health and-leisure-email-marketing-review

Health & Leisure Email Marketing Review

of 9 Pure360emailmarketing.co.uk – 0844 586 0001

Introduction

During a time when many industries are being affected by the economic downturn – the Health and Leisure industry seems to be bucking a trend with the consumer focus on getting/staying fit and healthy ranking high on their list of priorities. With the sheer volume of contacts within their membership databases, marketers in this industry have a wealth of information that they could be using to really target their marketing efforts. That combined with the growing interest in all things healthy – it’s a good time to review whether they’re actually making the most of one of the most cost-effective and easily reportable channels out there – email marketing...

So why email marketing?

There are many reasons why email marketing is a solid option for marketers when deciding on their channels, no it isn’t the newest, most exciting form of marketing like social media or mobile, but it gets results and most importantly – ones that you can track and report on. � So there’s how trackable it is � With a good database it’s easy to personalise � You can target by all sorts of things such as geography, title, age event when they like to open their

emails, at the touch of a button � You can quickly turn around campaigns � With the right technology you can manage them online remotely � You can get your message to thousands of relevant people quickly � It’s uber cost effective � Think of the trees you’re saving Oh yes and a whopping 79% of recent respondents to an Econsultancy study said they used email as their primary method of communication. So in a nutshell it’s a pretty good tool for your marketing toolbox and if done properly can have a great impact on you customer service, outbound sales, account management and of course your other marketing activity. On with the review...

Esporta – use the web to build database

There’s actually nowhere to sign up for a newsletter or more information on their website anywhere, they’re really missing a trick here – newsletters are a great way of keeping members up to date with the latest offers or company information. They’ll make sure that members stay engaged with the brand even if they’re not actively attending the club. The only way I could try to get an email from them was to sign up for a free guest pass and even when I did that there was no email confirmation in response. So my review of their emails is pretty short, well non-existent really. I’d assume (read hope) that they’re emailing their members but I can’t sign up just so I can review their email marketing! One thing I am sure of though and that’s they’re missing a trick by not linking their email marketing to their website.



Fitness First – getting to know you

A really good start with these guys, the minute you hit their website you can see a bold call to action for an email marketing opt in which shows that they’re actively building their database using best practice. When you go through to the sign up form the look and feel carries on nicely but they are asking for a lot of information which could prove to be off putting to people. There are a couple of ways they could combat this:

1. Use a two stage sign up where people would fill in say their name, email and tel no as part of the initial homepage button. This info would then pre-populate the full sign up form which asks for more details as currently. The benefit of this is that they could capture the initial details on the first button incase they got put off by the larger form.

2. Just have a smaller form to start with and

in the welcome email they send to confirm registration, link to a preference centre where they can ask users for more information such as DOB, location, fitness interests and preferences.

Unfortunately, I didn’t receive a confirmation or welcome email from Fitness First which is odd considering how good the rest of their email marketing process was. Welcome emails are a really important part of the email marketing process forming the basis of the relationship you want to build with a recipient. They should be the first email that a person receives when registering their details on your site and are usually the email the people will save and refer back to at a later date. I did sign up for a day’s free membership and instantly received an email from Fitness First in that case – presumably because it contained a voucher I needed to bring along with me. It didn’t reflect their branding or the website experience however. Some companies do this to try to improve deliverability rates but with a good ESP and the right advice you should be able to hit the inbox and still have a good looking email.



Gym Box – get that welcome in

These guys, who have four gyms across London including one at the prestigious Westfield Shopping Centre, are already utilising email marketing as part of their plan to optimise their memberships and attract new members. You can see from their website that they are interested in new media marketing with a video and Twitter banner on their homepage and a nice clear newsletter sign up. What’s even nicer is that when you click on the newsletter sign up, it opens up on the same page to allow you to enter your name and email – simples. What was more of a surprise (being the email marketer I am) was that once I hit subscribe – that was it! No further forms to fill in, no more details required of me...to be honest I felt a bit disappointed, did they not want to know what I was interested in or where I hailed from? How were they going to send me lovely targeted and relevant emails if they didn’t know what to target me with? Perhaps they’d ask for more details in the welcome message they’ve sent me... ... Nope, nothing is hitting my inbox. Lesson to learn here? If you are going to keep the sign up form short but sweet (and that’s a lovely thing don’t get me wrong), make sure that there is an email ready to hit their inbox immediately to make them feel special and welcomed to the fold. This would also be a great opportunity to ask for some more info that you can use for future targeting.

Virgin Active – make use of juicy content

And another club who haven’t got a newsletter or email sign up form on their website. This is such a shame as they offer some really good advice in their Wellness area and quite a few workouts in their Exercise Inspiration area. This kind of content is perfect for visitors to sign up to updates on and then they can get this information straight to their inbox and it will drive them back to the site again and also engage them better with the Virgin Active brand.



Spa Seekers – great homepage placement

What a great experience signing up for email marketing with Spa Seekers – they not only have their registration for emails on the homepage but it’s above the fold in a prime position and also has the email entry right there too. I also like the touch of offering the chance to win a free Spa break to encourage sign ups. And similar to Gym Box, I just provided my email address and there were no further steps to take. I’m really hoping for a welcome email to start this budding relationship off, especially as I’ve been offered the chance to win something – I’d like to know how that works. Let’s wait and see...nope no email sent to me at all – I’m seeing a pattern here...

