatically messaging people based on their activities, fitness studios can boost engagement and streamline the buying cycle. This empowers them to offer a supportive experience for their customers — which is crucial for this type of business!