What are the points of contact along the journey between when a rider decides they want to do a session with you, and when they actually turn up to class? How many times can you reach them with the message that there's something they might not want to miss?

If you have an online booking system, there's usually a way of posting extra information directly onto the booking system, so riders will see this as soon as they log in - and they're then in just the right place to book your event! Booking systems also usually have a 'reminder' feature to email riders to confirm bookings or remind riders of their class - this is great to add a little extra bit to let riders know about your event.

Depending on your setup, you can post information about your event in the studio or around reception. This may take the form of printed flyers which can be cheap to produce - or, (and we found flyers tend to be a bit messy, and people still miss the message) you can create a graphic and post it on any promotion screens that you have in-house. Our heart-rate training screens when not in use, will show rider information, inspirational and motivational quotes, and also the odd reminder of upcoming events. If riders are present - they'll get the message.

What if they're not present? How do you get them then?

Blogs are good for websites; they show search engines that your site is up to date. They also drive traffic to your site, therefore making it more likely that search engines will look favourably on it and show it to more people.

Write a blog post, create an engaging graphic to head it, and post it to your site. Share it to social media. But also, don't forget to share it to your Google page if you have one (extra brownie points from Google there!)

But of course, had to be, right? But there's a way to do it. Actually there are several ways - but these are not the ways usually employed. Often a gym's Facebook page will look like an electronic noticeboard. All that's posted is details of classes or special offers - what I call 'Buy My Thing' posts. This is not a page that is going to attract visitors. An attractive page will show your brand personality, will be engaging and will give opportunities to followers to interact. Put out content - advice, how-to posts, motivational posts, and then followers not only won't mind the BMT posts, they'll engage with them.

When you're ready with your event, you can create a graphic and link it to your blog post. Share it to whichever platforms you use - pin it to the top of the page, promote it if you want to (there is a charge for this - so make sure you're confident with targeting and getting the best return on investment, otherwise just stick to the free ways for now). 

We've also found it useful to change the Facebook header and also our profile picture. This creates a nice theme, and whenever we reply on anyone else's posts, our followers can see from our profile pic that something's going on, which directs them back to our page to satisfy their curiosity.

Yes it's true everyone gets too many emails. However, if you've got a friendly brand personality and you're not constantly clobbering people with a 'Buy My Thing' narrative, people will be happy to receive yours. We've found that our email open rate is far higher than the industry standard and this is because we think about what people want to receive, and how they want to be spoken to. Our style is always relaxed and engaging, and not formal, and we mix in useful advice that riders can apply straight away with offers, discounts, and special events.

Regarding our special 2 hour rides, we segment our riders. If they've been on one of our big rides before, then we put them in a special group so that they will always hear about similar events. Usually this is enough to fill the session on its own. If you're just starting out, you might want to email all your regular riders, and then keep a separate list or segment for those riders who are interested in your special editions to contact them directly next time.

We use MyZone heartrate training, and one of the features that tends to be under-utilised (but not by us because we're on it!) is the graphic you can add at the top of the app screen which will be seen by all riders who have not replaced your venue's graphic with a photo of their dog (most people don't change this, and therefore it's a good place to get the message out). Creating a graphic to fit the top of the screen and posting it there for two weeks before the start of the event is a good trick. Then of course change it to something else - we recommend changing it every week or two so there's always something new to look at for people using their app. Usually our app graphics are not promoting anything, they're just encouraging quotes. If you leave the graphic as just your company logo, there's more likelihood that people will change the picture to something else (like their dog) and then you've lost the ability to reach that person on the app.

Want MyZone? We recommend it for all studios. Contact us here if you'd like a chat about how it could work for you.

Although it's true that not everyone who books is necessarily going to see your homepage (particularly if they're frequent flyers and they've bookmarked your booking page, or if you don't have online booking), but it's good to have a congruent brand with the message reaching across the different platforms you have available to you. Often if you create one graphic you can either use that same graphic, or resize it for different functions across the internet.

If you're confident with this sort of thing, a chatbot is a handy thing to have. Embed it on your website and it will connect with Facebook Messenger and you can use this to a) get subscribers and b) let them know about cool stuff you ahve coming up (as well as thanking them by providing them with quality content.)

Email marketing works. It still works. With our own public-facing indoor cycling studio, we've found that email marketing is one of the most effective marketing streams to invest in - but there are ways to ensure that your marketing hits the spots and gets you the results you want:

Often, but not too often. Recommendations vary, but around 7-10 days works well with us - providing a balance of information and advice along with offers, discounts and studio promotions.

Diarise. Plan your offers to make sure they're reasonably well spaced, and then when you get to know your marketing year really well, you'll be able to form some offers that just slot in when you need a bit of a boost.

Segment. This is really important, and if you don't do it, there's a risk of sending people mail they don't want which makes them more likely to unsubscribe and therefore difficult for you to reach again. Email marketing software will enable you to add 'tags' to email addresses - perhaps separating your members from your non-members, or detailing when they last purchased so that you can reach them again with a different offer. This ONE think will add immense power to your email marketing.

