Exam 13: Marketing: Helping Buyers Buy

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Mini-Case Callie is a successful executive who is also a fitness enthusiast. For years she worked out at Big Jim's Gym, the only gym in her small hometown. However, she felt that the environment at Big Jim's was too masculine, and discovered that her female friends agreed. They disliked the small, smelly locker room, and the limited selection of aerobics equipment. Most of them eventually quit going to Big Jim's. Callie talked to Jim Nasium, the owner of Big Jim's, about things he could do to attract more women, but Jim had little interest in making any changes. "I've got all the business I can handle," he told Callie. "Why should I spend a bunch of money to redecorate and add extra equipment? Besides, lots of the guys who work out here tell me they like the simple, no-frills atmosphere." Frustrated by Jim's indifference to her ideas, Callie began looking into the possibility of starting a health club to appeal to young, welleducated women. After visiting health clubs in other towns and talking to several friends to get ideas, she came up with a detailed plan for her club. She then described her ideas to women in the community to see how much interest there was in this type of facility. The extremely positive response encouraged her to go ahead with her plans. It took a while, but she ultimately obtained the financial backing to go into business. Callie calls her new health club Curves and Shapes. It offers a spacious and attractive locker room, better aerobics equipment, a child care area so young mothers can have someone watch their toddlers while they work out, and exercise classes designed to appeal to young women. When a woman joins her health club, Callie schedules a free session with a personal trainer who works with the new member to design a personalized workout program. Callie tries hard to keep close to her customers, sending them a monthly newsletter that includes a survey asking what they like and don't like about Curves and Shapes. She wants to please her existing customers and keep them coming back. In fact, now that Curves and Shapes have a strong membership base, Callie believes it is more important to keep existing customers loyal than to attract new customers. In addition to the comments from her own customers, Callie also spends a lot of time tracking economic, social, and competitive trends in the health club industry, trying to identify factors that can affect the marketing success of her health club. She subscribes to several journals that cover trends and report on research findings related to the health club business. She has found that these journals provide her with an inexpensive source of useful information. -The fact that Curves and Shapes is designed to appeal to women of a certain age, education and income level, means that Callie is using: