Marketing Your Fitness Business With Cards

 

A post on marketing your fitness business by Pat Rigsby

 

 

One of the most underutilized ways to market your fitness business is through using handwritten notes or sending cards.  In a time where everyone defaults to email you can stand out from the crowd by doing a little more and sending cards or notes though the mail.  Marketing your fitness business this way isn’t very expensive as you’re only mailing a very targeted list and the return on investment is typically outstanding.

Here are a few ideas and examples you can use:

 

Sending A Referral Request Card – for most of our more successful fitness pros, referrals are either their #1 or #2 lead source.  There are a number of ways to ask for referrals, but one I see most fitness pros ignore is sending cards or notes to request referrals.  Here’s a simple one you can swipe and deploy:

Dear (Name),

I’m firing my advertisers!

I’ve decided that instead of paying the newspaper, radio or some direct mail company to market our camps I’d rather reward you. 

For every friend, family member or co-worker that you refer to one of our camps, I’d like to give you a $50 American Express Gift Card.  This will allow you to benefit from sharing your experiences with me and our programs to those that are important to you.  It will also allow me to continue to work with motivated clients like yourself and to spend my time working on program design, training and serving my current clients instead of marketing.

So, if you feel like my camps have benefited you, I’d appreciate it if you share them with those people you care about.  I look forward to helping them and rewarding you soon!

Sincerely,

(Your Name)

 

Here’s another example that you can send after someone has been part of your program for a month:

 

(Name),
I just wanted to send you this note to thank you for being my client. I really strive to give you the best service possible and hope that you feel that I exceed your expectations in every way.

If you do feel this way, you’re pleased with the incredible progress that you’ve made and you know someone who would really benefit from this same type of program, would you be kind enough to tell them about me? You may have a friend, a coworker, or a family member who is looking for a program like ours. And by telling them about me and what I offer, and how we’ve truly delivered for you, that means that I can focus my time and energy on continually giving and doing more for you and my other important clients instead of marketing and advertising. So, if you have anyone close to you who would really benefit from our programs, please let them know about how I can help them.

Thanks again and I look forward to seeing you soon,

(Your Name)

 

Sending A Referral Thank You Card – One of the most powerful things that you can do to boost your referrals is to recognize the referrer when they do send you someone.  This will encourage them to refer again and start to create a referral culture in your business.  Here’s a   simple card you can send:

Dear (Name),

I met with (referral name) last (day). I can’t thank you enough for recommending me to her.

She is exactly the type of person I enjoy working with and helping achieve fitness success. My business is built on happy, satisfied clients sending me other happy, satisfied clients—so you know your referrals are very important to me. I would like to give you a $50 American Express Gift Card as a way of expressing my gratitude.  I’ve included it with this card so you can enjoy it immediately.

Thanks again,

(Your Name)

 

Sending Birthday & Christmas Cards – Not every card or note you send needs to generate revenue.  Sending cards at birthdays, Christmas and other special occasions is a great way to enhance the experience your clients are having with your business.  Here are examples of very simple cards or handwritten notes you can send during Birthdays and Christmas:

Dear (Name),

I just wanted to wish you a Happy Birthday! I hope you enjoy your special day and know that I am thinking about you. Happy Birthday!!!

(Your Name)

 

Dear (Name),

I want to wish you a happy holiday season, and let you know we appreciate you being a part of the Fitness Revolution family. Sincerely,

(Your Name)

 

Sending A Reactivation Card – One of the easiest ways to boost your income is to run a reactivation campaign.  While defaulting to email may be the easy way to go – you’ll get a better response if you include a card or handwritten note in your campaign.  Here’s one you can use:

(Name),

“I Miss You!”

I’m very concerned.

You were a valued client of mine and I haven’t seen you for a while. I would genuinely like to know the reason why. I hope that you weren’t unhappy in any way with my service or your results.

Or maybe you were concerned about the cost of training and didn’t think you could afford to continue.

I can only guess at why you haven’t continued to be a client but I’m concerned that the goals you had when joining us are going to go unfulfilled.

I want you to know that if there is anything I’ve done that has kept you from continuing, I want to make it right.

So I want to invite you back to train with me for 2 weeks… for free. No strings attached. It’s truly important to me that you reach your health and fitness goals and the best way for me help you is to have you here as a client.

I hope to hear from you in the next few days, and I look forward to seeing you very soon.

Sincerely,

(Your Name)
(phone)
(email)

 

Sending A Card To Your Network – If you want to add clients in a hurry, there is no better way than to leverage your network.  Hopefully you’ve got a list of the people in your network already, but if not – I’d start creating one.  Once you have it, here is a note you can send to not only get them to try out what you have to offer, but to also start cultivating them to hopefully one day become ambassadors for your business:

Dear (Name),

I hope things are going well.

