Your Fitness Business Should Use Text Message Marketing. Here's Why

Can you imagine your life without your smartphone? For most of us that’s an inconceivable thought. In today’s world, our phones sometimes feel like an extension of our bodies. 

Think about how many times you use your smartphone each day to surf the web, send a text, play a game, answer an email, share an image, peruse social media pages—I'll stop here but the list goes on and on. That list may be long but the bottom line is we’re always on our phones.

Now, for many of you this isn’t particularly groundbreaking news; however, something you may find pretty shocking is that roughly 18 billion text messages are sent and received every day. Yes, you read that right—every single day. That’s a lot of texts. 

So, why are fitness businesses starting to communicate with their clients via text message? It’s one of the most effective ways for fitness studios to stay in touch with their clients and boost retention, wherever they are.

So, is text message marketing right for you? Here are three reasons every fitness business should jump on the text message marketing bandwagon—yours included.

1. You’ll spend less time with promotional messaging 

What’s one of the biggest obstacles fitness businesses face when communicating with their clients? You guessed it⁠—lack of time. 

Most fitness business owners just don't have the time to put together promotional emails or advertisements—even when they know they should. Luckily text message marketing: 

1. Saves time. Text messaging is a method of brief communication. We’re talking a line or two max! Texts save you time and prevent you from crafting long, compelling messaging. You can keep things brief and to the point.
2. Saves all your customers time. Having a limited amount of time on hand isn’t just a problem for fitness studio owners. EVERYONE has that problem. Most consumers shy away from lengthy, long-winded promotions (ain’t nobody got time for that). Text messages are equally attractive to customers because they’re simple and quick to read.

2. You’ll have higher open rates

When it comes to communicating with customers, if you’re like most fitness business owners the first thought that pops into your head is probably email. For a long time, email marketing has been the easiest, most effective way for businesses of all sizes to directly communicate with their customers. However, a major issue many businesses face with email marketing is low open rates. On average, email open rates from small businesses hover around 20%, while text message marketing has a 98% open rate.

3. It’s the most effective way to get the word out

If you’re looking for a way to drive more customers to a specific link,  like special offers and/or last-minute openings, text message marketing is the best way to do so.

Not only does text message marketing have high open rates, but it also has high click-through rates too. In fact, text message marketing has a click-through rate of close to 45%. Now, at first glance that may not seem so impressive, but considering the average email click-through-rate is 6-7%, 45% is a pretty big deal. Use this high click-through rate to effectively get the word out on things like:

1. Special offers. You spend a lot of time crafting compelling, enticing offers. So, once you create them you want your customers to know about it. Use text message marketing to quickly blitz out any special offers you have going on.
2. Fill empty spots. Text message marketing can help keep your classes jam-packed, which will keep your instructors and clients happy and motivated. Promote your slower classes through text message marketing and price them to attract last-minute buyers and keep your classes full.

These are just a few reasons why text message marketing is crucial for the success of your fitness business. Even though adding a new strategy to your already lucrative marketing plan may seem like a daunting task at first, reaching your clients via text will save you time in the long run.

You know what this means, don't you? You can get back to doing what you love most—helping your clients conquer their fitness goals.