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立 政 治 大 學
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4. Marketing Strategy
Any product success depends on its marketing strategy and positioning in the market.
SMART Runners portal success entirely depends on the number of active runners registered.
Steps involved in the marketing strategy is shown in figure 4. Marketing Strategy. There are plenty of websites with similar information, however if members are engaged actively and feel the value then chances for success were relatively high and helps to expand in future.
Source: Organized by this study
Figure 4: Marketing Strategy
Following sections will elaborate the needs of the consumer in detail, the segment that will be targeted and the ways to attract and retain them. However this is an iterating process, it will be monitored continuously and necessary changes will be made based on the result.
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People participating in marathon events can be broadly classified in to three major categories.
First one is professional runners, these guys know very well about running and do it for living and earns from them. They hold lot of records and 100% time spent towards running and have access to lot of channels and keep them updated. Second one is Aspiring runners, these group wants to participate in running events for different reasons i.e.) lose weight, relieve stress, stay healthy, be a part of society that run for a noble cause etc. Last category is casual runners, these people primarily involve in different sports activity like cricket, soccer, hockey etc. For them, it’s just participation and don’t feel any value in continuous running forever and they keep their focus in their own core game. This platform targets only the segment “Aspiring Runners”.
Aspiring runners segment generally fall into the age category of 23 to 50 and will have both male and female runners. They normally signed up with some running clubs or groups to improve their running skills. Most of the people are new into running and they value this as a natural way to keep their body in healthy conditions, burn their work stress and stay healthy forever. Major audience in this segment are people who works in information technology sector, a booming industry that pays really higher than most of the industry but associated with heavy stress work environment. Hence they badly look for ways to keep them healthy and don’t mind on spending approximately 500 USD a year (Average monthly salary: 1000 USD) towards running expenses. They all care about society and always feel proud about contributing to their society in whichever possible ways. The entire segment has access to digital world and actively uses Facebook to keep them updated on the events happening all around them.
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Good system design is grounded in a deep understanding of the person for whom it is meant for. An empathy map is one tool to help synthesize the observations and draw out unexpected insights. The entire marketing strategy is formulated based on the runner’s empathy. Based on the interviews and discussion with runners as shown in Appendix A.1, the basic components of the empathy map was listed in below sections
4.2.1. See
Aspiring runners will commonly see the below environment.
• Friends with similar interest from the local running clubs.
• Social Media advertisement through Facebook or FM Advertisement about upcoming marathon events and success story of few people.
• Co-workers enrolling themselves in the marathon events
• Too many information on internet about running and very hard to sort out reliable and try like kind of trial and error method.
4.2.2. Say / Do
This section describes about the common attitude and their behavioral response.
• They can’t live without running
• Encourage others to participate in one of the events and ready to mentor them for all the required training.
• Talks proudly about the participation in running events associated with noble cause.
4.2.3. Think & Feel
Items that are really important to this segment is listed below
• Diet control and intake of more protein foods.
• Health is mostly important of all.
• Status update in Facebook with today’s running log.
• My running habits make me feels more confident and productive.
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It is important to understand the items they hear from their regular environment as listed below.
• Compliments on their fitness and active lifestyle.
• Surprises about the running completion of 42 KM and seeks healthy tips from them.
• Congratulations on recent Marathon participation.
• Facebook updates from friends on their running accomplishments
4.2.5. Pain
The biggest obstructions and the daily challenges they faces can be summarized as
• Too many articles or review about running tips & gadgets. It is really hard to make decision on the gadgets to be purchased.
• Complex running event registration process and they need to keep following up on too many items for the races.
• Not all the event promotions are reaching the members.
• It is a must to join some running club to improve and sustain my running skills.
4.2.6. Gain
Runners truly want to achieve below and it will be their key success measures.
• Stay healthy with effective BMI
• Recognition as “Stay Fit Person” in work place & Friends.
• Sense of satisfaction by contributing back to the society.
