How many touchpoints should an intro offer follow-up sequence have?

Six to nine touches across the length of the offer, mixing text and email. That usually means a welcome text, a first-class booking nudge, a post-class check-in, a mid-offer value message, and a membership conversation that starts about two thirds of the way through the offer, plus a last-day reminder.

When should I ask an intro offer member to buy a membership?

Start the membership conversation around two thirds of the way through the offer, while they are still attending, not on the final day. For a two-week intro that is day 9 or 10. The last-day message should be a deadline reminder, not the first time they hear about pricing.

Should intro offer follow-up be text or email?

Lead with text for time-sensitive nudges like booking reminders and check-ins, and use email for longer content like schedules, pricing breakdowns, and member stories. Gartner reports SMS open rates as high as 98 percent versus about 20 percent for email, so anything that needs to be seen today should be a text.

What should I do when someone finishes an intro offer without buying?

Move them into a win-back track instead of dropping them. Send a no-pressure note a few days after the offer ends, a second touch with a member story or a limited-time incentive a week later, then add them to your lapsed-lead segment for future campaigns. A meaningful share of conversions come after the offer expires.

The Intro Offer Follow-Up Sequence That Converts Trials into Members

An intro offer only makes money when it converts to a membership, and conversion is decided by what happens between classes: the check-in after the first visit, the booking nudges, and a membership ask that lands before the offer expires. This guide gives you the full day-by-day sequence, message by message.

Why intro offers leak members

Most studios treat the intro offer as the finish line. The lead bought a two-week trial, so the selling is done, right? In practice the intro period is where the sale actually happens, and it leaks in predictable places:

The first class never gets booked. Buying a trial and booking a class are different actions. People stall between them.
Nobody follows up after class one. The window right after a great first class is the highest-emotion moment of the whole journey, and most studios let it pass silently.
Attendance fades mid-offer. One or two visits in week one, silence in week two, and the offer quietly expires.
The membership ask comes too late. A "your trial ends today, want to join?" text is a cold ask to someone you have not talked to in ten days.

Every leak has the same fix: a timely, personal message. The sequence below plugs them in order.

The day-by-day sequence for a 14-day intro offer

This assumes a two-week intro offer. For a 30-day offer, stretch the same beats proportionally; the structure holds.

Day	Channel	Message	Goal
0 (purchase)	Text	Welcome + "want me to book your first class?"	First class booked within 3 days
1	Email	What to expect: parking, what to bring, class formats, coach intros	Reduce first-visit anxiety
2-3	Text	Booking nudge if no class booked yet	Rescue stalled starts
First class + 2 hours	Text	Personal check-in: "How was your first class with Sam?"	Open a two-way conversation
First class + 1 day	Text	Book class two while the win is fresh	Build the habit
7	Email	Mid-offer value: schedule highlights, a member story, community events	Deepen the relationship
9-10	Text	Start the membership conversation, personalized to their visits	The ask, while they are engaged
13	Text	Last-day reminder with a clear next step	Convert the deadline

Two rules run through the whole table:

Every text should read like it came from a person, because the replies will go to one. "How was your first class?" outperforms any broadcast because it starts a conversation.
Trigger on behavior, not just the calendar. The post-class check-in fires off the check-in event from your booking system, not "day 4." Someone who has not booked by day 3 needs a different message than someone who has been in twice.

That second rule is why this works better as an automated flow than as front-desk reminders: a flow listens for booking events (booked, checked in, no-show) from systems like Mariana Tek or Mindbody and sends the right branch automatically, then drops any reply into your inbox for a human to take over.

How to write the membership ask

The day 9-10 message is the one studios get wrong most often. What works:

Reference their actual visits. "You've done four classes in ten days" is proof they already have the habit.
Make the math easy. Compare what they paid for the intro against the per-class cost of the membership they would realistically buy.
Give one clear next step. Reply to this text, tap this link, or grab a time with the front desk. One, not three.

"Hi Maya! You've hit 4 classes in your first 10 days, that's a better start than most of our members. If you joined this week, our unlimited plan works out cheaper per class than your intro. Want me to send the details?"

If they say yes, a person closes it in the same thread. If they go quiet, the day 13 reminder still comes, and it is now the second touch of the conversation instead of the first.

What to do when the offer expires without a sale

Do not drop expired trials. They toured your studio, met your coaches, and sweated in your classes; they are the warmest cold list you will ever own.

Days 2-3 after expiry: a no-pressure text. "No rush at all, just wanted to say we loved having you. Anything that would have made it a better fit?" The replies are gold, and some of them turn into sales.
Day 10 after expiry: one incentive touch, like a bring-a-friend pass or an extension, ideally tied to something they said or did.
Ongoing: move them into a lapsed-lead segment. Future blasts for challenges, new class formats, or seasonal promos go to this list, and every send is another chance to restart the conversation.

The same segment logic powers your member win-back later; the mechanics are in our win-back campaign guide.

How to measure the sequence

Four numbers tell you where the sequence leaks:

Metric	What it catches
Purchase-to-first-class rate	Stalled starts (fix days 0-3)
Classes attended per intro member	Habit formation (fix the post-class touches)
Intro-to-membership conversion rate	The ask (fix days 9-13)
Post-expiry conversion rate	Whether your expired-trial track exists at all

Review them monthly, change one message at a time, and give each change a full cohort before judging it.

If you would rather not build this from scratch: the intro offer sequence is one of the flows the Helios team configures for you during onboarding, wired to your booking system's events. Book a demo to see it running on your own data.