Sanctuary – giving a sneak peak

So these guys do have an email sign up form on their homepage which is good however it took me a little while to find as it’s rather subtle (look above the large Facebook button). The sign up form itself keeps it fairly short and has the opt in tick box, plus it shows me an example of what I can expect to receive which is a brucey bonus. But still no welcome or confirmation email – I despair...



Champneys – exclusive should equal welcome

An exclusive and high quality brand which is reflected on their website, they do have an email sign up but once again it gets a little lost due to the size of the picture versus the call to actions. If you squint then you may be able to see it below the large image... The sign up form is one of the shortest yet which is great and they’re even using captcha technology to make sure that they’re only getting genuine opt ins and not computer generated ones. I’ve now actually given up on receiving an immediate email from where I register as it

would seem this industry has not caught on to this technique yet!

Thermae Bath Spa – a different opt out

Bath is well known for its spas and this modern addition to them proved very popular to the area. Unlike the other spas I’ve looked at however their email sign up wasn’t on the homepage, it was in their contact area and was merely called ‘Mailing list’ which doesn’t inspire action. They could hugely increase their number of web sign ups by putting this on the homepage and explaining what people are signing up to better. What’s interesting with their sign up form is that they are also using it to manage their unsubscribes as well. There are different ways to manage the opt outs:

1. You can use your sign up page on your website as they have done here

2. Or you can have branded subscription management pages created as part of your email marketing software.

From an email marketing view both work well, although if you would like people to choose what types of emails they opt out from (so maybe they want to receive the special offers but not the newsletter) – this would be best done in the latter method.



It feels like Christmas because I have had an instant email hit my inbox – thank you Thermae Bath Spa you have reinvigorated my faith in email marketing. Now this may not be an oil painting but that is because they are using a double opt in method to grow their list. Great best practice, double opt in means that you pop an email asking the subscriber to just confirm that you have indeed subscribed and are happy to receive future emails. If you’re using double opt in then deliverability is vital so to ensure your email will definitely hit the inbox, a plain text email is advisable. The perfect way to follow this email up would be to send out a further html email, thanking them for their confirmation, looking like it reflects the brand providing them with example content and offering them the change to manage their subscription by answering a few questions about their preferences and interests.

LA Fitness – keeping attendance levels up

LA Fitness is a lovely customer of ours so instead of just reviewing their email we can treat you to an insight into what they’re doing and why they decided to do it. New Year – new email marketing They needed to combat the post New Year resolution gym enthusiasm drop off. The battle was on to get members to keep up their attendance and previous methods of phone calls and direct mail shots weren’t cutting it. What they needed was to make the renewal process as easy and accessible as possible. Having already taken their joining process online and seen the benefits, they realised that they might also be able to improve renewal rates through the website. However, unlike signing up for membership, which is largely self-motivated, the success of online renewals required an effective traffic-driver.



They created an email marketing campaign, targeting people whose memberships were close to expiring. With all the necessary contact information to run personalised campaigns to every recipient on their database, LA Fitness created a friendly, offer-based email, with a clear and simple message linking to the renewals page of their site. Given the importance of membership renewals to the business, they wanted to make sure as many people would open and read the email as possible. However, as with contacting customers by telephone, that means catching the customer at the right time. To help them achieve this, LA Fitness added a new piece of functionality – Intelligent Time Sending – to their PureResponse email marketing software. Intelligent Time Sending analyses all the information on when each recipient had opened or read previous newsletters, or signed up to the website, calculating the optimum time and day to deliver each message. Usually, their monthly email newsletters got an open rate of around 20%, and even though the nature of this campaign provided an added reason to open the mail, the resulting 33% open rate demonstrated a significant uplift. As a result, they are now using Intelligent Time Sending on all future email newsletters, to make sure they also arrive at the time each customer is likely to read and engage with them.

A little summary

So having looked through what we can class as some of the top leisure and spa companies email marketing, I think it’s fair to say that it’s pretty varied as to who is doing what. One thing that’s clear is nearly all of them could benefit from setting up a confirmation message and set of welcome messages (which can both be done using an automation). Check out this blog on welcome messages There are some great opportunities for sending out newsletters using content that already exists on their websites, instead of just focusing on sending an email when people sign up for a special offer or just emailing existing customers.



Want to know more?

Author of this guide, Abi Clowes is Marketing Manager at email marketing service providers Pure360. You can usually find her blogging on their website or organising the team’s participation in madcap events like the Scally Rally charity banger race. Pure360 are the people who provide the best email marketing service to Health & Leisure companies like LA Fitness, David Lloyd, Accuvision, The Belfry and Reflex Nutrition. Why? � We've the highest customer retention rate � The most usable Google Analytics integration � 10% higher open rate for customers than DMA average � Largest customer service team in the UK If you’re not happy with your email marketing and want a supplier who won’t tie you into a contract (you’ll stay because you want to) check out what we can do for you or email us at [email protected] Not ready to talk? We’re also on Twitter (@pure360) or sign up for our newsletter online www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk

health and-leisure-email-marketing-review

Education