Gym Owners – Build Your Influence With These 10 Proven Email Subject Line Hacks

Gym owners – you know that your most valuable members want more from you.  Not only do they need guidance in what they should do, but they also crave daily inspiration, insights, and information (A.K.A. The 3 I’s) that will drive their routines to the next level.

You can easily deliver the 3 I’s to your audience with gym email marketing, but how can you stand out from all the noise?

Just because you’re sending out emails to your pack, doesn’t mean they will see and read them, So, you must ensure what you’re writing will grab their eyeballs in the midst of a flooded inbox.

At the end of the email marketing game, it all comes down to writing powerful email subject lines.

So, how can successful gym owners guarantee that their email subject lines will stand out from others in their subscriber’s inboxes?

In this post, we’re going to dive into the art of crafting powerful email subject lines that will get more clicks than you ever thought possible.

That’s right, I’m going to hand you 10 hacks that will beckon and propel your crowd to take action and open your email messages.

Are you ready to transform your email marketing?

Oh, hell yeah!!!

via GIPHY

Gym Owners Need to Think Personally with Subject Lines

When you are writing subject lines there are two pillars you need to stand between: relevance and personalization.

Every individual has a unique journey and you must think about these 2 principles as much as you can while writing.

So here are some email marketing hacks you can use in your fitness business:

First, address your reader’s fitness goals. One of the best ways you can do this is to divide up your email lists into segments. You can have separate lists for people who are focused on different aspects of fitness.  Some people are concerned about weight loss, some about building mass, and others may be interested in keeping healthy.

Segmenting is a rather large topic of itself, but it will help you hit the mark with different groups of people on your email lists. Most email platforms have ways you can segment your readers into different groups, but that topic will be covered in another post.

But if you want to write to individual interests and topics, call them out in your subject lines.

Examples:

Achieve Your 2024 Fitness Goals with Our Tailored Workout Plans!

Or

Exclusive Offer: Yoga Enthusiasts, Join Our Special Workshop

Another way to gain attention in your subject lines is to refer to past interactions.

Mentioning previous purchases, milestones, achievements or classes that your members and subscribers have attended will boost the likelihood that your emails will get noticed.

Example:

Congrats, Joe – You’ve Passed Your Milestone! Here’s a Free Gift!

Yeah, buddy!

When subject lines resonate with individual’s, they can grab a lot of attention and help you mind-meld with your members and readers.

This will make them even more inclined to open your email messages and build a lasting relationship with you.

Don’t forget this marketing rule: Your easiest prospects are the one’s who’ve already raised their hands and done business with you. So, maintain those clients and your marketing life will be a whole lot easier.

Use The Urgency Factor

If you want a surefire way of grabbing your reader’s attention in your subject lines, you need to use urgency. As a gym owner, you must spur your readers to take action and become engaged.

And it’s not hard to do, because you can use common phrases like:

“Limited time offer”

“Last Chance”

“Act now”

And it is easy to collect these phrases and keep them on file.  As a matter of fact, here are a few I grabbed out of my Gmail inbox: ( Bear in mind, Christmas is in a few weeks.)

“LAST CALL: Gifts for everyone!” -North Spore

“It’s coming to an end…soon” – Brian Tracy

“LAST DAY for $9.99 Play-a-longs!” – Jamie Abersold Jazz

“Don’t Wait! Discover What Makes HERO12 Black + Gear Up with HERO12 Black + Max Lens Mod 2.0 Bundle Stand Out” – GoPro

“Don’t let procrastination steal another opportunity!” – Brian Tracy

“Time to save on new clearance items!” – Sam’s Club

I grabbed these within 3 or 4 minutes and if you want to get a bunch real fast, go to your promotional tab of your email.

And this comes from the simple copywriting psychological trick of  creating urgency.

Not only are you ramping up the fear of missing out, but  you are also giving your readers an exclusive tip. So, there are actually two factors at play in their brains here:

Urgency + Exclusivity = Action

Advertisers call this the FOMO factor (or the Fear of Missing Out) and you can use it in your subject lines.

The Power of Unresolved Statements

So far, we’ve been talking about how gym owners can use ideas like scarcity in your email subject lines.  As a gym owner, you must use every trick in the book to gain the attention of your readers. Another potent way to captivate wandering eyes is to tease with curiosity.

