Executive Summary
This report develops a marketing plan for Pure Gym. It identifies that the gym must focus on public awareness creation, brand awareness and the sale of specific gym services and products. The focus is on the promotion of weight loss services and this should be done through the creation and institution of a strong customer relationship management system based on a landing page which can be used to collect data from consumers and promote communication through the different media and online channels.
Introduction
Pure Gym Limited is a chain of no-frills clubs which operates in the UK. The headquarters is in Leeds but it has branches around the UK and has over 450,000 members throughout the country. The Pure Gym Group has a marketing process but they system has a potential to be improved and enhanced. The purpose of this report is to present a marketing plan and how it will be formulated and presented to potential consumers.
Communication Objectives and Communication Mix
The gym market in the UK is between the growth and maturity stage because when it became common in the early 2000s to go to the gym and have a healthy lifestyle, just a few people were interested in it. However, over the past decade, it is grown significantly and almost every neighbourhood has a modern and upmarket gym. However, the industry is maturing and it is apparent that in the next few years, it is going to be choked. Therefore, in line with this, the Pure Gym group will need to set up the following communication objectives to target potential consumers and actual consumers.
Communication Objectives
Awareness creation amongst to 2 million residents of Britain;
Knowledge sharing for beginners;
Brand image promotion to up to 2 million residents of the UK;
Sales promotion of specific products;
Initiating contact amongst consumers.
These five objectives will involve the main pointers and views on which the marketing campaign will be premised. There will be the desire to target about 2 million people in the UK who do not have any affiliation to any gym in the country to encourage them to subscribe to the service.
Also, there will be the promotion of the Pure Gym brand through communication. This will involve the presentation of the brand name and the promotion of the brand image as well as the initiation of contact and collection of personal data for further customer relationship management processes.
Communication Mix
The following communication activities will be conducted to promote the communication objectives:
Events and TV Presentations: This will include health programmes and basic training activities that everyone can partake in to promote the Pure Gym ideology to consumers. Appearances in events will promote the brand image.
PR & Publicity: This will include various events throughout the media and shows that will involve answering some basic questions about health and fitness. This can be done through the use of Pure Gym ambassadors who will go around promoting the ideology to the beginners to create awareness of the brand and attraction to the beginner.
Advertising: There will be numerous adverts on television, radio and the online media to promote the Pure Gym brand and its related image. This will enhance the brand emotions and promote brand equity for the company.
Sales Promotions: There will be the promotion of special packages and events in the Pure Gym group for people and consumers in order to get them to make purchases for these projects. Thus, in the case of discounts for specific subscriptions, there will be the promotion of these activities and processes.
Direct Marketing and Personal Selling: This is about the process whereby there will be the presentation of specific marketing drives that will target various portions of the markets and get consumers of certain classes to purchase subscription and services from Pure Gym.
Sales
Income will be generated through the sale of services for using the machines and instructions of the company as well as the sale of weight-loss products that are related to fitness. This will be positioned to ensure that subscriptions can be collected each month and also products can be sold at prices that will yield a high degree of profits for the company.
In order to achieve optimal sales results, there is the need for the STP model to be utilised and this includes: Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning. The market for Pure Gym include the following segments:
People of moderate weight who do not know about fitness and health;
People of moderate weight who are unhappy with their recent sizes;
People who have tried weight loss and fitness and cannot follow a disciplined routine;
Persons who are currently involved in various forms of exercise and might need professional help or a change in gym.
These different segments of the market provide the opportunity for Pure Gym to target services that could meet the specific needs and expectations of the different classes and groups of people. Therefore, from the nature of things, there could be four packages of services that will be sold to consumers which reflect the various segmentation needs:
Package 1: Healthy Living service and this includes a package that is designed to get people to have active lives that will help them get a higher quality of life;
Package 2: Weight Loss service which will focus on exercises that will help people gaining weight to lose weight and get personal trainers who will help them to have various exercise sessions that will help them to shed the excess weight they might have.
Package 3: Personalised weight loss service which will help people to follow specific routines, get a personal coach and have major forms of assistance and guidance that will lead to weight loss.
Package 4: Discounted Advance course that will provide high level and high quality weight loss service which will be ran by experts.
Thus, these four main packages will be segmented and segregated to target various consumers. These packages will be the fundamental system through which consumers will be attracted. However, upon admission into the system, there will be a process through which higher prices and higher revenue can be taken from consumers.
