Playbook
Gym Text Messaging Playbook: How Fitness Centers Use SMS to Grow Memberships
Text messaging helps fitness centers attract new members, improve retention, and create stronger member relationships.
Here’s how gyms, trainers, and other fitness professionals leverage texting to grow their business. This playbook can apply to fitness centers of all sizes and with multiple locations, but we have studios with 10 to 20 employees in mind.
5 SMS Tools to Increase Your Gym Membership
1. Add SMS Chat to your fitness center website.
New members often have questions before committing to a gym membership. Adding SMS Chat to your website gives them a way to reach you immediately.
Text Request's SMS Chat feature is a widget new members can use to text you directly from your website. Any replies go to their phone, and you get to keep their number for follow ups.
The sooner you make contact with them, the more likely they are to choose you over a competitor’s fitness studio.
2. Improve new member onboarding with automated texting.
Incorporate SMS into your onboarding process to make signing up easy. A smooth onboarding process helps new gym members feel confident and connected from day one.
Text everything from:
Waivers new members need to complete
Class instructions
Gym policies
Membership details
You can also stay in touch with members easily over the first 30 days with drip campaigns to keep you top-of-mind. A drip campaign is an automated workflow, or in this case a pre-written set of texts, intended to send to members over a period of time.
You can schedule these messages for new members as they come in, or create a series of triggers via your CRM integration.
Week 1: The new member gets a text welcoming them to the gym, including a couple recommendations for their first class.
Week 2: The member gets a text recommending some membership benefits they haven’t used yet.
Week 3: The member receives an encouragement text congratulating them for keeping at it.
Week 4: The member is invited to bring a friend to receive a discount on their membership.
Week 5: The member receives an upsell recommending some gear that could improve their overall experience.
Week 6: The member gets an upsell inviting them to try the next tier of membership at a discount for the first month.
This kind of text message marketing embeds new members into how you work and what you have to offer.
3. Increase gym reviews by texting review links to members.
Online reviews help fitness centers improve local SEO, build credibility, and attract new members.
Text messaging makes it easy to request reviews while member experiences are still fresh. Use Text Request’s review management feature to text direct links to your review platforms to members, so they know exactly where to leave their feedback.
Here’s how fitness centers like yours can streamline the review collection process with text messaging:
Connect your Google Business or Facebook page to Text Request
Insert custom reviews links into your texts asking customers for feedback
Monitor and respond to oncoming reviews from inside Text Request
SMS is the fastest way to reach your current customers for reviews, and Text Request gives you one place to manage them.
4. Promote gym referral offers and discounts through SMS.
Referral programs work best when members actually remember that they exist.
Simple SMS reminders help encourage members to:
Invite friends to classes
Share guest passes
Participate in referral contests
Redeem membership discounts
One text message is all it takes. It can say something like:
“Don’t forget you can bring someone to a class for free all next week!”
Fitness studios can also reward members who refer new signups with:
Discounted memberships
Free personal training sessions
Merchandise
Free classes
Exclusive promotions
Text messages are immediate and easy to read. SMS marketing helps keep your fitness referral campaigns top of mind.
5. Use SMS keywords to generate more gym leads.
SMS keywords help fitness centers generate leads and grow their text subscriber list through SMS marketing. Keywords are words you advertise to members as a way for them to opt-in for more information related to a specific topic.
Fitness centers can promote keywords through:
Websites
Social media
Digital ads
In-gym signage
Print marketing
Local events.
For example:
“Text CROSSFIT to try your first class for free!”
Members who text the keyword are then added to a keyword subscriber group that you can message again and again with updates. It’s the ultimate SMS marketing tool to bring new members to you.
SMS keywords are especially useful for:
Free trial promotions
Class signups
Lead generation campaigns
Event registration
Seasonal membership offers
This creates an ongoing communication channel that helps turn interested prospects into paying gym members.
3 SMS Strategies to Improve Gym Member Retention
1. Reduce no shows with automated class reminder text messages.
Missed classes and appointments are one of the biggest threats to gym member retention. Automated SMS reminders help reduce no-shows by reminding members about upcoming classes, training sessions, and appointments ahead of time.
Fitness centers can use text messaging to:
Send class reminders
Confirm appointments
Share scheduling links
Offer rescheduling options
Fill last-minute openings
We have an entire guide dedicated to helping you master SMS appointment scheduling, but the gist is to create a cycle that keeps members coming in and out your doors.
A simple scheduling workflow can look like this:
Text a link for the member to schedule their first class
The member uses the link to pick a slot that works best for them
Text the member a reminder a day or few hours before their scheduled class
Resend the link for the member to reschedule their class
Repeat the cycle to keep members consistently engaged
Most of this can be automated, depending on your tech stack. And of course you can always do it manually if you’re staying lean.
The easier you make it for members to sign up and remember their classes, the more likely you are to retain them. SMS helps streamline that process.
2. Promote new classes, services, and membership upgrades via SMS.
Text messaging gives fitness centers a fast way to promote new offerings and increase member engagement.
Gyms can use SMS campaigns to announce:
Gear or swag
Nutrition plans
Membership options
Personal training options
Access to additional machines or sections of the gym
Specialty workshops
Example SMS promotions for your gym may include:
Personal training discounts
Upgraded membership packages
Wellness add-ons
Exclusive member perks.
Members who invest more into their fitness experience are often more likely to stick around long-term. So not only are you creating short-term revenue opportunities by texting upsells, you’re also increasing your long-term retention rates.
3. Keep gym members engaged with encouragement texts and fitness resources.
Retaining gym members means keeping an open line of communication with them, and texting is a great way to do that.
Text messaging helps fitness centers stay connected with members between classes by sharing:
Motivational messages
Workout tips
Nutrition guidance
Recovery advice
Fitness resources
Milestone celebrations
Members join your gym because they want accountability and to feel like they’re part of a community. Simple encouragement texts can go a long way, and members are more likely to stay committed to your gym when they feel supported throughout their fitness journey. It humanizes your coaches and creates a direct line that keeps your fitness studio top-of-mind.
5 Steps to Implement Text Messaging into Your Gym or Fitness Studio
1. Text-enable your gym’s business phone number.
You already advertise your fitness center’s business phone number everywhere. Making it textable saves you the hassle of updating all your current marketing collateral with a new number.
This helps:
Simplify communication
Improve member convenience
Maintain brand consistency
You can also add multiple staff members to your Text Request account, that way they can professionally communicate through your gym’s business line instead of their personal phones.
2. Encourage members to text your gym and coaching staff.
Members won’t message your fitness center, if they don’t know they can. So have call-to-actions (CTAs) everywhere from your:
Website (the SMS Chat widget we talked about earlier is great for this)
Social media
Digital ads
Physical ads, including your brick-and-mortar location
All it takes is a nudge:
“Text us to attend your first class for free!”
Text Request’s SMS keywords and SMS Chat widget are great tools to encourage prospective members to start conversations directly from your website.
3. Set user permissions for coaches and gym staff.
It’s great to have your gym’s entire team messaging, but it doesn’t mean you necessarily want them to have access to all the same texting capabilities—especially if you run multiple locations. Your user permission levels can reflect the amount of responsibility you give to each staff member at your gym.
User permissions help gym owners control who can:
Send messages
Manage contacts
Access billing settings
Create automations
Oversee member communication
For example:
Administrator: Have access to everything and can control changes to what your account is charged. Best for founders or gym owners.
Manager: Can access everything that doesn’t involve charges to your account. Best for more senior level staff members, like studio managers or team leads.
Customer Service Rep (CSR): Can only send and receive messages. They cannot change settings, edit contacts, or make changes to what your account is charged. Best for junior-level coaches or personal trainers.
Every staff member at your gym will be able to text at a level that fits their expertise.
4. Create text message templates for common gym questions or reminders.
Text Request's text templates are your ticket to saving more time and creating more consistent gym member communication.
Reusable text templates give you a way to streamline common messages that you send every day, like:
Class schedules and reminders
Short descriptions of classes
Which membership levels have access to what
Gym hours
Renewal reminders
Promotional campaigns
Onboarding instructions
And more
Start by compiling a list of the most common questions your coaches get asked, and then save your responses as templates. Having the same response every time will also help with consistency and keeping coaches on the same page.
5. Give coaches their own dedicated business texting lines to stay in touch with members.
Creating bonds between your staff and members increases retention rates. Coaches will establish individual connections with your members when they have their own personal lines.
Features like:
Custom signatures
Staff profiles
Personalized introductions
Two-way text messaging
Add a personal touch, so members know who they’re messaging. Coaches can also introduce themselves by sharing their headshot, so members know who to look for even before they go to their first class.
It’s personal touches like these that highlight your gym’s welcoming culture and help you stand out in the fitness industry. SMS is the thread that will keep your gym tethered to its members.
