Marketing Strategy and Development

A marketing strategy is created based on the product concept developed in the previous stage whereas market development consists of identifying new market segments and developing the marketing mix to help the product to grow (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012). 

Li (2000) highlights the importance of a marketing strategy in setting a structure and direction to the specific marketing activities for that product to aid it in meeting the set marketing objectives.  Kotler and Keller (2012) identified the following three main elements of a marketing strategy:

·      Target Market – Who the target market is and why, and what is the size, structure and characteristics of the market.

·      Initial Price, Distribution and Promotion – What will the price be and how will it be distributed and promoted.

·      Long Term Goals – What are the sales and profit goals and what is the long term marketing mix.

Prior to the release of a golf GPS application by iGolf, the organisation developed a marketing plan.  This included a market analysis identifying the broad target market as golfers who owned cellular phones.  Their plan included statistics collected from many different sources resulting in iGolf calculating an accurate target market size of 1.82 million. 

iGolf’s pricing strategy included a comparison of competitor’s prices and an explanation to their plan to set a premium price using brand reputation to target the product towards those looking for a quality product.  The promotional plan was aligned with past L1 Technologies products with a small percentage of the product development budget being spent on promotional activities.  In addition the plan included a sales strategy and six marketing objectives although these could be improved by making them SMART.

Gymathlon’s target market is regular gym users.  In England in 2008/09, 14.7% of the 60% of men and 13.4% of the 46% of women who take part in sport go to gym.  51% of fitness participants were men and 49% women, therefore the competition could potentially appeal to both genders.  Of those gym users participating in weight training 84% were men, taking this into account the women’s circuit could be adapted to make the sport more appealing to the female market (DCMS,2011).   

 

The product will be targeted towards those competing monthly and encouraging repeat sales making it a frequently purchased product, although some participants may purchase infrequently as a personal test. 

Gymathlon’s competition includes Personal Trainers and fitness classes, their prices are shown in Appendix A.  Using this information the price for a session of Gymathlon would be £20.00.  This takes into account the need for a referee to record scores and the cost of the use of facilities.  Although this is higher than other activities the opportunity to compete and test fitness with the opportunity to win should encourage sales. 

Distribution would be through leisure centres and the competition would be promoted through the centres as well as being showcased at events such as triathlons and other endurance competitions.  The long term aims include gaining enough participants to run competitions between different gyms and regions.

 

Appendix A

Activity	Price
Personal Trainer Session	£35.00
Yoga	£7.40
Gym Session	£6.70
Aquafit	£4.65
Swimming	£3.90
Krunch & Kore	£3.80
Boxercise	£3.50
Metafit	£3.00

 

 

 

 

 

References

BSmart Fitness (2013) ‘Membership, Fees, Prices and Pay as You Go’. Available at: http://www.b-smartfitness.co.uk/#!classes/c1yws (Accessed: 2 December 2014).

DCMS (2011) ‘Adult participation in Sport’. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/137986/tp-adult-participation-sport-analysis.pdf (Accessed: 2 December 2014).

Freedom Leisure (2014) ‘Woking Leisure Centre activity prices’. Available at: http://m.freedom-leisure.co.uk/centrepage.asp?section=871&sectionTitle=woking+leisure+centre+activity+prices (Accessed: 2 December 2014).

iGolf (2014) ‘Company Info’. Available at: https://www.igolf.com/#ft_companyInfo (Accessed: 2 December 2014).

Kelsey Kerridge (2014) ‘Fitness Classes’. Available at: http://www.kelseykerridge.co.uk/index.php?pageid=4007 (Accessed: 2 December 2014).

Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. (2012) Principles of Marketing. 14th edn. London: Pearson Education.

Kotler, P. & Keller, K.L. (2012) A Framework for Marketing Management. 5th edn. Harlow: Pearson Education.

Li, S. (2000). ‘The development of a hybrid intelligent system for developing marketing strategy’. Decision Support Systems, 27(4), pp. 395-409.

Midlothian Council (2014) ‘Leisure Centre Prices’. Available at: http://www.midlothian.gov.uk/info/524/prices_and_memberships/690/leisure_centre_prices (Accessed: 2 December 2014).

Sport England (2014) ‘Who plays Sport?’. Available at: https://www.sportengland.org/research/who-plays-sport/by-sport/ (Accessed: 2 December 2014).

Studio Fitness NE Ltd (2014) ‘Membership’. Available at: http://www.studio-fitness.co.uk/membership.html (Accessed: 2 December 2014).