4.3. Onboarding Strategy
Customers no need to pay any fee for becoming a member and not necessary to sign up a contract for using the service. It’s entirely free and all they need to do is just agree for “Term &
Conditions” on the usage of their data and rights to store it. On the other hand, the portal pledges to secure the information provided and will not be misused for any commercial reasons.
Once the product is launched, marketing team will reach the influencers at the door step of running clubs. Since almost all the runners were associated with the clubs, it’s really easy to
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identify the influencers and explain the benefits to board them quickly in to our portal.
It is easy to reach all the target audiences at the same time in the Marathon event race ground, however people will be really busy with their own preparation, celebration and may not be really showing any interest to hear about the product. Since it’s a good place to reach all the right segment, Photo Kiosk with big banner will be launched about “SmartRunners.com”.
Pictures taken in the photo kiosk will be emailed to the consumer and they can download this by signing up freely and become a member of the portal. People tends to just signup quickly first time without even bothering about the product much just to download their photos. Hence after they boarded, it all depends on what the portal offers to keep them active and have a nice experience. Interesting themes will be used in the Photo Kiosk, i.e.) creative background like running with a celebrity, adventure running, the event banner and many more from which runners can pick one. Cost of setting up the kiosk is really very minimal considering the potential target audience reach in such huge events.
Along with Photo Kiosk, there will be a stall where the runners can enroll themselves to take pictures of them while they race by professional photographers. It’s totally free of charge for them. All they need to do is just provide their contact details, get a flag and then put it on their BIP and start running. Deployed photographers will capture nice memories of the people who wears the tag on the BIP and then later it will be processed and the details will be sent to their email address. Consumers may need to sign up to download the picture for free. Nowadays making digital content is not an expensive one and it helps to attract the audience for product trial with minimal promotion cost.
Another major highlight in the membership program is the Reward points, when members signup they will be instantly credited with 50 points. Hence people try to understand more about the way to use it and stay with the portal for some more time, this will give an opportunity
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to showcase the core offerings. Members can earn more points by participating in the survey and writing blogs. Influencers will get additional bonus points for referral of new members from their networks and special annual gifts may be provided as well based on the contribution in publishing articles.
System provides a free cloud service for all the runners to keep their personal records and timing details of entire history of races participated by becoming a member in this portal.
Annual certificate of excellence that consists of all the details about their running accomplishment in the current year will be issued, which people can post it in social media and share their achievements through our portal.
4.4. Customer Retention Strategy
Customer experience is critical to retain the customer for longer time. Once they sign up, event registration process will be simplified and the profile data will be used to quickly register for any race events with few clicks. They can create their own profile page and start connecting with runners clubs or other runners to expand their network.
Reward points program will try to keep the customers active. They start getting points for the event they register through the system and get additional points for referral, blogs or taking survey etc. By accumulating these points, they can redeem it in the online store with a great souvenir of their lifetime which they can cherish forever.
Diet Planner program can help to retain customers by providing information that are truly reliable, created by local experts, customized for Indian diet style, demography and body conditions. Proposed diet recommendation will not be expensive one and it will be purely based on the day to day diet style but with right combinations. Normally, people when they go online they need to change their food style entirely, whereas with this portal they don’t see any drastic change in their food habits and will be able to achieve their goal easily.
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Exclusive newsletter will be generated with customized contents based on the member’s preference. They will get the major highlights going around them in their locality to keep them more updated rather than just getting standard global news which customers can easily find from various media channels.
4.5. Content Creation Strategy
Contents of the portal speak a lot to the customer and hence pushing the right content will be the key success factor to attract more visitors and keep them engaged. Crowd sourcing strategy will be used to create contents, however once anyone posted the data it will go through in-house curation process to filter and make it more attractive before it reaches the mass consumers.
Figure.5 Content creation process explains the various steps and stakeholders involved in the curation process.
Source: Organized by this study
Figure 5: Content Creation Process
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國立 政 治 大 學