Viability of Kolb s Gym in an online environment Current Online Competitor Assessment St. Julian s Athletic Club Bowling Green Community Center

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Elvin Hampton
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1 Viability of Kolb s Gym in an online environment Kolb s Gym is a newly developed fitness center located in the Bowling Green, OH area. The gym is specifically designed and marketed toward the hardcore lifting/bodybuilding demographic. Currently, the business does not have a website, social media component (Facebook/Twitter), or any e-marketing campaigns. Quite simply, Kolb s Gym needs an online presence, because every Bowling Green resident has free internet access (through BGSU and the city), and Kolb s Gym's key demographic are active internet users (males age15-48). Therefore, it is imperative that Kolb's Gym uses this marketing dynamic in order to reach its customers. Every day, people are becoming more and more web-savvy and businesses must keep up. Kolb's, in particular, stands to benefit from increased web presence, as local competition is lacking in this area. Current Online Competitor Assessment Every one of Kolb s direct competitors was evaluated on a scale of 1 to 5 in regards to its website. Five different people evaluated these businesses on the overall look of the website, the content, its ease of use, and their overall social media content. The results are not scientific or statistically significant, but they will give a general idea as to where the competition stands online. The websites popularity scores are composites, or averages, of their search engine rank on Google using various gym-related queries. St. Julian s Athletic Club Website aesthetics 2.6 Website content 3.8 Accessibility 2.2 Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, blog) 1.2 Search 1 of 3 St. Julian s is the main direct competition of Kolb s Gym. It is the only privately-owned athletic facility in Bowling Green that competes with the business. Therefore, it is imperative that weekly monitoring of their website, promotions, and pricing must occur! In specific regards to their website, it is very sparse, and lacks the "wow factor". There are no pictures of the gym, little content, and no links to their non-active Facebook page. This billboard site has basic content. Basic content includes a landing page, gym hours, class schedules, and contact information. St. Julian s does have a Facebook page; however there is no link on their website to the page. The Facebook page has little content, no photos, and very few check-ins. The number of check-ins is an excellent indicator of the business s popularity among Facebook and users. There is no Twitter account and no YouTube account. One positive in regards to their web content is the availability of coupons to website visitors. This must be included in Kolb s! Bowling Green Community Center Website aesthetics 2.6 Website content 4.6 Accessibility 1.4 Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, blog) 4 Popularity 2 of 3 Kolb s Gym s other competition is a city-run athletic club named The Community Center. Their website has mediocre aesthetics, but contains an incredible amount of content. The content goes as deep as explaining how to use every piece of equipment in the gym. This is

2 great for a person new to the gym; however, it is considered overload and unnecessary to the hardcore niche Kolb s Gym is trying to target. The BGCC page has no social media content; however, it has a great reputation online. People simply love this place! Yelp and Google reviews are all excellent, except for one bad review from a hardcore lifter, who does not like the free weight content. Another negative, is that the website is under a sub-heading of the city of Bowling Green s webpage network. Therefore, there is no separate URL, and SEM/SEO is non-existent to a potential customer. Bowling Green State University Athletic Center Website aesthetics 3.0 Website content 4.6 Accessibility 1.4 Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, blog) 2.0 Popularity 3of 3 BGSUAC s website is very bland, but is chock-full of content. A highlight of the content is separate pages for each of the gym s different facilities (pool, class studios, and basketball court). Their web reputation is a mixed bag. People consider the place too crowded and noisy. Also, this facility (and website) is mainly directed toward students of the university. Like the BGCC website, there is not a specific web URL for the gym, and has to be navigated to through the University website. Every gym has an incredible amount of indirect competition. Any need the customer has, that is fulfilled by your product (gym), is considered competition. Thus, TV, movies, shopping, sporting events, even church must be considered competition. For practicality purposes, the home gym will be the only one looked at in depth. For instance, many athletes are working out more and more at home, using programs such as P-90x or Insanity home gym programs. Each month, it seems as if there is a new fad where users can buy a single gadget that can eliminate gym memberships completely (or so they claim). So, Kolb s Gym must monitor these systems as well as their web content. P-90x and Insanity are your two biggest competitors in this marketplace. They all have exquisite websites, and tens of thousands of dollars spent on advertising in various means through the internet. Make sure to monitor what they are doing every couple of months, in order to stay current with their position, and to benchmark ideas. Online Marketing Suggestions and Strategies Kolb s Gym core demographic is males, who are advanced or expert weight lifters. This customer base is currently not served in the current market landscape, and these lifters are forced to work out in inadequate gyms, or even at home. In fact, two gyms in the area are only marketed toward the family-oriented or senior citizen clientele. Your other competition, BGSUAC, is targeted toward university students years old. Therefore, we are going to separate ourselves online, and reach our demographics by integrating the website with social media aspects, and link your current forum (Kolb s Strength) to the website and social media websites. A blog, advertised throughout the site, forum, and SNS will be updated very frequently with tips and articles on topics such as exercise and nutrition. The Facebook page will supplement the forum; it provides a place where non-forum members can ask and answer questions, and be encouraged to talk about weight lifting goals, lifting techniques and nutrition. This will build brand loyalty, because all aspects of social media will be an integral part of the lifter Kolb s Gym. The blog, website, Facebook page, Twitter and YouTube will

