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When fitness duo Brooke and Finley Robinson first launched their fitness site in 2017, they didn’t know anything about email.
“We created this platform and had an email signup, and I said to myself, ‘Why would I want someone’s email?’” laughs Finley. “We’ve learned a lot since then and love being a part of Kit, where we can communicate and connect with our people via email.”
The two own BTRIBALFIT, a fitness community with workouts, nutrition plans, and holistic health tips. “We think of it as a creative community business,” says Brooke. “We offer hundreds of different workouts in all different formats, like Pilates, boxing, cardio, and weights. But it’s not just about the workouts. It’s about creating, activating, and connecting the women using our platform.”
Brooke serves as the face of the brand, with Finley working behind-the-scenes.
Once they started using email in their marketing strategy, they quickly learned they needed a platform that could handle sending videos out to their community. “We initially started on MailChimp,” says Finley. “Once I started learning the value of email marketing, the value of building community, the value of people hearing from you, I knew I couldn’t use it. I didn’t understand the layout, what things were called, and I couldn’t find what I needed.”
They switched to Kit, which they find easy to use, so they can focus on building their community and increasing the size of their email list. Says Finley, “What drew me to Kit was the fact that it’s for creators like us. The deeper you dive into it, the better it gets. We love that the lead generation tools are built-in. Now, email is our number one method of communication.”
An example of one of their signup options on BTRIBALFIT’s website.
Currently, they’re focusing on building up BTRIBALFIT’s 1700-person email list. Here’s how they’re driving new signups using Kit:
Community first, marketing second
The most important aspect of building your email list is remembering who you serve and why you serve them. Rather than focus on “everyone” or “anyone,” choose a targeted audience that you can tailor your communication toward.
In a crowded industry like fitness, that meant Brooke and Finley had to understand exactly what kind of community they wanted to build. Taking fitness as an example, that could look like someone looking to:
- Lose weight
- Enjoy working out without thinking about weight
- Gain strength and muscle mass
- Become more flexible and toned
- Have more energy or feel better in their body
- Eat healthier
- Find a consistent pattern of workouts
- Try different styles of workouts
- Heal after injury, surgery, or childbirth
While these goals can overlap, it’s important to choose only one or two to focus on for your business.
“Community plays such a key role in your health, having people that are going to check on you and push you,” says Finley. “That’s what we really set out to do — build an ecosystem with our app and communication channels to make it all cohesive.”
That means their email strategy is designed to fit into a larger cadence of communication across multiple channels. The two set up emails to send about four times a month or once a week. Each month follows a set pattern, so their subscribers know exactly what to expect.
An example of one of their BOFU-targeted emails.
“Our first email is always describing what new workouts are coming for the month, to get them excited,” says Brooke. “And then the other emails vary, but usually one focuses on a different aspect of health like mental or emotional health, one that revisits a part of our health and fitness journey, and then one email that celebrates success in our community.”
An email example from BTRIBALFIT sent with Kit.
This combination of motivation and storytelling is what really resonates with their audience.
You want to build an email marketing strategy that encourages engagement. While it’s great to see high list numbers (and kudos if you have thousands of people on your list!), it’s much more important to have high engagement. The more engaged your audience, the more likely they’ll make a purchase. “I have so many women who will reply back to our emails we send through Kit,” says Brooke. “There’s so many different ways I can support them, and that’s what matters to me.”
A 21-day challenge that fuels their email list
While they’re currently working on growing their email list, the focus is still on a holistic, multichannel campaign that serves their community. A few years ago, they hit on the idea of a 21-day challenge three times a year as a way to rev up their clients and grow their list at the same time.
“We create the entire 21-day challenge within Kit Commerce,” says Brooke. “It’s a way to help give everyone a little push to create healthy habits. I pull 21 workouts from my website that are a mix, from harder HIIT-style workouts to Barre and boxing, so you can try a bunch of different styles and see what’s right for you. We have two tracks, a beginner and an advanced track.”
Their Fall ‘22 shred challenge started with spooky Halloween-themed boxing classes.
The challenge starts with a landing page made in Kit that hosts each of the workouts, with a prompt to sign in to view the videos. From there, that takes you to a Commerce page offering their various workout packages and a seven-day free trial.
The checkout page for the Fall ‘22 21-day challenge.
“We keep the landing page super simple so that anyone can see quickly whether or not they want to be a part of the challenge,” says Finley. “They can use that for payment, and that triggers an automated email with the meal plan and the link to the first Zoom call.”
Before the challenge gets going, they promote it in their regular newsletter, automatically tagging anyone who clicks on the link to sign up as interested on the back end in Kit. Anyone with that tag gets dropped into a Kit sequence of more directed emails promoting the challenge.
“Depending on the click-through rate for the people who are curious about our challenge, especially if they haven’t followed through, we send an extra email promoting the challenge and inviting them to join us,” says Brooke.
Once someone joins the challenge, another tag is added to their profile in Kit, which drops them into another sequence of communications. “Sending people emails that are participating in the challenge is the most straightforward way to get them accustomed to our platform,” says Finley. “Using Kit Commerce is the simplest way we’ve found to keep the challenge within our own ecosystem, so our current community members are familiar with it and understand how it works, and our new members can jump right in.”
Don’t be afraid to experiment
Building an email list takes time. Don’t be afraid to experiment with something new. “We’re kind of tinkerers,” says Finley. “We will try something and see what worked and what to do instead. We’re in our third year of running these challenges, our first running them entirely inside Kit, and each time we do it we learn something new.”
The Robinsons use Kit as their hub for everything email marketing related, from their landing pages to running their entire paid challenge. “We love Kit,” says Brooke. “It’s really changed how we build our community.”
That’s why Kit is the go-to marketing hub for creators looking to grow and monetize their audience. Grow your email list with beautiful, easy-to-design landing pages, sign up flows, and powerful sales funnels. Sign up for free today.
