Fitness First: Largest Privately Owned Health Club Group, Essay.

Products and Services Offered at Fitness First

Fitness first is health club group that has been in operation since 1993. It is currently the world largest health club that is privately owned.  It has over 360 Fitness First clubs worldwide serving almost 1 million people of the world. The club offers various services and products in its branches. They include Group Fitness Classes, Team Workouts, Body First, cardio machines and many others. The club has won many awards both locally and internationally ("Fitness First Australia | Gyms and Health Clubs," n.d.).

The product, as one of the aspects of the marketing mix, refers to the actual item sold or the service being offered to the customers. This is the primary element of the business and must be therefore be carefully considered for the success of the firm. It is important for companies to ensure that they offer the best products to their customers depending on their needs (Grewal & Levy, 2010).

Products for Fitness First club, being in a service industry includes dynamic Movement Training (DMT), where the club offers training to make the body move in patterns with respective series of the entire body exercises in three dimensional. Fitness first also provides the Freestyle Group Training where people do workouts together as a group. It also offers Team coaching where its experts help, supervise and direct people to do fitness exercises. Also, the club offers team coaching where a group of people is trained on the way to fitness, Bio score, where the health, lifestyle, and fitness of the member are analyzed, and then one is advised on what to do. Besides, it also conducts group exercise classes, Personal training, strength training and Cardio training ("Fitness First Australia | Gyms and Health Clubs," n.d.).

The club is currently doing well with these services being unique and of high demand.  However, there are various product aspects that the Fitness fast must consider to continue leading in the industry. Firstly, as a strategy, the club should continuously identify new requirements, needs, and demands of its customers, and provide a solution for them. Continuous product service improvement is critical for the success of the gym business. Also, it is important for Fitness First to consider providing gym facilities for the children. Besides, it will also be good for the organization to consider mild gym program for the elderly. This is likely is likely to attract a bigger number of customers who will be children and elderly, thus increasing the profitability of this organization (Hutter & Hoffmann, 2011, pp. 39-54).

Product Development Strategies for Fitness First

Price refers to the value imposed on a given product or service. The price value of a given product or service is greatly determined by various factors such as the cost incurred by the company to offer the service, the targeted market segment, ability of the consumers to pay for the services among many other factors (Paksoy & Chang, 2010, pp. 3586-3587). Pricing is also applied as a differentiation tool for the marketing of a given product or service.

The price of the gym service at the Fitness First club varies depending on the plan. The customer signs up for the gym service, and choose a plan that best suits them. Their organization has five main pricing plans that the clients can choose from. The plans are at least three months. Firstly, there is a platinum plan where the customer pays start-up, a fee of $75 and the weekly fee of $340, allowing one to access all the platinum and passport clubs in the whole nation. Secondly, there is passport plan where one pays $75 as a startup fee and $29 per week.

The third plan is the Home, where the customer signs up for $75 and pays $17 per week. The fourth plan is a Black label, where the client pays assign up fee of $75 and pays $50 per week. Lastly, there is Titanium plan, where the customer pays a startup fee of $100 and $40 weekly (Shapland, 2015). The company allows various payment methods such s debit and credit cards, online payments through PayPal among others. This has made easier for the customers t pay for the services through this variety of means.

Pricing has played a significant role regarding this company in its business. It is therefore recommended that it continue offering services at a fair price where none of the parties is exploited; the company does not go a loss, nor the customer used. However, Fitness first should look for strategies that will ensure that the organization offers a lower price the gym at the elderly and the young people. This is likely going to attract most of them thus helping the organization to increase its market share (Shultz, 2008).

Product development refers to the various activities that the company undertakes to its services or products to make them known to the possible customers. This is an important and almost inevitable aspect of marketing since it significantly helps the company to reach many people from different places who could not have heard about the services offered by the enterprise. Also, it helps get the returning customers thus increasing the profitability and sustainability of the company.

