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Marketing Automation Software for Gyms

Attract clients and maintain client loyalty with fitness business management software

In the last several issues of Sweat Equity, we’ve been discussing the importance of using Fitness Business Management Software to manage your business’s daily operations, deliver training, and drive sales. Our final topic in this series is on using marketing automation to save time and build client loyalty.

Marketing Automation Software: Time-Saving and Loyalty-Building

You need to be sending timely, personalized, branded messages to your clients and your potential customers about everything from appointment reminders and upcoming fitness challenges to seasonal promotions and product sales. Instead of doing it manually, turn to automation using a business management software platform.

Fitness Business Management Software is about much more than just scheduling, booking, and client management. And marketing automation is more than just advertising. Automation does much more than simply set your business’s communications on autopilot––it acts intuitively, knowing which message to send to which individual––allowing you to personalize communication with each of your clients/leads.

Regarding marketing automation, Neil Patel said it best in Marketing Automation Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide, “Marketing automation is the process of using software and technology to optimize, automate, and measure repetitive online marketing tasks.”

Did you know? Businesses that implement marketing automation experience an average of a 451% increase in qualified leads. (Business2Community)

Top benefits reported by companies using marketing automation techniques to increase growth and revenue include improved targeting of messages and improved customer experience.

[Souce: The Ultimate Marketing Automation Statistics Overview]

With marketing automation, you can use digital marketing to meet potential clients in their world but you can also use inbound marketing to keep current clients engaged.  With the right management software, you should be able to effortlessly and efficiently do the following:

1-  Create and send targeted emails and text message marketing campaigns.

2-  Introduce offers, classes, challenges, success stories. Make sure your clients and potential customers have access to all of your gym/fitness business happenings.

3-  Top business listings with booking services (put your booking buttons everywhere). Keep your business’s information current across the internet so leads can effortlessly find your brand’s mission, services, and stellar customer reviews…and then book on the spot.

4-  Customize SMS and push notifications to welcome new clients. Keep your messaging game strategic. You get to pick who receives which messages based on client history. Personalize messages according to membership type, frequency of purchase, service type.

5-  Request reviews, client referrals, and get feedback. Keep review and referral templates handy to send customized messages to members with amazing stories––take advantage of their success while their stories and momentum are fresh.

7-  Analyze associated reports. Use data from the aforementioned messaging strategies to find out which messages are resonating with your recipients.

Not to mention, social media integration and class sign-up reminders are a part of your marketing automation toolkit. Your fitness business software should offer integrations to automate all of your marketing tasks, like integration with work-flow giant Zapier, which can increase your productivity by connecting your business to 500+ apps.

With all of that said, it’s time to take stock of your business’s marketing efforts. If you’re already using business management software, are you sure it’s meeting all of your needs? Does it have the proper systems in place to handle marketing automation and all that an effective marketing campaign entails?

Fortunately, the Fitness Business Management Software platform from Exercise.com has been built with business growth in mind and includes marketing automation software built specifically for fitness professionals and gyms. Marketing automation is easily done within the platform and integrations are endless courtesy of our partnership with Zapier.

Learn more about how your fitness business can benefit from marketing automation by contacting our success team today.

[Related: Exercise.com’s How to Tackle Digital Marketing for Gyms, Mailchimp’s 4 Ways to Maintain Brand Consistency Across Your Marketing]

Content Multitasking Is a Content Marketing Must

Empowering your message with content that multi-tasks

Moz’s How to Turn One Piece of Content into Multiple for SEO has a stark revelation: the old way of sharing a singular piece of content across several platforms is dead. No longer are your audience members satisfied to reread non-contextualized stories and advertisements.

So, what does that mean for the fitness professional? Do you need to multiply your content output to stay competitive? The short answer is no. The longer answer forces you to consider “building a content strategy at scale.”

Here are a few tips on how to get started when it comes to repurposing your fitness business’s content:

• Convert written content to video for social media (more on that below)
• Improve your content’s visibility by incorporating the right keyword(s) throughout
• Make sure your content is data-driven, meaning your audience wants facts and stats
• Be prepared to fail. Not every piece of content will be a slam-dunk, and that’s okay.
• Pay attention to engagement. This will help you understand what kind of content your audience responds to best.

[Related: How to Use Google Trends for SEO]

3 Cool Ways WordPress SEO Plugins Help You Blog Better https://t.co/wT99Xz9KlI #wordpress #blog #seo pic.twitter.com/0zDSSm1Gbs

— Cristina Leau (@Crissy_Content) October 24, 2020

The 10-Second Marketing Strategy: Short-Form Video

Short-form video content is the perfect platform to increase your brand’s reach by identifying problems and providing solutions with how-tos, FAQs, and/or product demonstrations.

