A Fitness Newsletter …Your Best Marketing Tool?

A Fitness Newsletter…Your Best Marketing Tool?

A fitness newsletter is a fantastic fitness marketing tool. I may be so bold as say that using a client newsletter is the most powerful marketing tool a personal trainer or club owner has.

A newsletter gives you:

· One of the strongest forms of client / member problem solving marketing.

· It helps you with the three ways to grow your fitness business.

· It offers the very best way to keep connected with your existing clients and members.
 
· It is the best way to educate your clients and members about the many benefits you or your facility provide as well as new offerings.
 
· A great way to increase referrals.

What are the client / member problems that your fitness newsletter can solve?

One of the most common problems your clients / members have is they forget to take a holistic approach to health and fitness. Your fitness newsletter really helps them remember how much value exercise has (so they visit more frequently) but it also builds value in proper nutrition (which will build value in nutritional coaching and dietary supplement sales).

Many of your clients / members also tend to assume that they are in good health because they exercise. By having a local doctor be a paid contributor to your newsletter, it will help your clients / members understand good health as a whole and can also help offset the costs associated with producing your newsletter.

Other problems your clients / members have are they don't know how much you offer. They don't know how to get discounts on products and services. They will appreciate being informed of these options.

How can your fitness newsletter help you grow all three areas of your business?

The first level of growth is getting more new clients / members. Remember that referral systems offer you the best way to get new clients / members. Gift certificates sales are a powerful type of referral as well. Describing your referral system and gift certificate specials in your fitness newsletter will help you quickly get new clients. Plus, clients / members will give your newsletter to friends and family who may need and want the weight loss or fitness benefit you are talking about in that edition. 

Another way to drive new prospects to you through your newsletter is by billing your newsletter as a local wellness newsletter.  You can charge 3-4 local medical professionals to advertise through writing an article to offset your costs.  You will then write an article as well positioning yourself as an “expert.”  Simply by distributing the newsletters through each professional’s office you will have tapped into a broad market and aligned yourself with someone they already trust.

The second level is getting your clients / members to come more often. That is pretty clear above. Help them remember, educate them about why it is good for them, encourage them with specials.

The third level is getting your clients / members to spend more each time. That is also easy. Introduce new services and products that you offer. Give them incentives to try new things. Coupons, discounts, etc.

Why is my fitness newsletter the very best way to keep in contact with my clients?

Your newsletter is very targeted marketing that does not feel like marketing to your clients / members. For them it is a value added service that they don't have to pay for. Every month you are demonstrating the range of your vast knowledge and expertise. Your newsletter shows people how much you care. It offers you the way to keep them informed of every single service, offer, and news worthy item, every single month!

Should I use a pre-made fitness newsletter?

I suggest you create it all yourself. Make it professional looking and consistent in how it looks. But make the content yours.

For this reason I don't recommend pre-made newsletters. So many of the best reasons to do a newsletter are lost when you can't control the content. Most fitness newsletters are only focused on education articles about health, which in itself is good. But as a marketing tool, your newsletter should be more balanced in all it does. Educate for sure. But have a section for specials. Have a section about your web site. Have a section that shows your U.S.P. Have a section about your referral rewards program.

It is hard to get all of that into a pre-created newsletter. And frankly, most pre-made newsletters are very boring. You want to be unique, not boring. A pre-made newsletter for all of these reasons could be just an expensive waste of money, not a profitable marketing tool.

Even if you don't want to write all the articles, you can still make your own fitness newsletter. Find articles written by other people, use the strategy with the medical professionals alluded to earlier, etc.   Just be sure to write parts of the newsletter, your promotions, U.S.P., etc. Don’t delegate the marketing.

And really it is easy to write your own content. You just write in exactly the same non-technical voice you use when you talk to them.

How do I make my fitness newsletter? What software?

You can create your first newsletters in a basic program like Microsoft Word. But over time I think you will want to update your software to something that can incorporate images easier. More of a graphics program. Microsoft Publisher is probably the best first step for those who are not graphic designers. The next best step is probably Adobe PageMaker.

If you plan to use an email newsletter, you may use special software of the internet company who hosts and publishes your newsletter. Make sure if you use your own software that you use a text editor, instead of a word processor.

What about an email/internet fitness newsletter versus a physical one?

On the whole I have to recommend using both strategies.  Offer a quarterly physical newsletter allows your prospects and clients / customers to read it anywhere, it’s more personal and it’s better for lead generation.

Offering a monthly e-mail newsletter allows you to keep costs down, you can send it to anyone, it’s less work and you can archive them online.  You can also link back to special offers on your site with the e-mail version.

Should I email my newsletter myself?

Generally speaking no. The reason is because you do not want your Internet Service Provider and all the other ISPs to think you are sending out spam email (which is likely because all the emails are identical). You also want a very professional looking email newsletter. Almost everyone who writes an email newsletter these days uses an online newsletter service. These services have relationships with the major ISP providers like AOL, they provide you with newsletter building tools and templates and they take care of all of the technical details of emailing your newsletter, all at amazingly low rates.

If you are also considering creating a website, another good newsletter solution is to use a Site Build It website. With your website hosting you get a complete email newsletter hosting system that works great. (It is what I use for my web site and newsletter.) They take care of your mailing list, provide a template for building your newsletter, and they take care of emailing it.

How often should I send a newsletter?

At least once a month. By sending e-mail newsletters monthly you take some of the burden of yourself. I think twice a month is a little much and quarterly is not often enough. Once you decide on a publication and mailing date, keep consistent. It is unprofessional to have it come whenever you feel like it.

Isn't it kind of expensive and time consuming?

First let me tell you that just about every single marketer I have read tells their clients / members to start a newsletter. Everyone! It is a profitable tool, no doubt. You can spend far more on marketing to people who you don't know, and get less results. Or you can re-invest your client's money back into them, providing this great benefit. The key is to realize that it is a marketing tool, not just an expensive educational newsletter.

No matter what use a fitness newsletter!!!

Printed or emailed, it will be worth the effort of creating a monthly fitness newsletter. But remember, there is marketing that is profitable, and marketing that is an expense. A fitness newsletter is marketing. Make sure to include risk reversal offers, testimonials, referral systems, offers on products and services and education. And make sure it is very interesting.