Play nice. GDPR. Have an easy way for people to subscribe. We added a simple check box to our online registration forms, and 70% of riders sign up for our email marketing. Once they're subscribed, play nice. Enable them to unsubscribe easily if they want to, and provide them with plenty of nice, friendly and useful content to make sure they don't want to.

Use a combination of broadcasts and campaigns. A broadcast is a one off email. You might want to send an offer to all of your riders who bought rides last month, for example. If you've segmented your list you can easily do this. You'll schedule a time (or 'send now') your email and it will hit everyone's inbox at the same time. A campaign is different. When a subscriber joins your list, or is given a particular tag, that will trigger the campaign. This is a list of different emails that are set to arrive at agreed intervals. We have one for all new registrants - as soon as they sign up, they're added to the list and they receive the first email in the campaign, introducing us, welcoming them, and showing them the ropes. Subsequent emails are set about a week apart and feature a different aspect of getting the most from their workout.

Test! There's really no excuse, and this is super-powerful. Email marketing will give you lots of metrics and most providers offer an A/B test feature where you send two almost identical emails to two parts of your list, and then when one of them gets a better open rate or click through rate, the winning mail goes out to the rest of your subscribers. Test everything. Do your subscribers prefer plain emails (ours do) or emails with embedded pictures? Do they like shorter emails, or do they prefer more content in the email and less to click through to? How about subject lines? This is really important because this is what people read when they're deciding whether to open and read your email or just delete it. Test everything you can think of.

On the 25th of May this year, the GDPR rules which came in 2 years ago became legally enforceable. And that has seen companies rushing last-minute to secure data and data practices. Your inbox may have filled up with "Please allow us to keep sending you mail" messages.

We suspected that this might not work. On the one hand, if a company felt it now needed to ask for permission to continue mailing someone - could it be possible that they hadn't asked for that permission in the first place? And secondly - what would make someone receiving the mail think "Yes, please keep sending me stuff I didn't originally ask for" actually click to resubscribe?

We consider that adversity makes us stronger in life and in business, and also that restrictions can be a blessing by enabling us to concentrate our focus.

With any challenge, we follow a 4 step process:

1. Define the specific 'problem'.
2. Look at the possibilities from all angles.
3. Make the problem work in our favour, although it may remain a problem for those who have accepted it as is.
4. Test and develop the first solution - it might not be the best one. Allow evolution.

We needed to check and possibly change the way we stored and use personal data (more on that another time) and also we needed to revamp our email marketing system. Although we have always acted ethically and fairly, as there was some confusion over what precisely the GDPR required, we recognised that we may need to delete or destroy some customer data, thus reducing the size of our list.

We found this a good time to 'clean house', clean up our email list and customer database, and make sure our processes are watertight, and reinvent strategy, taking our marketing up a level. We considered this a perfect time to improve our strategy and re-engage with those who have signed up with us.

As we  tightened our policies and streamlined our processes, we knew that we would be disengaging from those who had signed up with us, but who hadn't visited or engaged with us. We would be improving our email open rate (OR) and click through rate (CTR). We wouldn't have the costs involved in maintaining a larger list. We would have a streamlined list of engaged people who were genuinely interested in us and what we had to offer.

There is a fallacy that the bigger an email list, the more profitable it is. There is another fallacy that the more those on the list are contacted, the more likely they are to buy. These two misconceptions are probably the main reasons businesses find email marketing doesn't work for them - when in reality it's a relatively cheap way to contact those closest to the business, keep them engaged and interested, and show them new things.

It's early days, but we're in the testing phase.

oing back to our boutique cycling studio where we test everything, we knew that sending an email to current registrants (those who had registered to use the cycling studio) and asking them to 'resubscribe' was not going to be successful. We defined success as eliminating disengaged or inactive registrants, and losing no more than 30% of our current  engaged registrants.

So what we did was change our marketing strategy radically. Previously we had offers, promotions, discounts going out on all platforms, email, social, paid search, as well as in leaflets and magazines, and in the studio itself. We decided to ditch all of those platforms (not for marketing, but just for offers), we decided that all our offers were going to be accessible from only one place - the registrant's inbox. 

Why? Because this immediately added value to the emails we would be sending. If registrants knew that the offers would only come in this way, they'd be more likely to open and read our emails - improving our OR and CTR. We'd be changing behaviour by offering value.

We created a new project. We called it 'JammyFox' implying the fact that only a particular few would be getting hold of our offers.

A lead magnet is an offer that encourages potential customers to sign up with you - either onto your email list, or to register with you.
Lead magnets are useful because they increase your list of potential studio members and therefore the number of potential indoor cycling session purchases.

Lead magnets are easily consumed, they are generally a short or bite-size piece of information that can be acted on immediately. They have high perceived value this is because they solve your target market's immediate problem, not only this, they are specific in supplying to your target market's need and showing them that you know what they need. They therefore have high perceived value for your potential clients even if they are provided at low cost to you - often they are evergreen, which means that they can run for as long as they are effective. Lead magnets can bargeted to a specific segment of your target market, and enable you to oposition yourself as an expert who can be trusted to provide exactly what your target market needs.

