A Health and Fitness Club in London - Essay Example

Marketing ‘London Pride’ – A Health and Fitness Club in London SE1 Table of Contents Table of Contents Introduction 3 Marketing Environment and Impact on Business 3 Market Segmentation 5 Use of Marketing Information and Research 6 Role of Marketing Communications 8 Price Issues 9 Conclusion 10 Bibliography 11 Introduction A health and fitness club is a must in the time and age of today, more so with the fitness regimes becoming all the more worsening with the passage of time. As a friend, I would advise you on certain areas which you need to take note of, implement in a fairly good manner and opt for alternatives every now and then. You should be stern in your approach and have an outline as to what exactly you need to do in a short term measure as well as the activities that you must deploy for the long term perspective. (Anshel, 2006) Marketing Environment and Impact on Business I would start with the marketing environment which would be essential for you to understand; more so beforehand you start with this venture. You must take note of the industrial norms, i.e. the competitors which are already existent within the relevant market. This will make you realize the extent of scope that will be successful when you decide to open up London Pride. When you know about the competition right from the onset then you also discern that how they are playing upon their strengths and what weaknesses exist within their realms. Their weak points are significant since you could play with them and implement them in your own health and fitness club. Their strengths could be replicated and you could incorporate strategies which will make you successful as well. (Baker, 1970) In fact you can exceed the strengths by giving more value to the eventual customers or members of the health and fitness clubs than the competitors are providing at the present. If the marketing environment is dull and mundane, you would have to instill confidence within the customers to come and try for their own betterment the facilities available at your health and fitness club and thus become fitter and healthier in their respective lives. The marketing environment which exists for London Pride will dictate the way under which you will exploit the strengths that you bring to the table and close down the weaknesses that are already existent within the industry. Now it up to you as to how you balance the positive and the negative stance presented by the industry and how you will counter the very same in a head on manner. Your business is what you must concern yourself with and for that you need to devise a strategy which will not only be wholesome but also exclusive for your own business. The business will only gain from the marketing environment and you should make sure that the hurdles that come your way must not deter you in the wake of launching this health and fitness club. You must get your act together and do what is required and should not waste time in issues which pose as trivial right from the very beginning. Market Segmentation The market segmentation is an aspect that must be initiated even before you decide to start this health and fitness club. This is because you need to know whom you are targeting as your customers and what you must do in order to grab their attention, pursue memberships and so on. You need to properly segment the pertinent market and choose segments that are close to the socio-economic (SEC) conditions of the health and fitness club. If this health and fitness club is of an elitist nature, you would surely go for the SEC A. However if you decide that your budgets are not that expansive, you can opt for the middle tier and target the segment SEC B. Lastly, if this health and fitness club is mainly providing health and fitness services to the poorest of the lot, it would be better to go for the last segment – SEC C. You must comprehend the fact that these three socio-economic classes dictate the manner under which your health and fitness club would be priced and the investments that you need to undertake in order to boost up your business. It is important to have the membership fees drafted in a manner which corresponds to the SEC of the respective members. Also you need to ensure that your health and fitness club is located in a place which is in line with the chosen SEC. This will make the potential customers (or clients/members) to easily visit your health and fitness club and thus be a part of the London Pride community on a constant basis. (Craft, 2004) Market segmentation thus will help you develop a competitive platform to take care of the other health and fitness clubs which will open within the different London locations as well as in the vicinity of your health and fitness club. Therefore you must get your foot down and try to segment the population in a correct manner through the variables include their behavioral characteristics, their lifestyles, other determinants and then go about targeting them through age, gender, place of residence, their income levels, education, occupation and so on. Use of Marketing Information and Research The use of marketing information and research for your health and fitness club would enable you to have a glimpse of the primary data as well as the already developed and summed up secondary research within the health and fitness club regimes all over the world. However you must ensure that the primary research is more pertinent than the secondary data which could be varied and cumbersome to understand all this while. While you aim to understand the domains of the primary data, you must make sure that the right kind of people are taken in a sample so that they give reliable and valid research basis for the information that needs to be had by your own self. You must ask them questions which are relevant and pertinent to the topic of launching a health and fitness club and the reasons under which they would choose London Pride and not any other health and fitness club situated within the environments of your health and fitness club. (Samli, 1996) You would need to tell them why your health and fitness club is different from the rest and what value you are creating for them in the long run. Perhaps you could ask them questions pertaining to the machines and fitness