“Shorts is a new short-form video experience for creators and artists who want to shoot short, catchy videos using nothing but their mobile phones.” – SearchEngine Journal’s YouTube Shorts – Google’s Answer to TikTok?

YouTube Shorts is described as offering the following features to video creators:

• Create and upload videos of 15-seconds or less
• Edit videos with a number of creative tools
• Stitch shorter clips together with a multi-segment camera
• Add music to videos from YouTube’s library
• Speed up or slow down videos
• Timers and countdowns

Not a Youtube user? Instagram’s Reels offer a similar video platform: Instagram Reels Launches Worldwide to Compete With TikTok

Social Media Engagement Hacks

Online communities are more meaningful than ever

The digital world, which once was credited for the decline of meaningful relationships, has put a twist on cultivating community in the COVID-era. And you, as a fitness professional, should definitely be tapping into the power of digital connection.

In October, Facebook published a global survey, highlighting the importance of community leadership in successful communities; this importance is magnified for online communities.

Here are some key findings from the Facebook Communities Insights report:

• 91% of respondents said they have given some form of support to others through a group or community during the pandemic. 86% have said they received some form of support from others.
• 77% say the most important group they are part of now operates online.
• 58% of respondents agree that one of the top qualities that makes a community successful is having effective leaders.

Social Listening and Social Media Monitoring

Social media monitoring is your way to be a fly on the wall, so to speak. By paying close attention to your brand’s mentions and reviews, as well as mentions of keywords related to your fitness business, you can get first-hand insight on what topics are stirring with your niche audience. Basically, you’re watching for trends, and once you identify something interesting, you take action.

Hootsuite’s 15 of the Best Social Media Monitoring Tools to Save You Time gives a rundown of social media monitoring applications that you should be using to keep your brand relevant and your training services competitive.

[Related: 23 Surprising Social Listening Stats]

Do Fitness Professionals Need a Reddit Account?

Reddit, the self-proclaimed “front page of the internet”, is a network of communities where people ask questions and share experiences. The communities are designated by interests and Reddit hosts several fitness communities, where users share personal experiences regarding their favorite (and not so favorite) fitness products and services. There’s even a community for personal trainers.

In describing how the company influences a person’s purchasing journey, in comparison to social media, Reddit’s Role in the Path to Purchase found that: “85% of users said that user reviews on Reddit made them more likely to buy a product than reviews on another app.”

According to a Reddit user, the best way for businesses to use the platform is to, “Choose a subreddit [then] post high-quality content. Focus on quality, not quantity. Reddit users will not hold back to let you know if your post is less-than-stellar.”

So, should fitness professionals join the conversation? Absolutely! But follow Reddit’s no-bull mood––share success stories, blog posts––and anything else that allows for meaningful responses to Reddit users’ questions.

[Related: The Marketer’s Guide to Reddit]

Balancing Progress and Injury Prevention with Brad Baker of Bold Base Performance

Our resident interviewer, Schimri Yoyo, sits down with Brad Baker, co-founder of Bold Base Performance, to discuss balancing progress and injury prevention.

Notable Quotes:

• “…I think a big thing with that is tying it back to efficiency. And I don’t think that a workout should be judged based on how tired you are, how exhausted, and how sweaty your shirt is at the end of the workout.”
• “I think it’s more about getting the most out in the least amount of time. Not wasting energy. Not wasting effort on things that aren’t truly getting you towards your goals.”
• “And then ultimately making it fun and understanding that recovery is probably just as important as the actual training that you’re doing. So if you’re not allowing your body to fully recover. You’re just pushing a huge boulder uphill.”

Read the full interview here.

Interesting Internet Finds

Share these links on your social media platforms for increased reach and engagement

Watch: The Dodger’s took the victory in the 2020 World Series but in case you’re still needing some relief from that lingering baseball fever, check the last play from every World Series 1980-Present.

Buy: Looking to update your fitness tracker and even considering a brand switch? Check out the latest fitness tracker reviews and news before you shop.

Read: Are your personal choices based on preference, or something else altogether? You might be surprised by this recent hypothesis: Sorry, but most of the things you ‘choose’ are random.

And that’s a wrap! We hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s digital issue of Sweat Equity: Insider Fitness Business Insights. We’ll see you in two weeks! Stay safe. Stay kind. And wash your hands.

If you’re ready to grow and manage your business better, book a demo with our team today.

This week’s newsletter was brought to you by Brittany, Mathew, and Jeff.

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