Multi-Location Gym Weekly Email Newsletter: Delegate Production to a VA
A weekly email newsletter is one of the highest-ROI marketing channels a gym can run. It costs almost nothing to send, reaches your entire member base, and keeps your brand top of mind between visits. The reason most multi-location gym operators do not do it consistently is simple: it takes time, and that time keeps losing to other priorities.
A fitness virtual assistant can own newsletter production from start to finish. You define the strategy once; the VA executes it every week.
What a Well-Structured Gym Newsletter Actually Contains
The gym newsletters that get opened and read are not blasts of promotions. They are genuinely useful to the member who receives them. A high-performing gym newsletter follows a consistent structure that the reader learns to expect:
The lead item. This is the single most important thing happening at your gyms this week - a challenge starting, a new class launching, a membership promotion, or a community event. One focused message, not five competing announcements.
Programming or schedule updates. Any class changes, instructor substitutions, or schedule adjustments for the week. This is practically useful and drives opens because members who miss it might show up for a class that was cancelled.
A training tip or content piece. One actionable piece of fitness or nutrition content. This does not need to be original research - a brief, well-written tip attributed to one of your trainers is enough. It positions your brand as a resource, not just a facility.
Member spotlight or community moment. A brief feature on a member milestone, a transformation photo with permission, or a recap of a recent event. Community content drives forward rates and builds emotional connection.
A single call to action. One specific action the reader should take this week - sign up for the challenge, book a personal training consultation, refer a friend for a free pass. One ask, not five.
This structure works for a single location and scales to multi-location newsletters with minor customization at the lead item level.
The VA's Weekly Production Workflow
A trained VA can execute the full newsletter production cycle in three to five hours per week once the templates and content sources are established. Here is what that cycle looks like:
Monday - content gathering. The VA collects inputs from location managers via a standardized weekly form or a shared Slack channel. Inputs include any schedule changes, upcoming events, staff announcements, and any member stories they want to highlight. The VA also pulls any content from the training tip library or drafts a new one based on an approved topic list.
Tuesday - draft writing. The VA writes the full newsletter draft using the established template in your email platform - typically GoHighLevel, Mailchimp, or Klaviyo. They write in your brand voice, following the style guide. Subject line options (two to three variants) are included for you to choose from.
Wednesday - review and approval. The draft goes to you or a designated editor for review. Feedback is given in a single round. The VA makes revisions and sends a final version for approval sign-off.
Thursday - build and schedule. The VA loads the approved copy into the email builder, adds images, tests all links, previews on mobile, sends a test email to a seed address, and schedules the send for the optimal time - typically Thursday evening or Friday morning for fitness businesses.
Friday - send and report. The newsletter goes out. The following Monday, the VA pulls the open rate, click rate, and unsubscribe count from the platform and logs it in the newsletter performance tracker.
This loop runs every week without you touching it except for the Wednesday review step.
Customizing for Multiple Locations
Multi-location operators face a choice: one unified newsletter that covers all locations, or separate location-specific newsletters. Both approaches work; the right choice depends on how differentiated your locations are.
If your locations share a brand identity, pricing structure, and programming philosophy, a unified newsletter with location-specific segments works well. GoHighLevel and most email platforms support segmentation by location tag, so members at Location A see content relevant to them and members at Location B see theirs - within the same email structure.
If your locations are distinct brands or serve meaningfully different demographics, separate newsletters per location make more sense. The VA maintains separate content calendars and production schedules for each, batching the work to keep the total time manageable.
Either way, the VA builds one production system and scales it across the portfolio. The first newsletter takes the most setup time; each additional one is faster.
For context on the full range of tasks these operators handle, see the fitness virtual assistant tasks list.
Building the Content Library That Fuels the Newsletter
The biggest bottleneck in newsletter production is not writing or design - it is content sourcing. What goes in this week's email? A VA who is constantly chasing you for ideas will burn time and goodwill.
The solution is building a content library in advance: a bank of training tips, FAQ responses, member spotlight frameworks, and topic ideas that the VA can draw on without asking you every time. A 3-month content library takes about four hours to build and eliminates 80 percent of the weekly sourcing problem.
The library lives in a shared Google Doc or Airtable base. The VA adds to it when they come across relevant content - a study worth referencing, a question that came up repeatedly in member support, a coaching insight one of your trainers shared. Over time, the library becomes a durable asset that makes newsletter production faster and better.
To learn more about bringing this kind of operator into your business, see how to hire a fitness virtual assistant and what is a fitness virtual assistant.
FAQ
How long should the newsletter be? Most high-performing fitness newsletters are 300-500 words in the email body. Members read email on mobile; long-form content belongs on a blog or YouTube, linked from the email. The VA writes tight, punchy copy and uses structure (short paragraphs, bolded lead lines) to make it scannable.
What open rates should we expect? Fitness and wellness email lists typically see 25-40 percent open rates with a well-maintained list and relevant content. If you are below 20 percent, the VA should audit your subject line approach, send timing, and list hygiene before assuming the content is the problem.
Can the VA manage the email list itself - adding new members, removing unsubscribes? Yes. List hygiene is a standard VA task. In GoHighLevel or your email platform, the VA adds new members at the point of enrollment (often via a Zapier or native integration with MindBody or Club Automation), processes unsubscribes, and runs quarterly list cleaning to remove addresses that have not opened in six months.
What if one location has a different promotion than the others this week? Segmentation handles this. The VA tags the relevant location's members and sends the location-specific content only to that segment, either as a separate newsletter or as a conditional block within the main email. Most modern email platforms support both approaches.