instruments which could be placed within London Pride. This will facilitate in making up their mind as to whether they really require your health and fitness club for their health and fitness issues and if they do not, then you could come up with logical and sound reasoning as to what they are missing in essence. The marketing information that would be feasible for you therefore would bank on the competitive activities as well as the methods and procedures adopted by the industrial players when it comes to their advertising and public relations’ campaigns and the manner under which they reach out to general publics. What you can do is to devise a method through which you will keep a check on the services that are being supplemented by the competitors every now and then and how you, as a health and fitness club, could exceed the very same through state of the art service ranks and strategies which will make your health and fitness club stand out in a league of its very own. (Baines, 2002) Role of Marketing Communications Marketing communications for your health and fitness club is quintessential since it will propagate your message to the lengths and breadths of the chosen segment. The right mix of people would get to know what your message is for them and how they will benefit after joining health and fitness club London Pride for their health and fitness needs. Now your responsibility is to carve out advertising messages which are unique, creative and to-the-point so that the potential customers of this health and fitness club do not get strayed from the message that is being given out to them. They must take the message as it is, understand it, weigh it in line with the competitors available within the market and go for your health and fitness club – London Pride, and none other. (Westerbeek, 2003) You need to break the clutter when your message is being broadcasted on television or radio – the two media forms on which you will rely heavily. You will also put up your advertising message detailing your positive points related with the health and fitness club in the newspapers, magazines and on outdoors, which might include buntings, mobiles, billboards, transit advertising on buses, cars, ambient advertising and so on. Also I believe that you should concentrate more on building the public relations tenets of the health and fitness club. This would mean having positive word of mouth for London Pride and asking customers to spread the message so that nearly everyone who is directly or indirectly involved with health and fitness gets the message that there is a health and fitness club in their vicinity and they must visit the very same to find out for their own good. Public relations helps since nearly everyone gets to know the strengths of the club and the points of advantage that London Pride would have over the other competitors in the London health and fitness club industry. Price Issues One of the most significant issues that you might come across concerns the pricing levels that need to be taken care of, right from the onset of this health and fitness business. You must have in mind as to what actually you are targeting and how you will achieve the same. You need to have a clear mind and a stern approach to have your say within the setting up of price levels within your health and fitness club and no matter how tough or trying the circumstances turn out to be, you must stick on to your chosen plan. This will shape up a lot of things for you in the future and give you a good starting point for your health and fitness club. (Smith, 1992) The price tangent will determine as to how you will target the right mix of people and in what capacity you will provide them services, amenities and facilities which are important towards the accomplishment of the health and fitness club tasks. Price will also make sure that the right segment is hit upon and the people who will visit this health and fitness club would know beforehand that London Pride is a place for them alone and they would attain the best possible figure/shape if they constantly visit it for their health and fitness needs. The price aspects would take into consideration the membership fees, the one time registration for members for a specific period of time, say 2 to 3 years, the taxes which need to be added up as well as any other fees that are applicable in your relevant market domains. You must understand these aspects so that there is no element which seems missing from the whole ballgame of launching a health and fitness club, a club which will make you stand proudly in the relevant circles. Conclusion In the end, I would suggest that you hire people who are trained and well-equipped with handling day to day tasks and activities. You must focus on the long term goals of the health and fitness club rather than banking on the short term measures and activities. Since you are launching this health and fitness club, you must comprehend the fact that in the beginning the competition would pose as a serious problem for your customers but as soon as they start coming in, you must make sure that you remain committed towards their needs and focus on providing the very best services that could be made possible on your part. (Varey, 2001) All said and done, your commitment must not get adrift and all-out efforts should be made so that the end result is one of success and accomplishment for not only you but also the rest of the people involved at the health and fitness club. Bibliography ANSHEL, Mark H. (2006). Applied Exercise Psychology: A Practitioners Guide to Improving Client Health and Fitness. Springer BAINES, Paul. (2002). Introducing Marketing Research. John Wiley & Sons BAKER, Melvin. (1970). Markets and Marketing: An Orientation. Scott, Foresman CRAFT, Stephen H. (2004). The International Consumer Market Segmentation Managerial Decision-Making Process. SAM Advanced Management Journal, Vol. 69 SAMLI, A. (1996). Information-Driven Marketing Decisions: Development of Strategic Information Systems. Quorum SMITH, William T. (1992). Price Discrimination with Correlated Demands. Southern Economic Journal, Vol. 59 VAREY, Richard J. (2001). Marketing Communication: Principles and Practice. Routledge WESTERBEEK, Hans. (2003). Strategic Sport Marketing. Allen & Unwin Word Count: 2,021 Read More