I’m writing to share some good news.  I’m expanding my personal training business and I wanted to let you know that I want you to lean on me as your fitness resource.  I’d like to give you two weeks of my fitness bootcamp for free to use as you wish so that I can help you achieve any fitness goals you may have, or provide them to someone important to you if you feel you don’t need them right now.

I’d also like to invite you to join my free fitness newsletter and know that you can contact me anytime that you have a fitness related question.

I hope you can come in and participate in camp soon as I’d enjoy seeing you again and being of help to you.

Sincerely,

(Your Name)
(contact info)

 

Sending Upsell Offers – One simple way to maximize the value of your clients is to offer upsells to them soon after they become clients.  Here is a simple example upsell card you can send 3-5 days after someone joins one of your programs:

Dear (Name),

Thank you for becoming a client of Fitness Revolution. I realize that you have choices when it comes to fitness and I truly appreciate you choosing me to help you reach your goals!

As a way of expressing my gratitude for you becoming a client I’d like to offer you a 15% discount off of Prograde Nutrition’s (product), which is the perfect compliment to your current program. 

If you’re interested in adding this, you can call me or let me know during your next training session.

Thanks again,

(Your Name)

 

Sending Cards To Unconverted Leads – Sometimes leads come into your business that you don’t convert.  Maybe it was bad timing.  Maybe they weren’t that motivated.  For whatever reason they didn’t join then – but that doesn’t mean they never will.  When you’re marketing your fitness business, one of the best ways to maximize ROI is to continue to market to all of your leads since you’ve already paid and put in the work to acquire them.  Here’s some copy you can use:

Dear (Name),

I wanted to follow up one last time and thank you for considering me to help you achieve your fitness goals. I appreciate the opportunity to earn your business, and I am disappointed you decided against joining. Over time, I’ve learned that many people like what my programs have to offer, but for some reason or another they feel like it isn’t the right time for them. I know that everyone needs a healthier lifestyle, and I know that I can help them achieve that. So in order to help you adjust to this new lifestyle, I am going to change my offer to you.

I’d like to invite you in for 2 free weeks of to train with me to experience how my programs can benefit you.  No strings attached. If you don’t want to continue after that at least I’ll know that I’ve empowered you with the knowledge that it takes to get results.All I need from you is to call me within the next 2 weeks to schedule your first camp and I will take care of the rest. Easy enough?I want to thank you again and hope that you are able to make it in to take advantage of this offer, and start moving towards the goals you have set for yourself. 

Yours in Fitness,

(Your Name)
Phone

 

Sending Cards or Notes To New Additions To Your Network – If you want to be great at networking then you need to be great at following up.  Here is some brief copy that you can use:

Dear (Name),

I wanted to follow up and let you know that it was great meeting you at (event).

(Short note about the person you met and what you learned about them)

I’m also writing to let you know that I want you to lean on me as your fitness resource.  I’d like to give you two weeks of training for free to use as you wish so that I can help you achieve any fitness goals you may have, or provide them to someone important to you if you feel you don’t need them right now.

I’d also like to invite you to join my free fitness newsletter and know that you can contact me anytime that you have a fitness related question.

I hope that you can make it in for a session soon as I’d enjoy seeing you again and being of help to you.

Sincerely,

(Your Name)

There you go – several cards you can market your fitness business with – ready to use.  Now when it comes to sending the cards or notes, I have 3 suggestions:

Sending Handwritten Notes – There is nothing better than a handwritten note since it’s so personal.  Use blank cards and let people know you took the time to write them personally. The only downside is that it’s time consuming.

Send Out Cards – We’ve used this for some time.  You can pre-write cards and use it like you’d use an autoresponder system.  The cost for the system and cards is very reasonable for what you get.  The only downside is that you lose a little of the personal touch – but you still are doing more than 99% of other businesses and it’s very scalable.  You can learn more about Send Out Cards here: https://www.sendoutcards.com/. If you choose to use Send Out Cards you’ll need a code to join – ours is 30152.

Postcard on the Run – This is something I just came across and love.  It’s an app for smartphones that allows you to snap a picture and use it to create a postcard.  The picture serves as the front of the card (glossy stock) and you can type a short message on the back.  The cards are relatively cheap and because you can snap photos of people in sessions and use them – it has a nice personal touch.  You can learn more here: http://www.postcardontherun.com/

So when you’re marketing your fitness business hopefully you see that cards or notes can play a big role  – and now you’ve got some ready to use copy to get you started.

 

Dedicated to your success,

Pat

 

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