3 all be integrated together and synergized as one. They will have the same look and color scheme, and will be linked together in a synergistic manner, to fully utilize their capabilities and reach. Because of the synergy, once people are friends on Facebook, they will be more likely to add Kolb s Gym on Twitter, or check out the blog. There will be plenty of Kolb s gym YouTube videos available (linked to other accounts) on the website featuring difficult/complex lifts, as well as impressive lifts. These videos will be done by a female power-lifter/ local model, which will become the face of Kolb s Gym. She will also be available on the forum and Facebook page to answer questions, plus do live promotions when needed. This sex appeal will obviously attract the male demographic we are trying to build relationships with. There will also be instructional videos on YouTube embedded into the site, so people can check their technique easily with the smart phone. The website will also be converted to a mobile version, where this video content and forum will easily be accessible for the lifters. The Facebook page will be chock-full of information, tips, photos, and direct access to the videos and forum. The FB post feed will be connected to the Kolb s Gym Twitter account, where coupons, discount, and specials will be announced (as well as any real-time information such as hours for holidays, or promotions). Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Marketing SEO is defined as the process of improving the visibility of a websites natural, or unpaid search results. In general, the higher ranked results, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine user. In order to get the most optimization, the web developer will use HTML and associated coding to increase the page's relevance to specific keywords. Increasing the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic that we will utilize for Kolb s gym. A great way to improve search rankings is to add fresh content to the site, such as a blog post, or freshly made video. This will also encourage the search engines to crawl your site more frequently. Because our blog, YouTube site, forum, twitter account, and Facebook will all be synergistically updated, most search engines (especially Google) will view our page as important, thus moving up the ranks. This is important, because it is easier for the customer to find our site when looking for gyms in the area, and since the site is more visible, we get more page views, which will lead to more customers for the business. The content is the most important part of your site. Content needs to target key phrases. Content must be properly structured and relevant. Content must also be relevant to search engines. Each Web page should be optimized for two to three key phrases. We have determined that most people looking for a gym online will use the terms health club, fitness center, working out or gym (usually including the city name as well). Payper-click advertising is an Internet advertising model used to direct traffic to websites, where advertisers (Kolb s Gym) pay the publisher (Google, yahoo, etc.) when the ad is clicked ("Payper-click," 2012). Google Ad words will specifically be used in order to get traffic to the site. This option will only be used for the first six months, after which we plan to rely predominantly on referrals and WOM. A5: Social media integration Twitter Social Media will be a huge part of this marketing campaign. The first major advantage is the cost. Second, your demographic are heavy users. Twitter is another site we will use in order to reach our customers. Although not as popular as Facebook, it gets more and more

