Why write a Fitness Blog or have a newsletter
If you’re like most fitness professionals, then writing a newsletter is probably something you regularly add to your to-do list, but rarely seem to cross off.
They’re hard to write, they take time and effort to do well, and after 12 hours of coaching, sitting down to string comprehensible sentences together is a bit of a tall order.
But not sending newsletters means you might be missing out on an extra pile of cash for your fitness business. When done right, fitness newsletters have the power to nurture leads into paying customers, upsell your current customers, and re-engage lapsed members, all while bolstering your authority and encouraging brand loyalty.
So, no matter what type of fitness business you run, let’s jump into how you can craft the perfect fitness newsletter for your audience.
What Is a Fitness Newsletter?
A fitness newsletter is an email communication that forms part of your overall e-mail marketing strategy. They’re sent to inform your audience of the latest news, tips, or updates about your fitness business.
They’re often used for a variety of purposes, and they come in many different forms too. For example, an email newsletter can be anything from a weekly digest of the best fitness articles from around the web to a monthly round-up of everything that’s going on in your company.
The primary purpose of a fitness newsletter is to keep your subscribers engaged, connected and share with them what’s new with your business. Occasionally newsletters can be used for sending out offers and driving sales.
Why Do You Need a Newsletter?
In this age of social media, you might be wondering if you should bother with e-mail newsletters anymore? Are they even worth it? The short answer is yes.
While there’s a lot of talk about likes, shares, and tweets, email marketing isn’t becoming any less valuable. According to the data, 81% of small-medium sized businesses rely on email as their primary customer acquisition channel and 80% for retention.
A newsletter also helps you build a brand personality and familiarity, making you instantly recognisable in a crowded inbox. By creating and sending regular newsletters, you are keeping your brand at the top of your customer’s minds. You’re building a relationship that other brands aren’t.
While newsletters might not have the immediate ROI of a sales email, research shows that customers with a strong attachment to a particular company spend 23% more than average customers. So, by sending newsletters packed full of advice, news, and tips you can bet your bottom dollar that your customers will come to you instead of your competition when they need your services.
Fitness Newsletter Content Ideas
1. Latest Club News
2. Client Success Stories
3. Your Favourite Resources from the Web
There’s so much poor fitness advice out there. Share your favorite blogs, videos, and content from around the internet with your audience so they can cut through the noise and get educated. You can also link to your own blog posts if you have one.
4. Best Ways to Avoid Injuries
5. How to Get the Most from Training
6. Get to Know a Staff Member / Personal Trainer
7. Latest Research in Health & Fitness
8. Nutrition and Diet Tips
9. How to Boost Motivation
10. Updates from Behind the Scenes
A 3-Step Process for Creating a Fitness Newsletter
Step 1: Get out of your head and write out your plan
Write down a goal: It’s necessary to have a specific goal for your newsletter because different goals change the way you approach creating your newsletter. While all newsletters keep businesses in the minds of their customers, think about what you want the specific purpose of your fitness newsletter to be.
For example, do you want to build up your Facebook group? Would you like to drive more traffic to your blog? Do you want to update subscribers about upcoming events and offers? Would you like customers to book more classes? Once you know why you’re writing your newsletter, it’s become a lot easier to decide what content to include and keep your communications consistent.
Think about your audience: All good marketing begins with stepping into the shoes of your customer. Consider their interests, their demographics, and what questions they really want the answers to. Defining who you’re talking to helps you deliver the most engaging and relevant content.
A one size fits all newsletter can work, but if you have a larger list consider segmentation. Segmentation is a marketing word that means splitting your subscribers up into different groups based on consumer characteristics. These could be fitness interests, age, or membership status, to name a few.
Research has shown that 74% of marketers say segmentation increases customer engagement. Other marketers have reported increases in revenue of over 700% by using targeted personalization.
So remember, delivering the right content to the right reader is when the magic starts to happen.
