Tag: E-mail Marketing

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3 Vital Lessons We Learned From Attending HubSpot’s Marketing Event

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Nothing beats a good stretch of fresh perspective. Our blog team took a trip for some fresh perspective on the marketing industry and we’re happy to share what we learned with all of you. Take a dive into the marketing world today, join us in our recap—and let’s get a new perspective on social media together!

Build Your Client Profiles With Social Media


Facebook is still the most popular social media platform and per its own quarterly report, an average of 50 minutes or more a day is spent on their site per person. So if the average person reads around 200 words in a minute, then an estimate of 10,000 words are read in that 50 minutes a day from Facebook users. That’s more than two chapters of the first Harry Potter or Game of Thrones book!
So, what does this mean? One takeaway is the importance of personalization. If people are taking around an hour a day at minimum to engage in content relevant to their personal lives, then the messages they will want to continue reading should ideally be in line with their established preferences. These preferences can of course always be recorded in a Client Profile for future occasions such as birthdays or client anniversaries, etc.
How can a business tailor their content for personalization? I would say a variety of options never fails to accomplish a personalized experience. For example, if you develop a poll post on social media you can utilise the comments section for that post as an “other” option answer. Not only does this prompt engagement among clients—it also gives them an opportunity to type their message directly to you in their own words rather than selecting an answer.
I also reached out to my boss for her thoughts too!

The average amount of time that people spend per day on Facebook alone is incredibly eye opening to the opportunity it creates to engage with not only clients but attract potential clients as well. The stats learned while participating in Hubspot’s marketing event, further drove home the importance and value of crafting the right message for your audience. One tip I would give anyone looking to utilise this platform for their business would be too often check the built-in analytics to gauge how your content is performing. From there you can easily make informed decisions to tailor your message accordingly.

Great advice! Another insight from social media we learned comes from an out-of-the-box perspective. Because Facebook is so popular, what is the preference for platform access? Do clients prefer a computer, laptop or going mobile? These preferences can very well determine the presentation of your content. For example, video news content on mobile devices is commonly featured with large captions and an option for no audio. For the mobile user who may be quite literally on the go, the video then connects to them in the same way that it would for a user who is stationary. With the captions, there is no need for raising the volume or finding a quieter environment to concentrate because the content is tailored to their situation and therefore instantly digestible.

Communication Makes the Experience


In December, we mentioned the value of overlooked communications that, while may feel technically dated, can still carry an impact. Examples of these communications include ‘Thank you’ notes and—it may seem a bit contrary to recommend handwritten communication, however, to assume all our clients who use social media and technology don’t enjoy a letter can be a mistake. Not to mention we’re honoring grandpa and grandma each time we sit down and handwrite a letter. Remember that you can always double check your clients profile page under the Customer Relationship Management feature for their contact info as well as any information you have recorded for them. We also encourage watching our online webinar: How to Become A Data-Driven Powerhouse, to ensure the best is being made of your EZFacility account.
You can also start an experience with members by communicating a follow-up. Follow up conversations have become somewhat prominent due to how fast communication has become so email is where to start. Our Email Marketing Tools has hundreds of templates to choose from. If you need a quick brush up on how to make use of email templates, please check our support guide here.
And if you are interested in keeping in touch more than often, the EZFacility Branded App could be your best step of all! A branded app permits clients the ability to have access to your business within their smartphone. With the help of our design team, we will help you visualize the brand identity of your business into an easily accessible app from the symbol to the layout colours. Bigger buttons? You got it! No social media or carousel images? Done and Done! We’re happy to help you sculpt the app to your liking.

Self-Service is awesome

Ah Self-service. It can be seen from car rentals, hotel check-ins, gas stations, grocery stores… The list goes on and it won’t stop anytime soon due to the popularity it serves for a pleasant consumer experience. As the saying goes, convenience is king, and with the time saved throughout our day-to-day lives it would benefit more to add Member Self-Service to your time-saving helpers tools. Member Self-Service grants client access that puts them first. They can book sessions, lessons, update their contact info, pay bills, view schedules and cancel appointments online. In addition, you have the power to define requirements for bookings and package classes as well as set restrictions for members with unremitting balances. You may even open self-service to the public—enabling a bigger market audience towards your business. It wouldn’t be self-serve if it didn’t serve both your client and yourself! We welcome you to take a tour of our newly improved feature in our support center.

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Social Media and Self Promotion

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Congratulations! Your business has been recognized in an extraordinary manner. Whether it be an honorary title, a rave review or newly awarded achievement—it’s a wonderful accomplishment worth sharing. You can certainly make a quick capture of a moment to post for social media or you can apply more strategy to make the content last longer. And why not? It’s a special moment worth remembering! Below is a list of thoughtful approaches in expanding both the reach and length of self-promoting content.

