You don’t need me to tell you the fitness industry is hurting right now. After its best year ever in 2019 with revenues of $35 billion, the industry plummeted by 76% in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But all is not lost. You can boost your revenue and create happier customers right now.
Picture this: You pull up your fitness studio’s marketing dashboard and see…
- Fully booked classes two weeks out.
- Zero no-shows.
- A 57% increase in click-throughs on your latest promotion.
This is where I tell you the one weird trick to accomplishing all that. But unlike those cheesy internet ads, this one’s the real deal.
The trick is AMP for Email. It’s a breakthrough technology that brings the power of live data and interactivity to email marketing.
Here are five AMP for Email examples that fitness companies can start using right now to create personalized, exciting user experiences your customers will love.
Increase response rates and serve up engaging inbox experiences with polls in email. Submit your email below to send yourself a sample AMP email.
5 AMP Email Examples for Fitness Companies
Every gym or studio sends the following five types of emails…
But they’re often limited by the inherent constraints of email. That’s all changed now that AMP is on the scene. It’s to email marketing what neon scrunchies were to the 80’s. It’s big.
Check out how adding AMP functionality to these common emails brings energy and action to your campaigns.
1. Fully Booked Classes via AMP Email
Classes are great for your members and your bottom line. People who work out in a group do so for 10% longer, on average, than they’d normally work out alone. And, they cover 21% more ground in distance activities.
Not only that, but members who take part in classes are 44% less likely to cancel their memberships.
But a class with two people in it is hardly profitable. How do you keep them booked solid?
I’m sure you send out emails reminding your members of the class schedule and how to sign up. Many studios even offer an online booking system or app. But you know the one thing customers need to avoid going to the gym?
An excuse.
“Oh, I want to try this new barre class, but I don’t have my laptop out right now to sign up. I can’t remember my login and all my passwords are in there so I can’t do it right now.”
*Fast forward two days, and they never signed up.*
What can I say, we’re all human. At our core, we’re pain-avoidant procrastinators. That’s part of why 63% of all gym memberships are never even used.
What if you could take away any excuse a customer had for not signing up?
The Benefits of AMP for Email
AMP emails use live data. That means your recipient only sees up-to-date information each and every time they open the email. It’s like a little webpage living inside their inbox, always fetching the freshest data. Cool, huh?
It also allows for two-way communication. In other words, your customer can book a fitness class right from that email.
Think of it like ClassPass. The app shows fitness classes near the user, along with the schedule, class info, available spots, and more. The user can book any of those classes with the tap of a button.
All that could be in an email!
You can show a live list of upcoming classes, the number of spots left, and have a button to register for the class. It’s connected to recipients’ email address and existing account, so they don’t need to visit your site or sign in to book.
One tap and done.
It could look like the popular Mindbody app, and how it shows if a class is available or waitlisted. Only you wouldn’t have to convince your members to download a special app — this could all be right in their inbox.
Or, for the fitness app marketers out there, you could bring the app’s functionality into email to make things extra convenient for your users… and increase adoption and retention in the process.
By making it extra easy to sign up, you get more fully-booked classes (and ka-ching, profits!) and your customers get an effortless user experience.
It’s what marketing dreams are made of.
2. Gathering Reviews and Feedback Effortlessly
Finding out what members thought about a class or your facility is vital for ensuring you keep existing customers — and attract new ones.
So, you send out those “Tell Us How We Did” emails afterwards, right? What’s your response rate? The average for an email survey is about 30%, according to recent studies.
What if you could bump that up by 257%, like what happened when Razorpay switched to using AMP for their survey emails? Here’s how…
The Benefits of AMP for Email
Let’s look at two email examples asking for feedback. I’m sure you’ll agree with me which one is more effective.
First, we have this post-class email from a yoga studio:
Source: my inbox
Next up, this AMP-powered email that lets your customer complete a review or survey instantly within the email:
OK, I think these examples speak for themselves. The first one was nice (in a snooze-fest way), but didn’t provide an easy way for me to relay my feedback. If it’s not easy, most people aren’t going to do it. Even if it had a button linking to a survey page, your customer still has to click, wait for the page to load, and then fill out a survey.
Whereas the second one was as easy as possible. I can type my review right in the little box, on desktop or mobile, hit “Submit” and boom — feedback sent in about ten seconds of my day.
To capture the highest possible number of responses, AMP for Email is your friend.
Learn what your customers really want, so you can deliver more of that and less of what they don’t.
3. Managing Cancellations and Minimizing No-Shows
No-shows cost you big time.
If a class sells out and a member no-shows (e.g. doesn’t cancel in advance) that’s a spot that could’ve gone to someone else… even a brand new customer.
With the popularity of group exercise, most studios are fully booking classes. This is especially true during peak times, such as mornings and evenings around the standard nine-to-five work schedule.
If customers keep getting stuck on waitlists, they’ll eventually switch to a competitor instead. And you can’t convert a lead into a member if you can’t even get them into a class.
The pandemic changes things, too. It’s more important than ever to manage your cancellations as many governments worldwide are still limiting fitness class sizes in late 2021 and beyond.
How can email help with this? I’m so glad you asked…
The Benefits of AMP for Email
With AMP for Email, you can give customers the ability to cancel a class without ever leaving their inbox.
Here’s how your regular class reminder email works:
- You send it out 24 hours before the class.
- Your customer suddenly thinks, “Oh, shoot, I forgot I have to work late tomorrow!”