Determine the frequency: How often you send your newsletter isn’t as important as sending it consistently. Plan how many you’re going to send each month and consider how much content you’ll need. If you’ve never sent one before, then stick to just one per month. You can add another later if there’s more content you’d like to share.
Step 2. Build Your Newsletter Template
So now we’ve figured out the goal of our newsletter, who our audience is, and how frequently we’re going to send them, it’s time to build a killer e-mail template. You can do this using drag and drop elements in most email service providers like MailChimp or Constant Contact.
Your template is the foundation of your e-mail. It’s essential to keep your template consistent to build brand familiarity and make it instantly recognizable to your subscribers.
It may take a little time to build at first, but once it’s done, you’ll only have to tweak it every time you want to send it. Here’s what you should consider when building your master template:
Include your branding: Make your newsletter look and feel the same as the rest of your brand. Match it up with the colors, typography, and style that’s already across your website and social media channels. Always start with a high-res image of your logo at the top so people will instantly recognize you and add interest with designs and images. Check out Canva.com to get started making great designs and use Pixbay.com if you need some royalty-free fitness images.
Choose a newsletter layout: While a promotional email typically only has one content block, a newsletter can have many more. You must organize your layout in a way that presents each section as a valuable piece of content. The number of sections is up to you and depends on how much content you want to share; however, it’s usually best to keep it simple and uncrowded by including plenty of white space. Remember, you can always save some content for your next newsletter.
Make it mobile optimized: According to IBM Watson Marketing “2018 Marketing Benchmark Report” (2018), leisure, sports & recreation have the highest mobile email readership with 60.0%. That means it’s essential that your newsletter looks great on mobile devices. Some email builders will let you preview what your design will look like on a mobile phone but it’s always worth sending a test email to your phone to make sure nothing is out of place.
3. Create Your Email
Now that we’ve got the planning and the template out of the way, the final step to newsletter success is to write the actual email you’re going to send to your subscribers.
Dial-in your writing style: Similar to the template design, when you’re writing a newsletter, you want your brand to come across in your tone of voice. Depending on your fitness business, this style can vary greatly. But always make sure that it’s easy to read, consistent and relatable. Avoid corporate-babble, keeping your copy short and to the point at all times. If you’re stuck, check out the Hemmingway app for an easy way to clean up your copy.
Focus on information, not sales: Offers, discounts, and promotions constantly bombard our inboxes. Nobody likes to suffer through a bunch of advertisements disguised as a newsletter. So, get your subscribers to open your newsletters by focusing on delivering genuinely interesting content. A good rule of thumb; ensure that 90% of your fitness newsletter is value-packed information, and the remaining 10% can be used for sales material.
Get creative with subject lines: Even if people are signing up for your newsletters, there’s no guarantee they’re going to open them. Many folks will try to build familiarity by keeping their subject line the same each time they send a newsletter. But let’s face it, there’s a fine line between familiarity and downright boring. In a crowded inbox, you need to offer an incentive for your subs to click. So, a better approach is to use different subject lines each time you send your newsletter. If you need guidance, check out Hubspot’s guide to email subject lines here.
Test, test, and test again: Just like building the perfect fitness routine, getting your newsletters right can take a good dose of trial and error. Using the process outlined above as a guide, don’t be afraid to try out different things to see what works for your audience. Experiment with different designs, images, copy, subject lines, and use an A/B split test until you get a feel for precisely what yields the best results.
In Summary
Fitness newsletters are an undervalued tool in your marketing tool-box. They have the power to build incredible brand loyalty, showcase your expertise, and ultimately generate new clients. Hopefully, by now you’ve got a better idea about how to maximize your newsletter. Regardless of what approach you take, remember to:
- Choose a relevant goal, metric, and schedule for your fitness newsletter.
- Pack your newsletter with valuable information and avoid too many offers.
- Keep your newsletter on-brand, visually uncluttered, and easy to read.
- Learn to craft irresistible subject lines to maximize readership.
- Test everything and discover what works best for your audience.