As the year winds down, people all over are preparing to search for new gyms to help reach their new-year fitness goals. That makes right now the perfect time to begin rethinking your marketing strategy for the new year. If you’re wondering if direct mail can play a role in helping you increase your annual memberships, the answer is a resounding yes! Here’s how you can use direct mail automation to bring in more gym members throughout the new year:
By Simplifying the Process of Signing Up for a Consultation
Making the process of signing up for a membership, free consultation or more information simple is a must. That’s because nobody likes the runaround (unless they’re on the treadmill of course). And sending your audience postcards enables them to take the next step towards becoming a member in just seconds. By including a QR code on your postcard, paired with a concise, clear call to action recipients can take your desired action within just the matter of seconds.
Additionally, this helps your postcard capture the attention of recipients. After all, you’re probably more likely to see QR codes on a table of a bar or restaurant than a postcard. This could go a long way in capturing the intrigue of your audience. And as an added bonus, doing this enables you to track the results of your campaign relative to your expectations.
Include User Generated Content In Your Mailing Campaigns
Another way automated direct mail campaigns can help your gym increase year over year memberships is by using your postcards to share user generated content. User generated content is messaging that comes directly from your consumers, or in this case members. Some examples of user generated content you can share in your automated mailing campaigns include:
- Reviews:
Searching for reviews is a key aspect of finding a new gym. By including some of your highest ratings and reviews on your postcards, you could be answering some of the key questions recipients have about your gym. And that could go a long way in helping to speed up the decision making process.
- Before and After Photos:
Sometimes, people need to see other people succeed in order to envision themselves having similar outcomes. By including before and after photos on your postcards, you may be able to quickly convince recipients that with enough time and hard work they can produce similar results. This can make increasing your year-over-year memberships easier than you ever thought.
- Social Media Photos & Comments
Perhaps your social media feed contains photos of group training sessions or people using your machines and equipment. In this case, sharing these images on your postcards can help convince some of your recipients to become members. And by simply sharing your social media handles, you can encourage recipients to connect with you online in case they have any questions or concerns about joining your gym.
Use Automated Direct Mail Campaigns to Showcase New Promotions, Offerings and Discounts
Let’s say for example that you’re planning to start off the new year by offering a new-member discount of 20% of the full cost of an annual membership. This could be the exact type of incentive that some of your leads need in order to finally join your gym. By sharing details about your new year, new member promo, you can convince price-conscious recipients that there’s no time like the present to join. The same can be said if your gym is adding new equipment or features for members like gear or nutritional snacks.
If you’re going above and beyond to satisfy your members, your postcards are a great way to showcase that. And by relying on methods like direct mail to do that, instead of oversaturated mediums like paid ads or social media campaigns. After all, your audience is busy and unless you inform them about what your gym has going on, they’ll never know. By automatically sending postcards that provide these updates, you can grow your membership base without having to take too much time away from your other regular responsibilities.
Automated Direct Mail Enables You to Leverage Integrations to Segment Your Audience
The integrations Direct Mail Manager users have access to make the process of segmenting audiences easy. A few examples of segments you can reach using automated direct mail campaigns include:
- New Gym Members:
It’s not unusual for new gym members to stop coming after a while, even though they’ve paid for a membership. That’s where automated direct mail campaigns enter the picture. Send those new members postcards to new members thanking them for signing up, while motivating them to continue on their workout journey. Doing so could be just what it takes to motivate recipients to continue coming in.
- Lapsed Members:
Let’s say for instance that you’ve got a segment of former members in your database you’d like to reach out to. In this case, sending this group a postcard that expresses how much you miss them, along with information about how much your gym is doing to help members meet their fitness goals could be just what it takes to get them to rejoin. And with Direct Mail Manager’s variable data printing capabilities, you can personalize your postcards using any of the first party data you have stored.
- Warm Prospects:
Suppose that you’ve got lots of prospects that provided you with their personal information after filling out a lead form. But they never followed through with signing up for a membership. Maybe they forgot, or had other priorities get in the way of signing up for a membership. In this case, sending a postcard reminding them how close they were to transforming their physique could be just what it takes to get them to follow through on signing up.
Begin Leveraging Direct Mail Automation to Boost Your Year-Over-Year Memberships By Creating Your Direct Mail Manager Account Today
The new year will be here before you know it. That means many of your prospective members are already scouting the gyms they’ll join once the calendar flips to January. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to attract new-year resolutioners into your gym. Begin reaching out to them using Direct Mail Manager by signing up for a Free or Pro account today! If you’ve got questions about getting started, don’t worry. A direct mail specialist can answer any of your questions during a complimentary demo at your earliest convenience.