4 popular every day. Twitter will benefit us, because we will display coupon information as well as promotions Kolb s Gym will be having. The customers benefit because they love getting deals from websites. Branded with logo, status linked to Twitter account. They go out simultaneously. Information will be updated regularly in order to improve organic search rank. In fact, 21% of people in your demographic use twitter and rising (Smith, 2011). It benefits the company, because it is free, people will Retweet posts, and more people will see information about the gym. The customer now gets real time videos and updates, plus access to deals and free trials. Facebook Facebook is the most popular social media website. In fact, 46% of all residents in Ohio are members of Facebook (Burbary, 2011). Average user spends an average 15 hours and 33 minutes on Facebook per month, logs in 40 times per month, and spends 23 minutes on each visit (Burbary, 2011). Facebook benefits our company because it is our bridge between the customer, website, blog, and twitter feed. Kolb s demographic loves Facebook, and of course, it is free. Consumers are more and more making decisions based on Social Media. We will post the video of the local model here. This will drive traffic to the page; create more likes, which will get people into the gym. Blog A blog will also be used for lifting tips by Kolb s Gym. Fans of the site or forum users will read the free content, which will lead to them to be more loyal to the brand. Also, it may lead to them following our other social media sites. Online Customer Relationship Management As the name suggests, CRM is about managing relationships with customers. Good CRM is a customer-focused approach to business which helps foster real relationships with the important stakeholders: customers. Maintaining good customer relationships is critical to the success of a business. The costs associated with acquiring a new customer are generally far higher than the cost of maintaining an existing customer relationship. This is why investing in customer relationship management (CRM) should result in increasing revenue for the business (Emarketing, the essential, 2009). The cost of acquiring the customer refers to the marketing and advertising channels used to acquire that customer. The benefit of e-marketing is that it is highly measurable and traceable, enabling a relatively accurate calculation of CPA. For instance, when a customer signs up for your newsletter, each month you send her compelling information about specific workouts she might be interested in trying. If you have taken note of his/her obvious interest in Olympic-style lifts, these newsletters could be focused specifically on these types of lifts. The costs associated with sending these s are the costs of maintaining the relationship with the customer. When he/she signs up for another 6 months to the gym, these costs can be measured against the repeat sales she is likely to make. All this data needs to be saved in a data base, or in an Excel spreadsheet. Your information that is saved for each customer benefits them because you can send tailor-made information or workouts to them, know their preferred method of payment, as well as the time of

5 day they come in. The more information you can gather, the better the service you can provide the customer; which is a win-win. E-commerce solutions For website hosting, we chose Godaddy.com 4 th generation service. Go Daddy was chosen because of its low cost (5.24/month), online reputation, and ease of use. Plus, Go Daddy provides over $250 worth of free online advertising. We will also register the domain here due to ease of access. Kolbsgym.com will cost $10 to register on Go Daddy. This was chosen because of the bundled package provided by Go Daddy. Members will also have the option of paying their bill, purchase merchandise or recommended supplements online, instead of paying at the gym. Customers will also be able to purchase yearly memberships online at a significant discount. Customers will love the ease of access and options, and thus will lead to more revenue with no more costs to Kolb s Gym. Through research, we found one company that has the lowest transaction fees as well as zero set-up fees for credit card transactions. This company is called volusion.com. Volusion has a lot of benefits, such as Direct Deposits to your account, and the easy application process covers all four major cards (Visa, MasterCard, Amex, and Discover). Because of the safety, verification measures, and convenience, your customer is more likely to pay online (and hopefully buy more products!). Volusion also has no application or start-up fee, and they provide the equipment at no cost. Therefore, the only associated cost is a 2% on each sale. For the member, the benefits are numerous. They can pay their membership dues online or via mobile, which is very convenient for them. Also, they can now switch their payment methods if need be (a different card each month). Also, they will be able to purchase personal training sessions with this software, and make appointments online. International Considerations Websites, by nature are international. Forum users, or social media friends, do not need to be members of the gym, or be locals for that matter. Therefore, we need to make sure the website is not offensive to other cultures or regions. We shall use best judgment and scan all our material for any accidental offensive material. The forum will be in English; however the option to translate it will be there via Google. Most users and visitors will be in the US. However, local customers must be the focal point for the 1 st year of the website, because we need to drive up local customer membership volume. PPC and SEO will not focus on the international market; however we will revisit the situation after 6 months time. Projected web development and maintenance costs Here are the itemized costs associated with the project. Infinart, Inc. Based out of Boston, MA, will be designing the site, as well implementing the social media aspects. Infinart has an all-inclusive package which will design your website, and set up the social media sites. They also will offer the Kolb s Gym and its employees a tutorial course which teaches how to maintain and update the social media sites. For their work (you must complete content), they charge a flat $500 fee. This includes design and social Media start-up, plus the tutorials mentioned previously. They were chosen because of their portfolio, high recommendations, and flat fee charge. Expenses Kolbsgym.com registration $10.00

6 Hosting (3 yr. package) $ Facebook $0.00 Twitter $0.00 Blog hosting $0.00 Infinart, INC website designer$500 $ total cost $ Reference List Burbary, K. (2011, March 07). Web business by ken burbary. Retrieved from statistics-2/ Smith, A. (2011, June 01). Twitter update Retrieved from demographics (2009). Emarketing, the essential guide to online marketing (2nd edition). Quirk emarketing. Pay per click. (2012, April 21). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:59, April 21, 2012, from

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