Final Project Part 2

Running Head: MARKETING PLAN 1

Marketing Plan 8

Live Healthy Fitness Center

Michael Prince

South University

Introduction

I have started my own small scale business in Kansas, it is a small scale fitness center for the people of the community to maintain their health and fitness. The name of the fitness center is the “Live Healthy”. I am the sole owner of this business and now I am developing an extensive marketing plan for the promotion of my business’s services. Various factors have been considered while developing the marketing plan for this fitness center. Live Healthy is developed with the aim of providing the people with the healthy lifestyles and also by providing them with the various techniques and ways to improve their health and wellbeing. Marketing plan of Live Healthy is developed for the purpose of increasing profit margins, capturing large market share and also for the growth and enhancement of the business.

Live Healthy is the type of a fitness center which would provide fitness and health programs for the people of the community and also enables the people of different ages to keep a balance between their weight and age. Various services will be provided to the people of the community as they get membership of the fitness center. Latest machines and equipment will be provided to the customers as well as there will be specialized trainers that would help the customers to exercise properly and also suggest them with the appropriate diet plans.

Michael Porter Strategies to market the services

The marketing plan for Live Healthy has been established by keeping in view the number of competitors in the market and also the trends of the consumers towards the fitness centers. As some competitors are already prevailing in the market and our fitness center is small scale with only 25 employees. So we have decided to adopt a cost leadership strategy to market our services to our target segment. We have adopted this marketing strategy because it will help us to attract large number of customers and also to earn large profits.

The cost leadership strategy is helpful for the small scale business because it helps to attract the large number of customers and to compete effectively in the market in the presence of large number of customers (Valipour, 2012). Cost leadership strategy is helpful because it helps to reduce the cost of a unit being provided to the consumers and this strategy would help in the long term as well as in the short run.

Cost leadership would be helpful for such a small scale fitness center because it helps to maintain an equilibrium between the cost of inputs and the outputs such as the price fluctuations in the raw materials by the suppliers. The major advantage of selecting the cost leadership strategy is that it would help to create hindrances for the new entrants in the market. As there is already very low price fitness services were available to the customers, it would be difficult for the new entrants to compete on that cost.

The cost leadership strategy would help to attract the large number of customers as they would get high quality services at a low price. The business will continue with the cost leadership strategy because it helps to control the overhead cost of the business and also to provide high quality of services to the customers.

Market segmentation

There are various dimensions of market segmentations through which the organizations can target their appropriate audience and to earn the large profits by developing target market strategies (Hunt, 2004).Live Healthy has targeted its services to the particular segment and it has defined its target segment based on different dimensions. The target segment for our fitness center is as follows.

Target audience

As the services of our fitness center are for those who are health conscious and wants to have healthy life style. The services of the health center are for all age groups except children.so the major target segment of the health centers are the people between the ages of 18 to 50 years. We have defined this target segment on the basis of the fact that it is easy for people of this age to do different physical exercises and also to control their diet. Also most of the people in this age group are students and working professionals, who are health conscious and prefer healthy lifestyle.

Geographic dimension

The fitness center is located in Kansas and it will cover the target segment of the whole locality, also the fitness center will also cover the cover community of Kansas and the area within the radius of fifty miles, so that the large market share would be captured and also the large number of audience can be targeted as compared to the competitors.

Demographic dimension

As far as the demographic dimension of the target audience is concerned, “Live ealth

Healthy” will focus on the people between the age of eighteen and fifty years. Both the males and females would be considered under this age group. The average income of this target segment will be between $9000- $35000. The target audience with this income level is selected because they can easily afford the services of fitness center.

Consumer Decision Making Process

The perceptions and demands of the consumers can be understood through the consumer decision making process and from this process it can be evaluated that why consumers prefer the services of the fitness center and how do they evaluate the alternatives. The consumer decision making process is comprised of different stages such as problem identification, information gathering, and evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision and post purchase evaluation (Jeddi, 2013). While availing our services, consumers will pass through all these stages in a following perspective

Problem identification

Those consumers who are suffering from various health issues would like to join a fitness center to reduce wait or to maintain their health.

Information gathering

The consumers will collect information about the nearby fitness centers in the locality and the cost of their services.

Evaluation of alternatives

The customers would evaluate the alternatives by comparing the technology, the services and the cost of the services. The consumers would evaluate different alternatives by searching information through internet as the online websites of all the fitness centers are available, and through newspapers as well as through their social group such as their family and friends.

Purchase Decision

After evaluating the alternatives and gathering information about all the fitness centers, the consumers will make their decision that which fitness center they would choose.

Post purchase evaluation

Once, the customers would select a fitness center and get a membership, they would evaluate their post purchase decision that either their needs or wants are getting satisfied or they are getting the exact services for which they joined the fitness center.

Improvements in the services

Change is an ongoing process and changes in the services and operations would help to improve the quality of services being provided to the customers. Some of the improvements in the services are as follows

Inducement of advance technologies

New and advanced technologies would be induced in the fitness centers so that customers would get more advanced features for exercise and new methods to maintain their health and fitness.

Professional physicians

Besides the availability of professional trainers, professional physicians would be hired who would help the people to select their healthy diet and proper food, and also to maintain their level of calories.

Improved communications

A proper communication channel would be developed such as social media through which the consumers can give their feedback about the services and also obtain the online membership as well as the expert advice through online medium.

Cost of improvement

Improvement	Estimated Cost($)
Advanced technologies	20,000
Professional Physician	5000
Integrated Communications	10,000

Besides these improvements, some other improvements would also be made in the operations and procedures of the Live Healthy fitness center. As it is a small scale business, it will be expanded and improved in the next 5 years, to earn huge profits and to capture large market share.

Bibliography Hunt, S. D. (2004). Market segmentation strategy, competitive advantage, and public policy: Grounding segmentation strategy in resource-advantage theory. Australasian Marketing Journal, 12(1), 7-25. Jeddi, S. A. (2013). Consumer behavior and consumer buying decision process. International Jounal of Business and Behavioural Sciences, 1-4. Valipour, H. B. (2012). The Effects of Cost Leadership Strategy and Product Differentiation Strategy on the Performance of Firms. Journal of Asian Business Strategy, 2(1), 14-23.