Differentiating yourself from an increasingly competitive and crowded market is essential, and a lead market will help accomplish this.

There are many types of lead magnets, but some work better in some markets than others. examples include:

• checklist
  
• blueprint
  
• cheatsheet
  
• swipe file
  
• infographic
  
• recipes
  
• list - top 10
  

Remember this? The Natural Environment Research Council (whom most people had not heard of) launched a public poll for the naming of one of their new research vessels - and for a few months in 2016 they became famous. Or even infamous. Previously there had been other public polls for naming animals such as orcas and owls - but none seemed to go as viral as this one. A BBC radio presenter suggested Boaty McBoatface and this captured the imagination of the British public and the poll took off - with Boaty in the lead at 33% of the vote.

The result? Boaty won the public vote, but this choice was vetoed; the research vessel was named the Sir David Attenborough and as a sop to the public, an on-board submersible craft was given the name Boaty McBoatface. What can brands learn from this?

Recognise that asking the opinion of the Great British public is potentially even more dangerous than working with children and animals. There's tremendous opportunity and likewise great risk. On the one hand, if you catch the public's imagination the possibilities are endless - but on the other, mess it up, and you're going to look ridiculous.

The results and subsequent action after the poll was concluded showed an astonishing lack of awareness of what were the possible or indeed likely outcomes of launching a public poll. The NERC suggested a few possibilities, but from these proposed options it was clear that they had absolutely no idea of the dark roads that public opinion was about to drag them down. They were then unprepared to deal with the inevitable consequences. Sun Tzu in the Art of War said a warrior should "know your enemy, and know yourself". NERC showed profound ignorance of both as the gap between what they wanted and what the public voted for was amusingly wide. They clearly didn't know themselves, and certainly weren't aware how out of touch they were with the public sentiment.

During the pre-crisis planning which wasn't done, a quick internet search would have shown NERC that in previous public naming polls, the British value humour over pomp. Indeed in 2007, a poll to name a humpback whale resulted in Greenpeace reluctantly agreeing to name the mammal Mister Splashy Pants. A similar outcome nine years later was always probable. (In the event, Mister Splashy Pants earned 78% of the vote, with the rather more staid options of Shanti, Amal, Aurora, Mira and Kaimana only earning 1% each.)

Only ask for an opinion if you're willing to take it. NERC didn't give the public parameters, it made suggestions but left the choices up to the public. By running the poll, NERC had two options:

1. provide pre-defined choices  and accept that the poll will probably only reach those who are interested in NERC's work
2. engage a wider audience by inviting the public to submit options and vote on anything

There's not tremendous value in the first the option, but there's significant risk in the second option - that NERC should have been prepared for. To go for option 2 and then reject the 'unsuitable' winner is a lot like wanting to have the cake and eat it. The public felt duped - they'd bought into the poll in good faith, wide support had been raised, and then NERC retracted the naming rights, making themselves look stuffy and out of touch. The booby prize of naming the onboard submersible Boaty McBoatface just compounded the insult.

The viral nature of the poll should have sparked NERC's interest and had them seeing the possibilities regardless of the acceptability of the outcome.

Allowing the public to name the vessel as inappropriately as it liked had the potential to create the first celebrity boat. This was a missed PR opportunity; children would remember into adulthood their school trips to see Boaty. It was a fabulous chance to spark the imagination of the next generation of marine explorers - and educate everyone else on what marine explorers actually do. It would have been a boat everyone had heard of.

The internet and social media has enabled far faster viral spread of ideas. Advertising is far cheaper than it ever has been before - and publicity stunts pulled off well need not cost anything at all. There was immense value created by running this poll. So many got involved, had a vote, shared the poll with friends and colleagues, and talked about it amongst themselves. It captured the nation's sense of fun -and if you can do that, it's difficult to go wrong from there (although clearly not impossible!)

Polls and quizzes are popular because they invite opinion - and everyone has one of those! It also has the ability to create tribes. The tribe effect is evident in people voting and then sharing the poll, inviting others to join in too. A press release of the imminent launch of a research vessel could never have the same organic reach as a poll on the same subject. A poll taps into the twin desires of wanting to contribute, and wanting to be heard. The fact that the voices heard where then dismissed was the reason the entire PR project backfired.

Instead of a PR victory which would see hordes of people keen to visit Boaty, schoolchildren's imagination sparked by marine discovery, a renewed faith in these research bodies of which we know very little, and the affirmation of the irreverence that Britain holds so dear - the result was negative:

• the traction and brand value created by the poll was wasted
• the people's choice was rejected, reinforcing the perception that such bodies are paternalistic and out of touch
• a serious body was made ridiculous by its buttoned-up reaction to a fun-loving and engaged public
  
• it's now harder for others to harness public support and fire imagination via polls due to public distrust.
  

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