Gym Marketing in the age of AI: Is Email Marketing Still Worth It? (And What To Do Instead)
How Gym Owners Can Decide Whether Email Marketing Is Still Worth Their Time
Is email marketing dead?
Not really.
But for the typical gym, content email marketing may be less valuable than it was 5-10 years ago.
For some businesses, it’s still a core marketing pillar.
*He says, as he writes his email for BFU*
Why have things changed?
For a few reasons.
Deliverability has taken a nose dive. Inbox placement rates have dropped 15-25% on major platforms in the past year alone.
(Btw, Apple Mail “machine opens” emails. This means your open rates are no longer reliable.)
Gmail and new AI-driven platforms are filtering more aggressively.
And many prospects think everything is AI written anyway.
All of this is to say nothing of the perennial issues:
- Many prospects are just not email people and won’t read emails
- Most gym owners are not great at writing compelling emails that build likability and credibility
- It’s debatable how likely it is someone who opted in stone cold from a Meta ad and ignored your follow-up is now waiting with bated breath to read your story about the time you discovered “one weird trick for fat loss my client learned”
But please don’t misunderstand me.
Email is NOT dead.
At the least, we still want email as part of our automated multi-channel follow-up.
Both with fresh hot leads AND on-going reactivation campaigns to old leads.
And all things being equal,
It certainly won’t hurt to have a weekly content-forward email with a soft sell PS.
My point is that all things are not usually equal.
And the poison is in the dose.
If you’re great at it and get trackable results (not “I think it helps”),
And the results you get are commensurate with the amount of time and effort…
Then you should keep doing it!
But if you hate it, you’re bad at it, and it’s not driving more inquiries, in spite of slogging away for 30-60 minutes per week…
It may be better to do things that will actually move the needle.
Like:
- Follow up with fresh leads
- Follow up with old leads who never came in
- Follow up with old clients
- Check in with current clients to make sure they’re getting results and are happy
- Ask a current client for a referral
- Ask a current client for a review
- Or any number of a million things that would have bigger impact
Activity doesn’t always equal achievement.
Since time is always the core constraint,
You have to be relentless about doing the things that actually move the marketing needle.
Managing opportunity cost is the whole game,
Mark
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