 

Show Rather Than Tell

 Recently, EZFacility received recognition as achieving the number 9 spot in Capterra’s Top 20 Most Popular Membership Management Software. If you’ve been to our company page, you already know that EZFacility started at a modest size and then grew to fantastic proportions thanks to hard work and a dedicated team which helped us earn this spot. To exemplify our appreciation, we shared content focusing one what best represents the success of our software: our client’s successes. On both Twitter and Facebook we shared precisely that and as seen, the act of showing rather than telling expresses a more visual representation of that success. When celebrating positive news, it’s great to make sure the presentation of the message is bright as the content itself!

Think Before You Use Hashtags

Hashtags are a great way to be seen by both new people and potential clients. For newcomers to social media, a hashtag is a short phrase following the # symbol that identifies a social media post as a topic. For example, if someone were to post about how they met a goal of performing 100 push-ups a day, they may write a hashtag #PracticeMakesPerfect or #LifeGoals at the end to encapsulate the message of their post as a lesson of dedication. If a popular hashtag is used by a mass amount of users in the same time period, then the hashtag will trend and become visible for all users to see what’s trending on social media. It’s important to make sure a hashtag has some relevancy to the post and there’s no space between the text. If not, then the post will neither reach their targeted audience nor the maximum range of its audience. #HashtagsDoneRight

Build Up Anticipation

Content featuring surprises can gain quite a lot of attention. Think of the news headlines that read “You Won’t Believe This.” and “What You Hear Will Shock You”. These are sentences meant to grab your attention and while successful they are dramatic and we don’t want to turn authentic social media posts into that! Ideally, we would like to introduce intrigue to the presentation but not too much at the risk of oversaturating the content. One method is by making an announcement for your announcement. For example, we did a short tease post on social media about an upcoming blog post to be released in the afternoon. Note how we included a timestamp on when the reveal would be to keep audiences engaged. Using time effectively within a modest range gives the audience less of a burden to check back and less time to wait!

Make it Accessible Across Social Media Accounts

Spreading self-promotional material across your different social media account platforms is ideal but what’s better is to alter the content to fit the best practices of the social media account. One of the best references to find the style of each social media post is to look at examples from other accounts you follow (and that means competition as well!). Most pictures on Instagram have dynamic angles whereas photos on Facebook have a traditional ‘photo album’ appearance. Catering the presentation to your social media accounts will create for a significant impact for varying platform audiences.

 

Addition of View Details Option on E-mail Campaign History Page and More!

Addition of View Details Option on E-mail Campaign History Page and More!

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Our Development Team is constantly working to improve your user experience with EZFacility. Between major updates, we release small but important Features and Fixes that address issues and add useful new options/tools to better help you manage your business. These changes are documented in our Release Notes, found in our Support Center under the “Product News & Updates” section.

In a world full of numbers it is easy to get lost in them. From what’s in your bank account to the number of clients that pass through your facility each day. Our last release featured the introduction of the Email Campaign History page, which, not only gives you the ability to see previously sent emails, but also allows you to report on their success or failures using numbers. With that in mind EZFacility’s Development Team has taken that concept one step further with the release of a “View Details” section of the Email Campaign History Page and more!

View Details- Email Campaign History

In the Email Campaign History section of your EZFacility account you will notice our newest feature – View Details. Our goal for adding the View Details section was to associate a name and purpose with email campaign results. This allows you to better understand and analyze the reach and depth of your campaign efforts.

 

Clicking into View Details will automatically display campaign result totals for a variety of industry standard email event types. These results can be broken down to include the email address of the recipient and an event time stamp that allows you to view statistics as they happen. You can also filter through campaign information using criteria such as email address and event type.

 

Email Results Recorded:

  • Delivered: Message has been successfully delivered to the receiving server.
  • Open: Recipient has opened the HTML message.
  • Click: Recipient clicked on a link within the message.
  • Bounce: Receiving server could not or would not accept message.
  • Dropped: Recipients IP address has been added to the blacklist.
  • Spam Report: Recipient marked message as spam.

Display Available Openings Remaining on an Online Registration Form

In an effort to make Online Registrations as efficient as possible, our latest release includes the ability to display the remaining openings available on an Online Registration Form. When your clients first view this page they will be met with the available openings remaining totals for creating new subgroups and individual registrations. For those clients who will be looking to register for a sub group, the sub-group openings will be displayed when viewing the list of subgroups.

 

Note: The number of available openings remaining is based on the “Max. Individuals” and “Max. Subgroups” set in the group details.

Update to Our SPAM and Security Settings

With our latest release we have made an update to our SPAM and security settings. Now, when sending an email blast, the ‘From’ field will be changed from your facility or personal email address to services@mail.ezfacility.com, while still displaying the name of your facility at the top. Be assured however, that when a client replies to a sent email, it will be received by the user that sent the email blast and not EZFacility. This change is for security reasons, and is being implemented across the industry for SPAM prevention. Email providers such as Yahoo and AOL already require this change and are beginning to block emails that are sent ‘on behalf of’ another email address.

 

And More!

In addition to these changes, there were many additional updates included in this release. For more details, please visit out Release Notes page.

Brand Identity

Brand Identity

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We all know how confusing a mixed message can be. Somebody tells you one thing and then does another, and you’re left wondering what exactly happened. Did you misunderstand something? Have you misinterpreted? Most of all, can you still trust the person in question?
While it can be bewildering when it happens between individuals, it can be downright damaging when it happens between an individual and a business, especially when the business thrives on retaining members. So, it might be time to review the messages you’re sending your clientele and make sure you’re not putting conflicting signals out there. To that end, a few pieces of advice:
1) Consider your free offers carefully. Some gyms have been known to offer pizza days, bagel days, even doughnut or candy days. While such food giveaways might make members happy, they can undermine your primary messaging. You want your members to believe that you care about their health — sure, a slice of pizza or a bagel once a month never hurt anyone, but let the strip mall down the street supply those. If you do it, how believable are you going to sound when you tell your members they need to exercise and eat properly to lose weight? And if you don’t sound believable and they don’t lose the weight, are they going to renew their membership when the time comes?
Of course, you could give away candy or bagels—even bagels slathered in cream cheese or butter—if you hand out with them, say, a chart that shows how many push-ups a person would need to do to burn off those calories, or how many miles they’d need to run on the treadmill. Again, it’s about consistent messaging.
2) Check how inclusive you’re being. Unless your facility is an elite training center or something similar, chances are you don’t want to turn away any potential clients. Are your flyers, advertisements, social media postings, and other promotional materials inclusive, with people of all colours, genders, sizes, cultures, and ethnic backgrounds represented? Will an overweight person or a Spanish-speaker or a transgender individual feel alienated? Try to consider your messaging from as many different points of view as possible, asking yourself whether you might be unintentionally shutting anyone out.
3) Pay attention to your grammar. I know this one makes me sound like your ninth-grade English teacher, but it’s important. In this day and age, when so much of a company’s identity depends on the words it strings together on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, in emails, and on websites, proper grammar—along with careful spelling and punctuation—is crucial. This is especially the case if your messaging is about achieving excellence, pushing yourself, going over and above, and the like. If you want to keep your credibility, you have to show your own willingness to achieve excellence, to push yourself. Even if your clientele cares more about a good workout than a well-crafted sentence, on some level evidence of carelessness will have an effect.
In the end, it’s about having a solid brand identity and continually working to strengthen that identity. Tweaking small details and taking the time to reflect on the messages you’re conveying can make a big difference.

The Personal Approach To Collecting Feedback

The Personal Approach To Collecting Feedback

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The Personal Approach To Collecting Feedback I have a confession to make. I never, ever fill out surveys. I feel irritated when any business interrupts my day with an email seeking my feedback. The impersonal nature of the questions, the idea that I’m just a source of data to be collected, the time it takes to respond — all of these things push my buttons. It’s not that I don’t understand why businesses do it and how the information they gather is useful; I know it’s so that services can be better tailored to consumers. But I can’t help feeling that the cost of filling out a survey, no matter how short and sweet the survey might be, isn’t worth the benefits I reap.
Continue reading “The Personal Approach To Collecting Feedback” →

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Staying Engaged With Customers Wherever They Are

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Building good relationships with your customers is less complicated when they’re right in front of you.  Sharing helpful tips and providing encouragement with a friendly smile are easy ways to build a personal connection with your clients.  What is more challenging is maintaining this connection when they are not in your presence.  Keeping your customers engaged and eager to come back requires a good plan, solid effort and commitment to your relationship.
Be Prolific
The more information you have about your customers, the more opportunities you have to engage them.  Everyone has an email address these days, so make sure that your registration form includes this critical detail.  Email announcements and newsletters are inexpensive to produce, and are a non-intrusive way to let your customers know what’s going on at your facility.  They’re also a great way to build interest from prospective clients – the more you can highlight programs that they want to attend, the more likely they are to become customers.
Be Social
Today, maintaining your facility’s presence on Social Networks (such as Facebook and Twitter) is just as important as having a website.  The key to an ambitious social media strategy is to provide a good incentive for your customers to like and follow you on a regular basis.  A good start is to make a strong Call To Action that gets your customers engaged if they haven’t already done so on their own; for example, running online-only promotions or rewarding social media mentions with Perks.  Not everything has to be as serious as a solicitation – posting regular “casual but relevant” messages of inspiration or humor will keep your customers interested in what you have to say without burning them out.  Finding your voice and the right mix of content for your audience is as much an art as a science, so experiment and find out what your customers want to hear.
Be Mobile
Many of your customers probably have a smartphone in their pocket right now.  If they have an App like MemberMe installed on their phone, you can send them instant Push Notifications about news, offers, and updates about your facility wherever they are.  With MemberMe, you can schedule announcements ahead of time, or send out a quick alert immediately after an opening becomes available.  That simple engagement can be the push they need to register for a session and keep your roster filled.  You should plan for regular updates with tips and advice, star performer recognition, and special offers to keep your customers interested and checking your app regularly.
Be Engaged
Thanks to Email, Social Networking, and Smartphone Apps like MemberMe, maintaining that important relationship with your customers is made easier than ever.  As with any relationship, commitment and dedication is the key.  If you are diligent and work hard to stay engaged with your customers, they will return the favor.