Rather than starting a regular communication channel with your clients, text messaging is a means of reminding and stimulating regulars and potential risk candidates. Everyone loves to get messages, it makes them feel important. It gives them a sense of purpose. This is the basis of SMS marketing and people who want to control their lives need this feeling that pushes them.
Understanding Why Marketing with SMS Works
People who attend Fitness Centers place a huge onus on staying healthy and maintaining schedules. They love text messages because it is concise, it helps them stick to their schedule, and it doesn’t take time.
Most of the text messages get read (98.4%) and people act on it. People like it when others call them loyal and they put in extra effort when your text Message service includes words like “loyal” and “discount” because everyone likes to get free stuff.
Reason Why a Gym Owner Must Use SMS Messaging
This kind of marketing has a direct impact on your revenue. You can see your profit jump right from the month you begin to use it. The other reasons are these:
● Build brand awareness - There are gyms all over the place and unless you give your customers a reason they will not stick with your gym. To do this you must build your brand. It must occur to the customer that you offer something that other gyms don't offer. One thing that sticks in the mind is the SMS discount message.
● Improve renewal rates - There is a period when the customers re-consider renewing their membership. This happens at the end of the year and this is the time to send your online text message telling them how much they have benefitted from the membership and how there is much more waiting for them.
● Stop people dropping off - To increase retention, you must remind your gym members in a friendly way to attend exercise sessions. Use emoji text to keep the messages lively and cheerful. People feel committed when they have a message on their phones that they read and liked. Method of Using the SMS Service
Method of Using the SMS Service
Like any well-prepared dish, the commitment to SMS has another side. This is the way you serve it, when done well it creates the right result. To use the SMS service, use keywords. The word relates to fitness and has the name of your gym. GetCometFit is a good word if your gym has the name Comet.
Impact of Keywords
To make it universally accepted, make sure you display the keywords in your gym and on your website. Your gym banner must have the keywords so the customers can link to your gym. Allowing your clients to use the keywords to log into your website helps you collect vital information from them.
Promote Separate Services
New customers can opt-in for the various services you offer such as Weekend Classes or Mom’s Rounds for the elderly ladies. Use the name of your gym along with the service so it helps promote itself through its name.
Other Tactics that Work for Gym Training Centers
Working with text messages is exciting when you start but it becomes tedious especially when the number of members increases. To deal with this, the gym owner can resort to the use of Auto Responders.
Way to Use Autoresponders
There is a learning curve associated with Autoresponders. As its name suggests, it helps you send messages without your intervention. You will need to invest in one brand of Autoresponders that suits your brand and market niche. Check this before you buy by going through their sample messages. When you find the one you like, buy it.
You can compose messages that you want to send and keep them lined up. When your clients send their messages, Autoresponder will reply even if you are not in the station. This kind of online text message helps capture the interest of the customer. If he or she hadn’t got a reply, they would immediately lose interest and seek another gym. Now, you can avoid such a situation with your Autoresponder.
Use of Shortcodes
This is an extension of the auto-response technique. Here you use a series of numbers such as 55888 to send text messages. The number 55888 relates to your gym and members can send and receive SMS and MMS messages with this shortcode. This helps improve communications and strengthen the bond between members.
Data Collection and Campaigns
This is an important part of marketing. Creating a campaign means selecting a target and send messages at the appropriate time to get the best result. You can use a multimedia message (MMS) to double the impact. For instance, at the beginning of the summer season, all the kids like to be out there working in the gym. If you know which members are in this group, you can send them reminder messages and MMS to keep them coming to the gym.
