The Fitness First health club in Manchester has hailed its first ever text message marketing venture a success.

The city centre branch sent text messages to 1,600 mobile phones and got 30 positive responses which led to new memberships – covering the cost of the marketing campaign many times over.

The text messages were part of the chain’s Look Better Naked campaign, which aimed to lure the ‘young and busy clientele’ who rely heavily on mobile phones for their daily communications.

Richard Milne, general manager, said: “Text messaging our customers has proved to be by far the most cost effective method of ensuring both a great response to special offers and high retention rates at renewal times.”

The technology – provided by e-marketing specialists Xyone – can track readership of the texts and response rates over the course of a marketing campaign.

Steve Robinson, managing director at Xyone, said: “Texting customers is cost-effective and also works well in other sectors of the leisure industry. All membership organisations and nightclubs could benefit as it’s a similar lifestyle market.”