Attracting more new members to your gym or fitness center is always exciting. But if you’re not retaining those members, you could be spending an overwhelming amount of time and money continuing to maintain high membership levels. Leveraging resources that keep members in the know regarding gym benefits, fees and membership expiration dates could go a long way in helping you reduce spending while maintaining high membership numbers. And when it comes to resources that are capable of helping you attract and retain more gym members, look no further than automated direct mail. Some of the ways you can leverage this technology for your gym include:
Automated Direct Mail Campaigns Allow You to Emphasize Personalization Within Your Gym Marketing Materials
One of the biggest benefits of conducting direct mail campaigns is that they present a variety of opportunities to leverage your customer data. Direct Mail Manager’s variable data printing capabilities deliver a dimension of personalization other marketing methods can’t compete with. Whether you’d like to reference the city your gym is located in, or go deeper with personalization, you can do it with Direct Mail Manager. That’s because you can use it to include all types of details about your members in your postcards.
Let’s say for instance that you want to send members postcards encouraging them to renew their annual membership early in exchange for free access to a class of their choice. In this case, you can include a class that the member has either taken in the past or shown interest in via an online inquiry directly on that postcard. This has the potential to increase urgency among recipients to renew memberships while getting them interested in getting more involved with your gym. And the more your members are involved with your gym, the lower the likelihood is of them leaving without renewing at least once.
Use Your Marketing Materials to Address Specific Concerns
Determining what’s stopping members from renewing their memberships is easier said than done. By using postcards to address common concerns members have regarding renewing, you could encourage recipients to continue their workout journey with your gym. For instance, you can use your postcards to explain to gym members what your staff does to maintain a clean facility. Another idea is to use your postcards to showcase the equipment your gym offers that sets your fitness center apart from the competition.
Keep in mind that members are likely to respond best to messaging from other members. Leveraging the voice of other members within your mailing campaigns is a foolproof method you can use for addressing concerns. If you collect reviews or if you’re active on social media, you can include those on your postcards. Doing so could be exactly what it takes to eliminate reservations members have about renewing.
Simplify the Process of Renewing Memberships
Making the process of renewing memberships as frictionless as possible is a must for reducing churn. After all, if you don’t make the renewal process as simple as possible, many of your members will simply kick the can down the road. Fortunately, there are numerous ways you can use your direct mail campaign as a starting point for getting members to renew their memberships. One way is by including a QR code on your postcards recipients can scan that will lead them to your renewal site.
This enables recipients to complete their renewal within minutes of receiving your postcard. Another way you can get recipients to quickly complete their renewal is by including a unique URL on your postcards that takes recipients onto a page on your website where they can renew their membership. Both methods also enable you to track the results of your mailing campaign. Once it concludes, you’ll be able to easily compare your results with your campaign goals to determine whether or not changes need to be made on future campaigns.
Use Direct Mail to Communicate Membership Status
Many of your current gym members won’t even begin thinking about renewing until their memberships are on the verge of expiration. A few ideas you can use to nudge members at your gym to renew include:
- Leveraging Direct Mail Manager’s Integrations to Reach Members 60 Days Before Their Membership Expires
The many integrations you can use Direct Mail Manager with allow you to automatically send postcards to members based on a variety of actions. In this case, you can integrate Zapier with a relationship management tool like Salesforce to send postcards to members 60 days prior to the expiration date of their memberships. This gives members more than enough time to begin thinking about whether or not they’d like to remain a member.
- Send Postcards That Offer an Incentive Renewal
You likely have members that are on the fence regarding whether or not they’d like to renew. In this case a small discount or giveaway could be just what it takes to get them to commit to another year of membership at your gym.
- Use Your Postcards to Instill a Sense of FOMO
Sending postcards to members who are on the verge of allowing their membership to lapse is the perfect opportunity to remind them about all of the ways involvement at your gym enhances their life. By reminding members about all of the benefits they’ll be losing access to by allowing their memberships to lapse could go further to motivate recipients to renew their memberships than you think.
Begin Reducing Churn at Your Gym With Direct Mail Manager Today!
Considering how difficult earning new gym members can be, the last thing you want is for them to leave once they get the chance. Gyms and fitness centers all over the country rely on mailing campaigns to reduce membership churn and yours can be next. Earn more membership renewals at your gym than ever before by embarking on an automated direct mail campaign with Direct Mail Manager. Getting your first campaign started is much easier than you might think, too. To begin mailing, sign up for a Free or Pro Direct Mail Manager account today.