Virgin Active

banner_virginactive

ObjeCTIVE

At Virgin Active Health Clubs, the New Year represents much more than increased waistlines.  New memberships in the first quarter account form a formidable source of revenue.  But with so many fitness clubs and so many offers, how does the brand successfully compete for market share?

Building on our successful campaigns in previous years, Virgin Active Health Clubs works with Freestyle on a simple but challenging brief: find us the right people and do something creative.  Most importantly, compel them to join..
 

Solution

How to fulfil so many New Years resolutions with a single campaign?  Easy.  Business intelligence.  We work hard to find the right people and discern what makes them tick.  We devise personalised creative to appeal to these sectors and then ensure we send the right information to the right people at the right time.  But we go further.  Marketing to leads that drop off the site mid-process or never utilise the incentives offered requires a deep understanding of the customer journey.  Through careful analysis, Freestyle provides the intelligence needed to turn leads into new health club members.

Following these successful acquisition campaigns, we’re now looking at a retention programme to further increase the brand’s revenue by regularly communicating with their existing and dormant members.  We understand the value of the brand’s existing customer profiles, and continually build on this knowledge (through customer satisfaction and feedback surveys) to allow Virgin to improve their service to members.  Imagine an email campaign that takes into account who you are, your hobbies, lifestyle choices, and how you use the gym.  Imagine that this information is crafted into a real and personal motivation to ‘Get up off the sofa’ with Virgin Active Health Clubs.

Results

The success of our national email campaigns is much more than anecdotal:  with over 3m emails broadcast in the first quarter of ’09, Virgin Active Health Clubs enjoyed a four-fold increase in member sign ups, a 300% increase in open rates (1.5% to 6%) and a 108% growth in click rates on last year.  Our work led to a doubling of leads generated by alternative pay-per-click activity at half the cost!  See you later, couch potato!