"World Health" Success

Not long ago I wrote about a text message campaign from Swiss Chalet. You might recall that I thought their campaign was a failure.

As an advocate of mobile marketing, and especially including text message marketing, I have also lamented the lack of text message campaigns here in Canada. Around the world, these types of campaigns have generated significant success. Marketers here have been hesitant to try them, and when they have, they seem to have been poorly executed (like the Swiss Chalet one).

But I have to give kudos to World Health, an Alberta based fitness club. I noticed a bathroom advert that asked me to text a keyword to a short-code for a free 7 day membership.

Almost any gym will offer a free 7 day membership if you walk in the door and ask them for one. It gives them a chance to showcase their gym and also give you their sales pitch. But asking consumers to text to receive one isn't a bad idea. It gives World Health the opportunity to continue to interact with consumers.

Perhaps more importantly, once they are members, it could potentially allow World Health to upsell consumers to extra classes, products, workshops etc - all ways to generate more income from their existing members.

Let's hope that World Heath is committed enough to follow through properly. I only signed up yesterday and have only received the initial text response. We'll see what they send me over the coming months.