Sandlot Fit Marketing
Sandlot Fit is more than an app. It's a growing global movement to "Make Fitness Fun" and encourage real-world fitness meetups of all kinds. Whether it's yoga in the park, a run club, or an instructor-led boot camp, if it's active, outside, and fun, Sandlot can help make it happen.
In July 2021, I joined the Sandlot Fit team as Community Support Lead. Lucky for me, this role morphed and evolved which meant I was able to work with some incredible people on a lot of fascinating projects. The one process I was always fine-tuning was our email marketing campaigns. Keep scrolling to see some of my work and how the campaigns grew!
Community Snapshot
Every Friday our community received a message from Team Sandlot. The purpose was to give our user base "fitspiration" for the upcoming weekend, knowledge on how to improve their overall health, and connect us all IRL. The email began with a feature either on a trainer or a group and included a bio, how to connect, and a workout for the weekend.
The Evolution of WOD Memes
Although I arrived at Sandlot with fitness industry experience, I was unfamiliar with WOD memes. My background was based in boutique fitness studio operations so learning something new was fun!
After a few weeks of emails, WOD memes were added as part of the Community Snapshot. Each group or trainer would share their favorite workout and encourage the Sandlot Fit community to complete it with friends over the weekend. While the workouts were always added to the Sandlot Fit app, the WOD memes made it easier for users to open the email, save the meme, and share it with their workout buddies.
The WOD meme on the left was the first included in our weekly emails and was pretty bare-bones. It didn't take long to do some research and level up our look.
Adding a little movement
One of my favorite ways to communicate with our community was through Gifs. They're attention grabbing and just fun! Here are a few of my favorites that I created...
Year End Recap
When I started working at Sandlot in July 2021, I was hired as the Community Support Lead. This role was involved in many projects including email marketing and communications.
This Gif was created for the last email of 2021, the 22nd issue of our weekly email, Fistbump Friday. "Fistbumps" are the real-world fitness meetups that the Sandlot Fit app helps users plan. The picture used is from a rucking Fistbump and shows one of Sandlot's co-founders.
Android Version Release
Since my first day at Sandlot, our dev team had been working on an Android release. In the beginning, my primary role was to communicate our team's anticipated release date and find participants for our Beta testing.
Later on, I worked with Beta testing participants and communicated core issues to our dev team. Once we were ready for release, I continuously led Android release testing.
Holiday Release
I had the most wonderful time of the year creating a festive Gif to announce a version release in December 2022! Sandlot has a strong brand and every so often I was able to sneak in a bit of my personality.
As a holiday aficionado, this email was especially fun to make. In hindsight, the only thing I would change is adding Christmas cookies! 😋
Tutorials and how-tos
Shortly after joining the Sandlot Fit team, I got involved in QA testing and user bug reports. During this work, I learned a few things. First, I love finding and solving problems! It's like playing detective. Second (and arguably more important to my role), our community could benefit from a few tutorials. Most of the user bug reports we received could be boiled down to a need for communication. As a result, I began including a "did you know?" section to our weekly emails.
Year End Recaps
2022 was a massive year for Sandlot Fit so there was no shortage of inspiring content to highlight in the year-end review email. I had a great time brainstorming concepts for how to best display everything our community had accomplished.
Ultimately, I went for a minimalist approach and made mockups in a standstill diagonal display.
2021 Stats
I worked with our dev team to gather data highlighting our communities accomplishments.
A Look Back
For the 2021 recap email, I included three of the most loved workouts from our "Fistbump Friday" email series.
Sandlot Jax
Sandlot Jax is a three-day fitness and music festival hosted by Sandlot Fit and GORUCK in sunny Jacksonville, FL. The extravaganza boasts obstacle courses, fitness competitions, classes ranging from yoga to mobility to bootcamp led by industry leaders, and "TED" style talks from global thought leaders speaking on a range of topics regarding health and technology.
In the months leading up to and after the festival, I created content to excite our community, drive ticket sales, and later recap all of the unforgettable moments that took place. I worked with the athletes that would be competing in the GORUCK games and interviewed the industry leaders who would be teaching classes and speaking to audiences about their expertise.
Highlighting Special Events
Sandlot Fit was founded by pretty awesome people. One of them is the CEO of a company called GORUCK and a former Green Beret. That said, Sandlot was given the opportunity to get involved in special events that strengthened our community and connected us to important causes nationwide. Throughout the year, I worked to educate our user base on these causes in hopes they would sign up and "make fitness fun."
