Helping PureGym regain ex-members and master Braze.
As a subscription-based fitness business, how do you combat a natural churn rate, as your client’s fitness goals begin to fade?
The scenario
PureGym is one of the largest gyms in Europe. It was the first ever UK gym to reach over a million members, and now has more than 500 gyms across the UK, Denmark and Switzerland.
Every January, people pull up their socks, get their protein powder in, and take on new gym memberships with high hopes. But as the year unfolds, that initial motivation fades, and they fall into the same old habits.
And often sooner rather than later, that new gym membership is abandoned. For subscription-based fitness businesses (like PureGym), this results in an unwelcome phrase: churn.
With member retention playing such a large part in PureGym’s success, it’s not surprising that PureGym wanted to reconnect with their ex-members and bring them back to their local facilities.
We understood their challenge and set out to not only re-engage and activate their ex-subscribers but also to maximize the value of the Braze platform for PureGym—indefinitely.
89%
increase in clickthrough rate
69%
higher open rate
206%
higher conversion rate for retargeting
Our approach.
We used the Braze Canvas Flow to test PureGym’s customer journeys across multiple channels. This allowed us to target both email and SMS audiences. By using a multi-channel approach, we also tackled the challenge of reaching ex-members with out-of-date phone numbers or email addresses.
By leveraging these two channels in tandem, we increased their chances of being able to reach more of these target users than if they had used SMS or email alone.
Furthermore, PureGym had been sending emails to ex-members every day. This reduced deliverability rates and lowered engagement.
We suggested reducing the frequency, as well as creating more personalized content to add more value for users such as count-down timer GIFs that motivate members to take up offers—consequently increasing open and conversion rates.
The campaign was then bolstered to include retargeting emails for people who’d opened previous emails but hadn’t converted. We optimized and modernized their Braze campaigns so PureGym could effectively manage and deliver discounts in a substantially more time-efficient manner.
The results.
For the first time, PureGym was able to set up a retargeting campaign based on the specific needs of each former customer.
By reaching the right audience, at the right time, with the right message—we maximized the effectiveness of the campaign, increasing the open rate by 69%, click-through rate by 89%, and not to mention, the conversion rate by a whopping 206%.
Finally, we substantially maximized PureGym’s utilization of the Braze platform, setting them up for future success.