Once again, you want people who are scanning their inboxes to click on what you have to offer, right?

One powerful way of piquing curiosity is by using questions.

People have an innate desire to answer questions and seek resolutions to problems.  So, you can get people to do that by placing questions in your subject lines.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

Subject line:  Are You Missing Out on the Ultimate Workout Secret?

People hate missing out on insider tips, especially when it’s something they want to know.  If you are a young, virile person who wants to get fit, this would be very enticing subject line to click on.

But there is psychologically more to this insider tip than meets the eye.  When you offer exclusive content of any kind, it has a magnetic pull on subscribers.

By hinting that you will be giving them exclusive knowledge, gym owners can make their members feel special.

You can use phrases like:

“Unlock VIP Access to Unreleased Fitness Tips”

“Sneak Peak – Your invitation to exclusive training sessions.”

“No One Wants to Talk About This New Training Technique”

Do you see?

These kinds of questions are very tantalizing to readers and compel them to read further.

(I mean, who can resist an insider’s scoop? Right?)

Use Cliffhangers to Spur Readers Curiosity

Another way for gym owners to gain attention in their subject lines, is by using cliffhangers.

A lot of people don’t know what cliffhangers are because TV shows hardly use them anymore.

I was a kid in the 60’s and the TV show Batman was very popular. Almost every other week, they had a cliffhanger at the end of the 30-minute episode.

Batman would be hanging over a pool of boiling lava because the bad guys put him there.  And the announcer would come on and say crap like, “Will Batman and the Boy Wonder (Robin) be turned into bat-soup?”

(No, I’m not exaggerating, they would write crazy junk like that.)

And like a true fan, I was dying all week long, waiting for the next Wednesday episode to arrive.

But using tricks like this in your email subject lines is like hanging your readers minds over a pool of lava.

People want a door to be slightly open – tempting them to step in and see what’s going on.

Here are a few ideas to get you going:

“Discover the First Steps to Transforming Your Workout Routine…”

“The Secret Ingredient to Achieving Your Dream Physique…Revealed!”

“One Week from Today, You Will Know How to Create a Powerful Body”

The power behind crafting these kinds of subject lines is to ignite curiosity.  By posing compelling questions and teasing with cliffhangers, you can capture scanning eyes. This will lead to higher open rates and building a connection with your gym members.

Clarity and Specificity: The Key to Captivating Subject Lines

Another potent strategy for getting people to notice your subject lines is to be clear. You want to convey what exactly what your email is about while still igniting curiosity.

Needless to say that balancing clarity while igniting curiosity isn’t easy.

But gym owners must have clear subject lines in order to build trust with their subscribers. When your readers scan their inboxes the must be able to cut through all the clutter and fluff.

You can help them by writing clear subject lines.

For instance:

“New Gym Equipment – Discover Our Latest Innovations“

Your readers will know exactly what you’re talking about while making them curious about the new equipment.

Another thing you hack you can use in your subject lines is specificity. Being specific will add depth and detail, enticing recipients with the spark of valuable content.

Here’s what I mean: “Discover the Secret Workout Method to Transforming Bodies”

Right away, your readers know thins is a little known workout method. The curiosity is built in this case, by using the word, “secret”.

Amplifying Intrigue While Being Clear

You still want to excite people when they see your subject lines, and a way to do that is to make a promise. One of the ways, big-time direct response copywriters do this is by giving away secrets.

Everyone loves to get insider secrets, that entices readers to open the email to get the hidden gems.

Here’s a good example of this:

Surprise Inside! The Key to Your Dream Body Lies Here…

If you are a person looking to build a better physique, you’d know that this email if for you. However, you want to know what the surprise key is that is mentioned in the subject line.

Right?

So a clear subject line doesn’t have to tell you everything, just enough to get your recipient’s brain engaged.

“Finding the right mix of clear yet intriguing subject lines takes practice. By studying and practicing, writing them will become easier, leading to higher open rates.”

Motivate Readers with Emotions in Fitness Subject Lines

Using emotional appeals in subject lines can boost conversions, too.

You can use words in your subject lines that will excite, empower, or give readers a sense of accomplishment.