Also, there will be additional products that will aid in fitness and weight loss that will be made available to consumers in Pure Gym. This will help consumers to get better assistance and a higher-quality lifestyle that will enable them to achieve optimal results in their fitness and weight-loss processes.
Pricing
There pricing of these services are to be based on the level of value that will be offered to each class of consumers. This includes the level of absolute benefits a consumer will get and also, the competitive nature of the pricing for each category and/or product.
Package 1 consumers are entry-level consumers. They are people who do not really have an urgent need for gym services. Therefore, they must be charged a small feel to induce them and provide a gateway for other people in the UK to acquire the services. So the lowest price should be charged.
Package 2 is meant to be the star – the popular service. This is because people who have a sense of losing weight are willing to pay a lot of money to lose the extra fats. So they are going to be charged the highest and in return, they will be given services that will help them to lose weight in the fastest way possible.
Package 3 consumers are people who might be busy. Typically, a person might want to have an excuse not to come to the gym. Thus, they should have a cheap offering and this should be lower than that of Package 2.
Those in Package 4 already know about gyms. They know the dynamics and they know what they want. These people will only want to switch to Pure Gym if they get an offer that is more attractive than they will get elsewhere. Thus, the price should be moderate, but it should come with a discount to induce them and get them to stay regular.
Products that aid in health and prolonging life should come at a low profit margin. However, those that promote weight loss should come at a higher profit margin because demand for them is higher. Products that are sold on contract should come with clauses that promotes sale.
Distribution
The business goal is to provide information about weight-loss and fitness, consolidate the Pure Gym brand amongst consumers and induce sales. Therefore, there must be a combination of different media and communication channels and this should lead to the collection of information that will enable Pure Gym to establish a customer relationship.
It is identified that it costs 7 times more to sell to a new client than to sell to an existing client. Therefore, it is important for Pure Gym to have a functioning customer relationship management (CRM) system. This should capture information about the clients including their name, address, email, telephone and other basic system. It should be linked to all the networks and systems that will be used:
Television: Most of the public education will be done on television. The focus will be on raising awareness of the Pure Gym brand and have a dedicated helpline and landing website page with email collection functions that is easy to memorise. Anyone who calls the helpline should be made to give his name, telephone number and email address. This should be input into the CRM system instantly and a follow up must occur.
Radio: This is also an important tool for the collection of information about clients. This will also provide public education and link to the online landing page and telephone number.
Internet Marketing: All forms of internet marketing must link to a landing page where consumers can choose their courses in the nearest Pure Gym facility and pay their subscription. Once they are onto the system, monthly bills will be generated and given to consumers.
Social Media: These should be linked to information sharing on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and can redirect to the landing page and give telephone number of Pure Gym.
Flyers: This should provide direct information about the webpage and the related online infrastructure that consumers can contact Pure Gym and be registered in the centralised CRM database.
Measurement and Evaluation of Marketing Plan
The marketing plan will be implemented in January, 2016. It will operate over a 12 month period, after which it will be modified. Each quarter, there will be a review of the plans and the success of the marketing plan.
1st Quarter
There will be the commencement of marketing and promotion throughout the public media houses and this will include awareness creation and public education. Other services will be conducted. The critical success factor will be to reach 1 million potential consumers in the UK in the 3-month period through the public education and brand awareness plan.
2nd Quarter
The effort of the public education and brand awareness will be reduced by 50% and focus will shift to sales of services and subscriptions. They will be advertised individually and for the weight loss package, a target 250,000 new subscribers will be sought by the end of the second quarter. For each of the classes, a target of 50,000 new subscribers throughout the region will be sought.
3rd Quarter
This will include the attempt to localise the campaigns. There will be the promotion of specific segments or services by the local gyms. They will be given resources to pursue specific marketing campaigns and dreams and seek to increase numbers.
4th Quarter
This will be the final quarter and there will be a review and identification of a specific action and process based on the results of the previous 9 months.
References
Baker, M. J., 2013. Marketing: Critical Perspectives on Business and Management,. 4th ed. London: Taylor and Francis.
Egan, J., 2014. Marketing Communications. 3rd ed. Mason, OH: Cengage.
Kingsley, P., 2012. Hard at it in the all-night gym. [Online] Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/29/exercise-in-all-night-gym[Accessed 13 January 2016].
Kotler, P., 2014. Kotler On Marketing. 4th ed. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Robinson, D. & Blitz, R., 2013. British gym sector returns to fitness. [Online] Available at: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/89ed3ec4-2d00-11e3-a0ac-00144feab7de.html#axzz3xAxSg62l[Accessed 13 January 2016].
