The document reviews email marketing strategies in the health and leisure industry. It analyzes several companies' approaches and finds that most are missing opportunities to build their email lists and engage subscribers. While some obtain email addresses, few send confirmation or welcome emails to start the relationship. Overall it sees potential for these companies to make better use of email marketing through content-driven campaigns and automations like welcome sequences.

2. Health & Leisure Email Marketing Review
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.
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3. Health & Leisure Email Marketing Review
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.
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4. Health & Leisure Email Marketing Review
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.
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5. Health & Leisure Email Marketing Review
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...
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6. Health & Leisure Email Marketing Review
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.
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7. Health & Leisure Email Marketing Review
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.
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8. Health & Leisure Email Marketing Review
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.
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9. Health & Leisure Email Marketing Review
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
contact@pure360.co.uk
Not ready to talk? We’re also on Twitter (@pure360) or sign up for our newsletter online
www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk
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