If you can use words and phrases that can stir up feelings that will resonate deeply, you’ll fare better.

It is a harmless mind-trick that can get fitness enthusiasts to respond to your emails.  As you already know, fitness enthusiasts use motivation to fire up their workout sessions. They’ll use music, and inspirational phrases as primers to get themselves cranking.

So, think of your subject lines as if they were motivating music that can inspire and move people to take action.

Here are a few examples to help you get an idea of how to write emotional subject lines:

• No More Excuses! – TODAY IS YOUR MOMENT OF TRUTH
• Are you up for the challenge?
• From Couch Potato to Fitness God in 4 Weeks
• You’re only 8 weeks away from your dream body!
• Feeling unmotivated?
• Get Moving, Damn it!
• You’re stronger than you think…

Add a Dash of Accomplishment

Don’t forget you can also add a sense of accomplishment to your subscribers, as well.

Achievements can take several forms and you should use these ideas in your subject lines. Whether it is conquering a workout routine, passing a milestone, or hitting a fitness goal.

Here are a few ideas on this to get you going:

• You’re stronger than you think
• Keep your fitness resolutions on track
• A 30-day fitness challenge to help you reach your goals
• You’re so close, you can taste it!

And these kinds of subject lines can establish engagement and comradery between you and your clients.

To sum it up, you can use these kinds of emotional lines to get your readers to take action.

By leveraging words like this, you can empower, evoke and motivate your fitness subscribers to take action and get into your gym.

Use These Subject Line Tester Tools to Improve Your Email Marketing

If you are worried that your subject lines aren’t up to snuff, you can test them. One way that you can do that is with a subject line tester tools.

They can check your subject lines to see:

• If your subject lines are spammy (Spam Score)
• The emotional value they hold
• Your word-balance
• How they fare against the industry average

Here are some of the online subject tester tools you can use:

Email Subject Line Grader by Net Atlantic:  This will your subject line and tells you how to improve it. (The thing I love about this tool is it is so simple to use.)

Zurb Test Subject: You can preview subject lines to see how they will look on different devices.

Send Check It: This will see how good your subject lines are by looking at others like them.

Subjectline.com: A simple tool to check to see how powerful your subject lines are.

Here’s an idea, why not use as couple of these tools to cross check your subject lines? One of the ways I use them is by revising my lines until they get a higher score.

But at the end of the day, it all boils down to what resonates with your readers, which brings me to my next subject…

Split Testing – What is it and Why Do Gym Owner’s Need to Do It?

Split testing is pretty simple; You send out different versions of your subject lines to see how they fare. (Of course, you should send them out to different groups of people.)

Gym owners can refine their email campaigns and increase their open rates doing this.

Here’s how it’s done:

Step 1: Create two or more variations of the subject line, changing only one element at a time. For example, they can test different words, lengths, tones, personalization, or emojis.

Step 2: Send each variation to a small percentage of their email list, randomly selected. The rest of the list will receive the winning subject line after the test is completed.

Step 3: Track the results of each variation using an email marketing tool or a web analytics tool. Open rate is the main measure, but you can also use click rate or conversion rate.

Step 4: Compare the results and choose the variation that has the highest performance. This is the winning subject line that will be sent to the rest of the list.

Step 5: Rinse and repeat with other email campaign subject lines.

That’s it!

Conclusion

Email subject lines are the first thing your subscribers see in your emails. That’s why you need to make them catchy, relevant, and compelling.

One of the best pieces of advice I think I can give to a gym owner about email subject lines and headlines, is to write 10 of them a day.

Here’s a formula for doing this, it is called the 4 U’s.

Your subject line must be:

• Urgent – You must motivate them to take some sort of action now

• Unique – Don’t make it the same boring crap everyone else is dishing out

• Ultra Specific – You need to focus on a particular niche or sub-niche

• Useful – It must be something a reader can benefit from or use

You may not be able to use all 4 of these U’s at once, but push yourself to use at least 3 of them.

If you put these ideas at the top of your page as you write your subject lines it will help. As I mentioned above, write 10 of them and day and you’ll be writing great subject lines that stick out in an inbox.

If you liked this post, please leave a comment and let me know if you gained something from it. It would really make my day.

Happy New Year!