Fitness email marketing: A complete guide

Most gyms and fitness studios have a retention problem, not a marketing problem. Half of new members quit within their first six months, and about 63 percent stop showing up within just three months of joining.

Email marketing is one of the most effective (and most underused) tools fitness businesses have to fix that. The fitness industry sees an average email open rate of 47.81 percent, well above the 35 to 40 percent cross-industry average, and email marketing overall returns $36 to $42 for every $1 spent. Yet most gym owners send fewer than three emails a month and have no automation in place at all. That gap between opportunity and execution is exactly what this guide is meant to close.

This guide covers how to build your list, segment it properly, automate the emails that matter most and measure whether any of it is actually working, all specifically through the lens of a fitness business.

Why email marketing matters so much for fitness businesses

Gyms and studios run on recurring revenue. A member who stays for a year is worth six to ten times more than what it cost to acquire them, which makes retention the biggest lever a fitness business has, bigger than any single acquisition channel.

Every member who churns represents a real financial hit. Industry estimates put average member lifetime value at roughly $640 to $674 when factoring in monthly dues, personal training sessions and retail purchases, so losing a member isn't a minor inconvenience. It's a direct hit to revenue.

Email is uniquely suited to fight this because it keeps members engaged between visits, something social media and paid ads can't do nearly as reliably. Social organic reach averages just 2 to 5 percent, and paid ads stop working the moment you stop paying for them. Email builds an audience you actually own.

Fitness businesses that layer in strong customer service alongside their email strategy see the effect compound even further. Check out our five ways to improve your customer service and our six tips to improve your customer retention rate for the broader retention playbook this guide builds on.

Build your list the right way

Your email list is only as valuable as the people on it. Prioritize quality over quick growth, and always collect explicit opt-in consent, both because it's the law and because engaged subscribers are the ones who actually show up.

Good list-building opportunities for a fitness business include:

• Sign-up forms at the front desk and on your website
• A free class, trial pass or downloadable workout guide in exchange for an email address
• QR codes on in-gym signage, printed schedules and receipts
• Referral incentives that reward current members for bringing a friend's email into the fold
• Collecting emails at community events, challenges or pop-up classes

For more list-building tactics that work well beyond fitness specifically, see our 12 strategies to capture more email leads without annoying everyone, and if you're using QR codes on signage, check out nine ways your business can use QR codes in marketing.

Segment your list around the fitness journey

Generic, batch-and-blast emails consistently underperform segmented, automated ones by two to three times in the fitness vertical specifically. The reason is simple: a brand-new trial member and a three-year member with a personal trainer need completely different messages.

Useful ways to segment a fitness email list include:

• Membership stage: prospect, trial, new member, established member, lapsed member
• Class or program preference: yoga, strength training, group fitness, personal training
• Visit frequency: highly active, moderately active, at-risk (declining visits)
• Membership tier or add-ons: base membership, premium, personal training packages
• Milestones: signup anniversary, visit count, goals achieved

Learn more about audience segmentation and personalization, and see eight benefits of personalization in your digital marketing for the broader case.

The results speak for themselves. In one case study, PureGym used behavioral data, visit frequency, class preferences and membership tenure, to tailor messaging to individual subscribers instead of sending generic broadcasts. The result was a 69 percent increase in open rates, an 89 percent increase in click-through rates and a 206 percent higher conversion rate. Urban Sports Club saw open rates climb as much as 90 percent higher after moving to on-brand, CRM-first email flows.

Automate the lifecycle emails that matter most

Automated email flows, rather than one-off newsletters, now generate the bulk of email revenue for digitally mature fitness brands. Once you set these up, they keep working without requiring a new email every week.

Welcome sequences in particular are worth getting right. Fitness welcome series that run three to five emails over about 10 days achieve open rates above 50 percent, well above what a single generic welcome email typically gets. That first stretch of membership is exactly when the six-month cliff starts to take hold, so don't waste it on a single "thanks for joining" message.

See what email automation is, why it matters and 14 examples to inspire you, and our 14 best practices for email drip campaigns for more on structuring these sequences well.

Give members a reason to open beyond 'come back'

Not every email should be asking for something. Members who feel like they're only ever getting sales pitches tune out fast, and that hurts your deliverability and open rates over time, too.

Strong content ideas for fitness email marketing include:

• Quick workout tips or form cues tied to your most popular classes
• Nutrition guidance that complements (not contradicts) what your trainers already teach
• Member spotlights and transformation stories, with permission
• Community event and challenge announcements
• Schedule changes, new class launches and instructor introductions
• Simple check-in emails asking how their goals are going

Check out our seven tips to level up your content marketing for more on building this kind of library, and if loyalty perks are part of your retention strategy, see our five tips to successfully promote your loyalty rewards program. About 76 percent of gym members say loyalty perks influence which gym they choose in the first place, so it's worth featuring prominently in your content mix, not just your sales emails.

Follow email do's and don'ts (fitness edition)

The fundamentals of good email marketing apply here too, but a few matter more in fitness specifically:

• Do personalize subject lines. Personalized subject lines improve open rates by roughly 26 percent, and it's one of the easiest wins available.
• Do keep onboarding front and center. Automated onboarding emails alone have been shown to improve retention by around 19 percent.
• Don't ignore mobile. Most members will read your emails on their phone between sets or on the way out the door, so keep messages scannable.
• Don't let inactivity go unnoticed. A member who hasn't visited in 30 days is telling you something. Silence from your gym at that moment makes it worse, not better.
• Do stay legally compliant. Include a physical address and a clear opt-out in every promotional email.

For the full rundown, see our 11 do's and don'ts of email marketing and 16 email marketing best practices that make an impact.

Measure what's actually working

Open rates and click rates matter, but for a fitness business the metric that actually matters most is whether emails are translating into visits, renewals and reactivated members. Track your campaigns against retention and churn numbers, not just inbox engagement.

See how to measure the success of your email marketing campaign for the specific metrics worth tracking, and revisit your segments and automations quarterly as your membership base and class offerings evolve.

In conclusion

Fitness businesses already have one advantage most industries don't: members open your emails at a higher rate than almost any other category. The businesses that turn that attention into retention are the ones building real segmentation and automation around the member journey instead of sending occasional, generic newsletters.

If you're looking for other ways to grow revenue alongside email, see our nine expert tips to better market your gym online, four tips to become a fitness affiliate marketer and 18 of the best fitness affiliate programs to boost your income.

DailyStory integrates with Mindbody and Rhinofit to better serve fitness studios and gyms specifically, with email marketing, SMS text message marketing, automation and dynamic audience segmentation built in. Schedule your free demo with us today.