A free trial is a great way to get new contacts familiar with your fitness program and incentivize them to stay on as a permanent customer. The question is...
What's going to make them stay?
Just because someone signs up for a free trial doesn't mean that they are going to become a customer -- or even complete the whole trial. This is the time period where continuous communication is essential to trial conversion success.
An automated onboarding sequence will help here. You can get started on this right away using the Fitness Club Trial Onboarding Sequence Automation Recipe.
What does this mean?
This automated email sequence continuously engages contacts who sign up for your trial period with onboarding messages and follows-up to incentivize going from trial to permanent fitness club customer.
An onboarding sequence like this can include emails like:
- A welcome email, detailing free trial guidelines and points of contact
- An email to familiarize them with the facility amenities
- A special events calendar to get them looking ahead beyond their free trial period
You can customize this automation recipe to include whatever onboarding emails you'd like. Once contacts become a permanent fitness club member, they leave the automation sequence and won't receive any more onboarding messages.
How does the fitness club trial onboarding sequence automation work?
Here's how the fitness club trial onboarding sequence automation works:
1. Contact subscribes to the trial list and triggers the automation: The list selected should be specifically for contacts who sign up for your free trial period at your fitness club. If you don't use a list to denote this, you can adjust the trigger to how you keep track of this. Examples include a tag or a stage in your pipeline. Just make sure you also adjust the goal at the end as well to reflect your chosen system.
2. Send the first campaign of your trial email sequence: This email goes out to the contact as soon as they sign up for the free trial and can include information like directions to the fitness center, information on the facility, how to check-in for the first time, and more.
3. Set a wait time between campaigns: This wait time will occur between each campaign to give a contact time to engage with the message. Feel free to adjust these times to whatever makes sense for you. This example assumes a 2 week trial with a follow-up after.
4. Send a progress check-in campaign: This email is a check-in halfway through a trial. It lets contacts voice any concerns or questions so you can help answer them while they are still actively engaging with you. Insert your chosen wait time period after this campaign.
5. Send a trial-end offer email: This email is sent at the end of the trial and encourages them to sign up now. Including a deal could incentivize action now over later. Insert your chosen wait time period after this campaign.
6. Send reminder offer campaigns at your own pace: Each email after this is sent with a longer time period between them so that you don't overwhelm the contact but still let them know you care about their fitness journey. Feel free to add more wait steps and actions as you see fit.
7. Contact reaches the automation goal: Congrats! Your contact is now an official member which means they've reached the Goal step of the automation. This goal checks for if the contact has become a member by subscribing to your membership list. Once they meet this condition, they will skip all further messages incentivizing them to join and exit the follow-up. If a contact reaches the goal step but doesn't become a member, they will still exit the automation.
What do you need to use the fitness club trial onboarding sequence automation recipe?
Just an ActiveCampaign account and a contact list!
