So Pat explained to you the thinking behind a solid reactivation campaign, and I’m gonna show you a couple of ways you can set up a reliable and effective system for managing it.
Reliability is paramount here – as we can’t afford to have people slipping through the cracks – and that wouldn’t be much of a system would it?
Efficiency is equally important, because we can’t commit all of our time to a single campaign, right?
The first thing you’ve got to have it a complete list of your former clients. If you have a client management software you use, that should work well. We’ve also always kept a backup excel spreadsheet that had the names and info of any clients who had decided for whatever reason to leave. It’s very important to include dates on the spreadsheet, the cancellation date as well as the date they began using your service. This is where reliability comes into play – you have to manage this list over time and make sure the correct data is entered when a client cancels. It’s not a complete list if you only remember to add someone to it sometimes – and that means it’s not reliable. So keep a complete database of your past clients.
Now you’ve got to go back to Pat’s article and decide what offer you’re gonna make? He told you about how well some of our campaigns did – you should be able to put together something pretty successful as well. But you’ve got to have a solid offer involved, otherwise you’re wasting your time.
Now you’ve got to find an efficient means of delivery for that message. We’ve used Send Out Cards (www.cardsendersystem.com) for a long time in all of our fitness businesses, and know that a lot of you do too. It allows us to create and send a custom greeting card to a large group of people all at once, by pushing a few buttons. That’s efficiency at its best. It allows Pat to create a marketing message he wants to send to a group of any size, and our Office Manager can set it up and send it out at any time. Pretty good leverage, huh?
You could also create a letter and do a mail merge type function and enter the names of the recipients, and fold and stuff them into envelopes, etc. This isn’t a terrible secondary plan if you don’t use Send Out Cards, but it does cost a bit more, and takes much more time to manage. (Plus it’s not nearly as cool as the custom cards with SOC!)
Whatever you choose – make sure that it’s RELIABLE and EFFICIENT!
Now watch the video!
Be sure to comment below and let us know your fitness business reactivation campaign success.
Or you could write up a letter, and upload it and your mailing list into clicktomail, a service of the USPS. They do the whole thing for you.
Best results come when things look individual – hand addressed, stamp on crooked, etc. People think you took the time to really write to them.
What type of client management software are you guys using to keep track of your clients…besides the excel spreadsheet.
@Ken Roetman – http://www.volosystem.com – It’s a great piece of software, very user friendly, dynamic, and the support is top-notch. Great company.
NB
I love the ease and efficiency of Send Out Cards to send one message to a group of people. When we moved in to our new facility we sent a card to every person that had walked through our door in the past three years, over 400, if I had to hand write that I’m sure I’d still be working on it or I would have given up.
We do have two campaigns that we don’t run through Send Out Cards, generally because it’s sent to a smaller group of people, these are hand written.
Either method is very effective for retaining and regaining client.
Ive been using send out cards now for about 6 months. It’s the best automated direct mail for retention and referrals I have ever done. Great Article.
Add your Comment.