- They want to do the right thing and cancel their space so someone else can get in the class, but… what’s their password again? Can they do it online? Didn’t the instructor mention an app last time? Oh, the baby’s crying, gotta go…
Aaaaand they forget to cancel, leaving the spot empty. Somewhere in the distance, a disappointed customer remains stuck on the waitlist.
Here’s how it goes with an AMP-powered email:
- You send out the class reminder email.
- Inside, there’s a button to cancel.
- Your customer remembers they have to work late and instantly hits the button.
- They see a “Cancellation Confirmed” message right away in the email.
Somewhere in the distance, the first person on the waitlist gets a “You’re in!” email and does a happy dance before going to bed.
Picture it working like this, even though this is an e-commerce email from Nest.
Replace the “Add to Cart” button with “Cancel Class” and just like how this email brings up a shopping cart, yours could process the cancellation. Then, display a message right in the email, like, “Thanks for cancelling! We hope to see you again soon.”
That’s a great customer experience for both your customers who need to cancel and those on the waitlist hoping to get a spot. And, it’s an even better experience for your balance sheet.
4. Managing Recurring Memberships with AMP Email
There was one word circulating everywhere in 2020, as most gyms and fitness studios remained closed around the world due to COVID-19 restrictions. Can you guess what it was?
…Peloton. Peloton. Peloton.
I know, you don’t want to hear that word ever again. And for good reason: Sales of the uber-popular home exercise bike doubled in 2020 amidst worldwide lockdowns.
Believe me, I know how you feel. There are Artificial Intelligence writing machines out there trying to do my job, too. (Back off, Wall-E!)
But you know the big drawback to machines? Besides inevitably leading us down the path to apocalyptic, dystopian ruin?
They don’t care about you.
A study on gym membership retention tested the power of human connection on at-risk customers. Members who were thinking about cancelling got a call from gym staff to encourage them about their fitness goals. A control group who were also thinking of cancelling weren’t contacted. The result? The group gym staff reached out to were 45% less likely to cancel in the following 30 days.
AMP for Email is your new BFF when it comes to developing genuine customer relationships at scale.
The Benefits of AMP for Email
Using AMP, your membership renewal emails can become personalized, seamless, and automated. Mmm, a marketer’s three favorite words.
Your customer can renew their membership — and even add some personalized upsells and cross-sells — in the email.
This example shows an e-commerce transaction for a shoe, but the same logic works for membership renewal. Instead of choosing a color or size, your customer would choose their membership length, amenities, and so on.
As an upsell, they could tick a box to add on towel service or bottled water at each session.
That took, what, two seconds?
Make it easy to renew, and you’re in for a serious boost in conversions. Switching to AMP emails has already resulted in 82% more sales for ecommerce companies. What will it do for you?
5. Class Schedules and Reminder Emails with Live Data
I showed you how powerful live data is earlier in the example about booking an individual class, but what about managing your entire schedule?
When it comes to fitness classes, things change all the time: An instructor is sick, a room is unavailable, not enough people booked, etc. Many gyms email out a weekly schedule to members, but this can quickly become problematic.
Whenever there’s a cancelled class or change, you need to send another email out to let everyone know. And it’s only Tuesday… Surely nothing else would change by the end of the week, right? And if they do, your customers won’t mind four emails this week from you?
Oh, and they’ll see these emails first before they head to the gym, right?
No, no, no.
This is where AMP’s real power shines.
The Benefits of AMP for Email
Using AMP, your reminder email will auto-update if a class gets cancelled, rescheduled, or for any other change.
For example, you could send out one class schedule email on Monday mornings for the entire week. It will stay updated throughout the week. I can open it at 9am Monday and have my eye on the 12pm Wednesday pilates class. Tuesday night, I open the same email only to see that — darn — the class is full. Shoulda booked earlier!
With AMP, customers can book classes via that same email, too.
Similar to how Doodle allows for instant meeting booking with their AMP emails:
Your schedule email could look like the example below. Although it’s an email, so you can add your branding, design elements, social media links, and other marketing email content. You know, pretty it up.
And throughout the week, your customers can:
- Re-open the email to see if there are any class changes: Start times, locations, cancellations, instructor changes, etc.
- See live availability and waitlist status.
- Tap one button to register for the class (or cancel an existing reservation).
This gives all your members an easy way to stay on top of changes, without having to download a special app or remember their login to your website.
One-tap registration and cancellation makes it easy to keep classes full and provides the easiest user experience possible.
Max Out Classes, Increase Retention, and Eliminate No-Shows with AMP Emails for the Fitness Industry
AMP emails make it easy for your members to book the classes they love, cancel if they need to, provide feedback, and stay informed.
Most gyms, especially those who offer group classes, rely on users downloading an app or logging into their website to book classes, cancel, buy memberships, or do anything else related to their account.
The problem with that? The average person has over 150 online accounts and research predicts that number will be over 300 in 2022.
Instead of asking your customers to sign up for just one more account, make it simple. Let them manage their relationship with you via the main online account everyone already uses every day: Email.
They get a stress-free experience, and you get:
- More class bookings.
- Less no-shows thanks to easy cancellations, so your waitlisted customers can join in more often.
- More valuable customer feedback via AMP email surveys and forms that will help you retain more business.
- Happy customers who won’t hesitate to renew their membership.
Ready to learn more about AMP for Email? Check out our white paper to see how AMP emails are delivering high ROI through best-in-class customer experiences.
