Digital Intervention for Retention not sales Pt 4.

In the final part of our series on customer retention, Digital intervention for retention not sales we explain how to use CRM systems as a digital intervention for retention…

Most CRM and marketing systems are all aiming to resell.  Think about your Facebook feed, if you click on an ad you’re then haunted for the next three months by the fact you searched for a new greenhouse for your Grandfather!  But it doesn’t have to be like that. You can use the same technology when someone has joined your club to send reassuring, supportive messages.

So, when a new person signs up from your joining page, send them a thank you note and use a retargeting pixel to interact with them via pop up messages during their first three months of membership, such as ‘How are you finding the club?’, ‘We're glad you're part of our community’, ‘Here's a testimonial from someone who's achieved similar things to you’.  You can simply take all the strategies used to attract new people and repurpose them to reinforce they've made the right decision choosing you!

These messages can also work as a prompt. So when they’re on their phone, iPad or laptop, slumped in front of the TV on Sunday, aimlessly scrolling, messages pop up saying ‘We're really pleased you're a member of our gym’, ‘Look at what this member has achieved’, with before after shots. Rather than bombarding them with messages about buying personal training, you’re reinforcing that they made the right decision to join, so it’s less sale, sale, sale.

But what happ ens when they walk in the door? Either A, we turn off the campaign and we don't talk to them again on those platforms, or B, as you say, they continue to get the sales-based messages rather than reinforcement messages.  I love, love, love the idea of using digital intervention for our retention, or repurposing our CRM.

I helped create a whole sequence of digital, non-sales interactions for Anytime Fitness in Australia, Lifestyle Fitness in the UK and now I’m creating similar messages for the iconic Golds Gym International , including welcome letters and videos, instructional information about what to do during their first visit and how to prepare for it, as well as messages to send after visits one, two, three and four; in different formats, including SMS, so people don’t just receive email messages.

Once people have joined, if we can get them to click on something else, such as five guest passes for your friends during your first month, we can retarget for retention and loyalty as opposed bombarding them with sales messages.

The results speak for themselves. The customers we engaged with, increased their average visit frequency from 1.5 per week to 2.5 visits per week, visiting around four times a month more frequently than before. We know people who visit least two to three times a week or eight to 12 time per month, stay members for 15 months more than those who only attend once a week, so this has a big impact on the club’s bottom line.

Have a look at your current processes. What are you doing with your messaging?  Find your voice as a business, so you have a way of communicating with your customers that resonates. For instance, I know I use a very personal tone. I always talk about ‘you’ and I'm not very corporate because I'm not that type of business.

Lastly, if you’re sending something to a member, try to include an action for them; click on something, watch this, score that, answer a question, so they get in the habit and know if you send something it will have an action. But keep it short so it’s easy to do. 

This content was original recorded for The Fitness Business Podcast https://fitnessbusinesspodcast.com/.

A full version of the interview can be found here:  https://fitnessbusinesspodcast.com/paul-bedford-ebook/

If you would like us to help you with your Retention strategy please get in touch. Paul [email protected]