This is a guest feature on fitness studio texting by Kenneth Burke, Marketing Director at Text Request.
Revenue drives business, and we want to help you get more of it. That’s why we’re going to break down five ways to increase your fitness studio’s revenue – all by texting with clients.
Why Texting
It works best. 99% of texts are read, usually within just a few minutes of being sent. The average response time is only 90 seconds, and the average click-through rate if 45%. That’s 7x more engagement than you’re going to see from email and other channels, and it works whether you’re texting for one-on-one conversations or for marketing and sales.
Texting is what your clients want, and when you add it throughout your studio’s communications, in leads generated, clients retained, and products sold. So lets walk through how to do that.
How do you increase fitness studio revenue by texting?
#1 Drive inbound conversations from your website with SMS live chat.
You put a lot of effort into bringing people to your website, but what happens once they get there?
People have questions they need answered before they take a next step, and they’d often rather ask you directly than find it on your site. They’d also rather text you than to call or fill out a form. Done right, these conversations will lead to new clients, upsells, and other opportunities for your studio.
So let clients text you from your website.
With SMS Chat, clients can start a text conversation with you from your website. Messages come in to your texting platform, and your responses go directly to that client’s text messaging app. It increases engagement and keeps people from having to wait on your site.
SMS Chat works on both desktop and mobile sites, so viewers can always just text you (which is what they want). This makes it easier for you to bring in new clients without adding to your to-do list.
“We’ve gotten a 2600% response rate increase on our website using Text Request’s SMS chat feature vs. email forms.” – Patrick Cundiff, Loud Rumor
#2 Send promotions that convert.
Maybe you sell supplements, or maybe you’re just trying to get previous clients to come back. In either case, SMS promotions are a great way to grab clients’ attention and get them to take a next step. Here’s an example:
“Hey [James], we’ve got 20% off all protein mixes. It’s a good time to stock up! Just go to www.studio.com/supplements”
A tool like Text Request makes it easy to send messages like these to any or all of your clients, and to personalize each message as you like. Here’s another example you might send to get clients back into your studio:
“We miss you! Come join us for two free sessions this week. Just let us know which times are good for you. – [Local Fitness Studio]”
You could invite clients to one particular class, or schedule them as they reply back. Either way, it works.
“[We’ve] sent out just one blast a month so far, and the return rate [has been] better than hiring an outbound customer service rep… We highly recommend this service for any type of business.” – Kara, Joseph Giannone Heating & Air
#3 Generate new clients with Click-to-Text on your Instagram profile
Most of the time people spend online is through a mobile phone, and social media is already (or should be) part of your marketing plan. You can add texting to the mix to complement that work, and to funnel conversations into one place – your text messages.
Here’s a quick-step guide to adding texting to your Instagram profile. We also recommend adding a prompt to text you to your website, like in the image under point 1.
“The response from so little effort shocked me! For those of you looking for sales and able to respond quickly, this can be HUGE.” – Scott, Merry Maids
#4 Schedule and keep more appointments.
People rarely answer personal phone calls during business hours, and the chances of them seeing and responding to an email on time are slim. Texting is by far the most effective way to schedule and confirm training sessions, classes, etc. That means texting for confirmations keeps your classes full!
Scheduling and confirming sessions is most commonly used for individual clients, but you can also send one text to a large group to remind them about a particular class. Here’s a couple of examples:
“Hey [Lynn], are you still good for our 10am Tuesday session? Let me know. Thanks!”
“Good morning! Don’t forget about Wednesday’s barre class @7am. Please register so we know how many to bring breakfast for. Thanks! www.studio.com/register”
To make your life easier, you can just integrate Text Request with your MindBody account. This will automatically text class reminders to everyone signed up for each class you have, and send from that studio location’s number. Check out the full guide here.
#5 Ask for online reviews to bring in more clients organically.
90% of people say online reviews influence their buying decisions, and 85% trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
People want to know they’re going to have a good experience before they work with you or visit your studio, and online reviews are how they make that decision. Texting helps your studio get more raving reviews with less effort. In fact, clients are 600% more likely to leave you a review when you ask via text compared to email.
It’s simple, all you have to do is text happy clients asking for a review on the platform that’s most important to you (Facebook, Google, Yelp, etc.). Example:
“Hey [Lenny], thanks for working with us! Would you mind leaving us a review on Google? It would help us a lot. bit.ly/xyz Thank you!”
How Do You Start Texting?
You need a way to handle messages. If you’re the only one running your business, you may be able to get away with just using your cell phone. If you have an office line, you’ll probably want to start texting through it using Text Request.
It comes with a dashboard for your team to share, and you can use the existing location phone numbers for each of your studios. You’ll also get all the features mentioned in this article, and more. What’s important, though, is that you start texting. It’s the most effective way to increase your fitness studio revenue, and it’s what your clients want from you.
