Marketing Automation for Fitness Centers - Form Factory Case Study

One of the projects of 2021 I’m most happy about is the marketing automation collaboration with Form Factory. In the article below you’ll find out how have we, with the marketing team secured omnichannel campaigns that can personalize content by customer behaviour in both online and offline environment.

Start

After completing a simple chatbot with the client Form Factory, which was supposed to free the hands of the customer support and at the same time help with lead generation campaigns, we embarked on a much larger project.

With the marketing team of Form Factory, we started looking for a way to make the use of unconverted leads more efficient and at the same time increase the total lifetime value of the customer. The implementation of marketing automation tool was a great solution to that.

Before the implementation, the process of contacting customers who had been contacted through the internet form was only handled by the staff at the reception, who were busy with normal service. Contacting customers whose memberships were about to end was in human hands too. All of these actions were performed irregularly and, moreover, were very difficult to measure.

Solutions

1) Customer journey   

Together we’ve decided that we need to automate processes and addressing customers at key touchpoints. One of the first steps was mapping the customer journey and identifying the key touchpoints at which automated campaigns should be launched.

2) Digital strategy

Based on this, we’ve built a digital strategy for automated communication, which showed us how and when we want to communicate with customers and in what style. From the strategy, a list of requirements for a technical solution emerged directly for us, and all we had to do was choosing a tool that would meet the requirements.

3) Choosing tools

We’ve decided to implement the ActiveCampaign tool and integrate it with both Form Factory CRM and checkout system. ActiveCampaign can handle a lot on its own, but if you integrate it properly, the possibilities are even greater, and that's what we wanted to try.

We initially replaced the current emailing tool and transferred the current contacts to ActiveCampaign. After further technical setup, we were able to replace the previous email communication and ready for further optimization.

After the end of this phase, we immediately started implementing email mailings so that we could use the tool immediately and thus reduce the return on investment.

4) Integration

The integration of ActiveCampaign tool included 2 parts:

1. Integration with Form Factory's website and online shopping process.
2. Integration with internal cash register and CRM Efitness system.

In the first part, in cooperation with the website supplier, we connected the forms via API with ActiveCampaign and then inserted an extended tracking code on the pages, which then helps to adapt communication based on customer behavior on the website.

After finishing the first part, we immediately set up the first possible automated scenarios, such as an abandoned cart and other scenarios related to customer behavior on the website.

In the second part, together with the supplier Efitness, we also connected the systems via API so that the data synchronize in real time and we could personalize and time the communication at individual touchpoints with maximum accuracy.

After completing this phase, we are able to personalize communications not only based on customer behavior in the online environment, but even based on their offline behavior and visits to fitness centers.

In addition, thanks to the native integration of Active Campaign and Facebook, we are able to use not only email as a communication channel, but also Facebook ads and create our own advertising audiences based on the online and offline behavior of customers.

The result

These actions result in several automated scenarios running simultaneously, including automated segmentation.

1. Abandoned cart
2. Welcome campaigns
3. Retention campaigns

Example of retention campaign

And several others that we agreed with the client not to present publicly.

How did it show up in the numbers?

Total purchases increased by 36% after implementing marketing automation.

Purchases directly from emailing increased by 1 050%.

Thanks to retention emails, we manage to activate over 20% of members so that they extend their membership.

Thank you very much for the cooperation and trust shown by the entire Form Factory team!