Communicating with your members and prospects is an important task that must be performed on an ongoing and regular basis. One of the best ways that I've found to do this is to use a web service, such as Constant Contact. I signed up for this service on a free 60 day trial, and I liked how it worked.
Constant Contact allows you to create email campaigns that not only look very professional, but automatically populates various information into the email, for example first name. This helps to connect with your members and leads by substituting their name into the email rather than the generic To Whom It May Concern. Constant Contact also helps you to comply with anti-spam laws by always allowing your contacts to unsubscribe as easily as clicking a single link. This automatically managed feature helps you because you don't want to send emails to contacts that do not want to receive them. Once someone unsubscribes, Constant Contact automatically prevents you from sending them future emails.
Another great feature of this service is that it allows you to review reports on all of the emails you've sent. For example, if you send 100 contacts an email, you can see exactly what percentage of your contacts actually opened the email, and you can even see a list of the specific contacts that did so. This helps you manage the effectiveness of your email campaign.
Some of the ways I would suggest using this type of service are as follows:
- Sending a welcome email to every new member within 3 days after they sign up
- Sending a follow-up email to those same new members within 14 days with details of your referral program
- Sending a third email 30 days after they join with a coupon for $X off a personal training package
- Sending any prospects you've collected emails from regular "Benefits of Exercise" email newsletters, again with a coupon to join your club
- Sending all members an announcement of any new offerings at your club
The list of possibilities is truly only limited by your creativity. The beauty of Constant Contact is that you only pay a monthly fee based on the number of contacts you have. This means that you can send as many emails as you feel is appropriate at no additional cost. There is also the ability to email your contacts surveys. I think this would be very valuable, although I will admit that I have not tried this service as of yet.
If you'd like to try Constant Contact for a free 60 day trial, click here. In fact, if you sign up using this link, you'll not only get the 60 day trial, but if you end up signing up, you'll get $30 off the service. By the way, if you have any other ideas you'd like to share about how you stay in contact with your members, make sure to post a comment.
