Short message service (SMS) solutions can transform how gyms and fitness centers coordinate with their employees and connect with gym-goers. In this guide, we are exploring how your business can leverage text messaging to enhance daily operations and deliver better customer experiences.
Benefits of SMS for Gyms and Fitness Centers
Text messages are an effective and convenient means of communication for your business. Explore the many advantages of harnessing SMS solutions to stay connected with your team and customers:
Member Satisfaction and Experience
Texting is an extremely convenient communication channel. Most people check their mobile phones for new notifications periodically throughout the day. In fact, a 2023 survey found that people check their devices 144 times a day on average. Sharing reminders, alerts and updates directly to someone’s device makes it easy for them to stay up to date on the latest around your facility.
SMS makes it easy for your members to manage their appointments and training sessions. Your business can tailor your messages based on specific criteria, like membership tiers, class participants or training instructors. Personalizing your texts can enhance customer experiences and make them feel valued.
Direct and Instant Communication
A huge benefit of SMS is connecting with your contact list directly and in real time. You can reach your recipients within minutes of delivery. Most people check their phones periodically throughout the day and are likely to notice your messages promptly, which is especially important when sharing time-sensitive updates.
With email inboxes brimming with incoming notifications, texting is one of the best ways to stay connected with your members and have your messages stand out.
Engagement
Your business can benefit from using SMS solutions to enhance customer and worker engagement.
Texting can be a useful tool for fostering greater relationships and becoming part of your members’ everyday routines. Whether you’re looking for retention strategies or marketing ideas for gyms and fitness centers, SMS is an effective medium for connecting with your target audience. Use these brief interactions to encourage them to utilize your gym resources as much as possible to benefit their health and your business.
Texting also makes reaching a large number of people at one time simple. It is a cost-effective way to communicate with your business’s entire contact list and harness widespread engagement.
High Return on Investment
SMS can help you roll out cost-effective marketing strategies for gyms, especially compared to traditional channels. Businesses can get their messages into the hands of consumers, helping them realize a faster return on investment.
Texting is ultimately an excellent way for gyms and fitness centers to reach their target audience without overspending.
Continuous Improvement
Some texting solutions can give your business powerful tools for collecting customer feedback. While it can be a challenge to get members to fill out physical surveys or log onto your website to share their insights, SMS is convenient and makes sharing their ideas effortless.
By asking your members to fill out a quick SMS survey, you can get valuable insight into opportunities for improvement. Finding new ways to serve your members and enhance their experience at your gym is key to fostering long-term growth.
Versatile Use Cases
Texting is useful for more than sharing updates and alerts. Your business can use it to streamline communication for a variety of purposes, from human resources and accounting to brand awareness.
You can get a lot out of your SMS, and we share various ways your gym or fitness center can capitalize on these solutions below.
How Gyms and Fitness Centers Can Use SMS
Text messaging offers businesses a direct and effective means of communicating with their employees and members. Your gym or fitness center can utilize SMS to stay connected by sharing the following.
Timely Reminders
SMS solutions are awesome for sending your members reminders. You can use these solutions to share texts about upcoming workout sessions, class start times and personal training appointments.
A quick message can help your members stay on top of the happenings at your gym and improve attendance. Your customers will appreciate the convenient reminders helping them stay on top of their programs. Texts can help your facility run more smoothly with fewer no-shows.
Schedule Updates and Alerts
Another advantageous use of SMS for gyms and fitness centers is sharing schedule updates with members. You can notify your team and customers about last-minute changes and shifts due to absences or severe weather. For example, you could share a message letting your contact list know your facility is closing early due to a snowstorm.
Texting schedule updates helps keep your community on the same page and on top of scheduling. Your business can enjoy a better planning process and preparedness plan. SMS can also be a great way to share appointment and class registration confirmation messages or payment receipts.
Promotions and Offers
SMS can enhance marketing for gyms and fitness centers. You can share special promotions like free trials, limited-time offers, referral program incentives or class discounts.
Promotional texts for gyms allow you to spotlight opportunities for your members to save or get more use out of your facility. You can give back directly to your members with exclusive opportunities to save by signing up for your SMS program.
Wellness Tips and Motivation
As a business centered around fitness and health, you can help your members improve their wellness with helpful tips delivered straight to their mobile devices.
You can keep your business at the top of their minds by providing valuable information and inspiration through SMS. These solutions can help your business foster brand awareness and demonstrate your facility’s commitment to helping members achieve a healthier lifestyle.
Collect Feedback and Surveys
Your gym or fitness center can harness the power of text messaging to gather feedback from your members and employees. Two-way texting is an amazing tool for asking for input and suggestions regarding your facilities, classes, equipment and instructors.
SMS is a straightforward and convenient way for your customers to provide their insights. Feedback is key to making changes to better serve your gym’s members and find opportunities to continuously improve your business.
Membership Renewal Reminders
For many gyms and fitness centers, making membership renewals easy is important for retaining your customers. You can use SMS solutions to share reminders about upcoming renewals along with key information, like upcoming deadlines, the information they’ll need when signing up or a link to your website.
SMS can make the membership renewal process simple so your customers are more likely to stick with their payment plan and stay loyal to your facility.
Best Practices for SMS
Explore the following best practices to help your business maximize the benefits of using SMS solutions.
1. Introduce Yourself
Be sure to include your business name in every message you send to your members. Identifying yourself is the best way to make your messages stand out. By being easily recognizable as the sender, you can increase the likelihood that your recipients engage with your text. Introducing yourself in the text can also help your SMS messaging avoid being blocked by mobile carriers who are looking to weed out spam messages.
2. Provide Opt-Out Instructions
Whenever your business is using an SMS solution to communicate with customers, it is important to provide each recipient with instructions on how to unsubscribe from the mailing list. Providing opt-out instructions demonstrates consideration for your recipients and helps stop them from blocking your number.
3. Learn About SMS Compliance
Your business should be familiar with the regulations and laws regarding SMS. From protecting customer privacy to legally sharing marketing campaigns via SMS, there are many rules to be aware of. The specific laws that apply to your gym or fitness center will depend on your location.
4. Keep Your Text Messages Short
Your gym or fitness center should prioritize short, to-the-point messages when texting customers. Save the lengthy updates and in-depth conversations for different mediums, like email or your website. Avoid having your messages split into multiple notifications by limiting the number of characters you use. Readers should generally be able to get the gist of a text at a glance.
5. Use SMS Templates
A great way to boost efficiency and streamline SMS communication is by creating templates for your text messages. Having these outlines allows your business to create cohesive, consistent messaging. Once you’ve crafted or chosen your templates, you can use them as needed, saving your team time and energy.
6. Incorporate Personalization
Businesses can harness higher open rates by using personalization in their text messages. When your texts include identifying characteristics about the recipient, such as their first name or other information relevant to them, you can garner more attention. Personalization shows your customers that you value them and want to deliver content specifically for them.
7. Segment Your Members
In addition to personalization, your business can benefit from dividing your contact list into categories according to their specific preferences and needs. You should send targeted messages that deliver relevant information to the receiver. You may categorize your members according to the trainers they work with, the classes they attend or the times they typically visit your gym.
8. Prioritize Quality Over Quantity
It is important for any type of business that uses SMS to send texts sparingly. Avoid overwhelming and annoying your contact list by sharing too many updates and reaching out more than once a week. Customers are likely to opt out of your mailing list if they find your texts irrelevant or if they receive them too frequently.
9. Stick With a Consistent Brand Voice
The way you communicate in your SMS messages matters, especially for marketing messages. Your texts are an extension of your business and should reflect the brand tone and voice used on your website and in person. This consistency can also help you maintain professionalism despite SMS being a casual communication medium.
10. Be Clear About How You’ll Use SMS
Another best practice to keep in mind when while leveraging the power of SMS is being clear about your intentions. When your members and employees opt-in to your mailing list, share what they can expect from your business. Let them know if you’ll be sending scheduling updates or promotional messages. They should have an idea of the types of text they will receive from your business.
Why Choose the Gym and Fitness Center SMS From Red Oxygen
You understand how SMS for gyms can be highly beneficial for your company. Now, it’s time to find a trusted provider that you can rely on. Red Oxygen has industry-leading SMS software designed to streamline communications at your fitness center or gym. Explore the ways we can help.
Simple Setup and Integration
With Red Oxygen, gym SMS setup is easy. Our team supports you throughout the process to help you leverage the benefits of texting as soon as possible.
We know a thing or two about using SMS marketing for gyms and fitness centers. We’ll offer guidance and assist you in optimizing your text messaging strategy. Our SMS gateway application programming interface (API) allows you to relay information to your team and members without having to switch to different applications. You can easily send messages to your recipients through your Gmail, Outlook or Office email or the Red Oxygen WebSMS site.
Personalized SMS Tools
Our SMS solutions allow your business to send personalized messages to your customers, helping you foster greater relationships and making your members feel valued. With our tools, you can address your recipients by name, adding an individualized touch that enhances customer engagement. We also make it easy to send messages tailored to your members’ unique characteristics, such as the classes they like or the personal trainer they work with.
Depending on your country, you can customize the sender ID to brand your outgoing text messages and make them instantly recognizable to recipients.
Compliance Guidance
At Red Oxygen, we are well-versed in SMS regulations around the globe and will help you stay compliant. We follow the rules set by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States and the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 in Australia. Our team will help your business understand your country-specific regulations and ensure you are sharing messages lawfully.
Some of the other regulations we’ll help you navigate include the 10-digit long code (10DLC) for application-to-person (A2P) messaging and toll-free registration requirements.
Scalability and Growth
The gym SMS solutions from Red Oxygen grow with your business. They make it easy to add more individuals to your subscriber list, and we can store an unlimited number of contacts for you to streamline communication during the scaling process.
Your gym or fitness center can also create targeted segments to cater to more of your customer’s needs and foster more individualized attention. Our SMS software also supports bulk texting capabilities to reach hundreds of people at once.
Request a Demo of the SMS for Gyms From Red Oxygen
If your fitness center or gym wants to enhance customer communication, turn to the SMS solutions from Red Oxygen.
Staying connected and engaging your customers is easy with our gym SMS software. Our industry-leading solutions allow you to send texts to your members and employees through an email account or a web browser. Our tools easily integrate with your current membership software and are compatible with various trusted email platforms.
Are you interested in learning more about the gym and fitness center SMS software from Red Oxygen? Schedule a demo online today.