Pricing Strategies for Fitness First

Fitness First company has employed many strategies to promote promotion of its health services. To start with advertisements, the company has made a lot of efforts to reach many people through various channels. It has employed both broadcast media such as Television, Radio, among others, and also the print media adverts such as the newspapers, posture s among others. Also, public relation has played a critical role in the promotion of the services offered by this company (Belch, 2012,  pp. 147-158) . The company has recognized talents such as best dancers and rewarded them among other activities, thus promoting the company services.

Also, the organization has promoted the services through personal sales. In some cases, it has made decisions to set up gym booths at the shopping complex, colleges and other places where there are potential customers. Besides, the company has also made promotions through direct marketing. This includes sending mails, through telephones, fax, social media and many others thus making people know more about the services.

To promote the club services further, the company to continue and go deeper into the modern advertising techniques. There is need to concentrate more on the social media platforms. This will help the company to reach a large community of people on the social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and many others. Besides, the company should partner with many more health organizations since they will help promote the services of this company (Mankiw & Taylor, 2011).

Place refers to the specific point f product or service sale. The location is key in marketing, and its impacts are directly felt. The facilities should be located at a point where they can be quickly and conveniently accessed thus attracting many customers. The place also entails the opening hours of the business when the client can come to receive the services. It is important the hours should suit most customers effectively (John et al., 2012, pp. 4).

The Fitness first Club has located its branches in the shopping complex areas. This targets many customers who work or shop at the compound. The club has long opening hours; attending to both customers who come very early and those who come very late for some reasons. This helps the organization to deliver more value and increase the satisfaction level of the customers. The club usually has a good supply of clean to the company and also the electricity. Also, the company has set the client service counter to every club thus promoting marketing. Lastly, the company has equipped clubs with the necessary facilities such as high-quality gym machines for the customers. This aspect of the place as a marketing mix shows that it well handled and attract more clients.

Promotion Strategies for Fitness First

As a strategic plan, Fitness First should have strategies for continuous improvement of the place for sustainability. Also, it is important for the organization to consider making partnering with various housing agencies because they will help the company to find place locating more clubs. Besides, the company should also consider developing private organizations. There are some people who don't feel comfortable in public clubs for some reasons. Such kind of individuals can be made the customers to the company by providing them the private clubs.

People, as one of the marketing strategies, refer to the human actors who are involved in the process of delivering value to the customers. People are critical and inevitable in the course of offering the product or services to the customers. Therefore, companies need to consider people factor through various ways to ensure that they deliver the best (Shimizu, 2016, pp. 25-62).

First Fitness club has many people involved in the process of providing the club services to the customers. They include receptionists, customer service people, sales consultants, personal trainers, the maintenance team, cleaners and managers among many others. They all work together to ensure that the client is satisfied. They provide human labor, skills, and thoughts in the process of delivering the services to the customers (French and Ross, 2015, pp. 90).

First Fitness has done a lot regarding its people factor improvement. Firstly, the company recruits trainers who are certified from an International Fitness body and must be passionate about fitness. The company has also put in place training programs which greatly help its staff to be competent. Also, the organization has a defined scheme of rewarding the employees, and this has motivated them to work hard for a reward.

As a strategic direction, it is recommended that the company hires more international trainers who will bring onboard new skills and knowledge to the existing staff and thus keep up to date. Also, many foreign coaches will help deliver more value to the company especially in the countries where they come from thus growth. Therefore, this will help the company to get more skilled and qualified workforce who will contribute to delivering the best to the customers (Kerr & Pitts, 2009).

Process refers to the established procedures and mechanisms that the company follows to provide service to its clients. It defines the flow of activities in the business organization. The process should be efficient as much as possible to deliver value to the customers. The poor process reduces efficiency thus lowering the profitability of the organization. It is, therefore, important for the organizations to use creativity and innovation to improve their process.

Location and Customer Experience at Fitness First

The Fitness First has its process in place where the member of the club comes and goes through the reception counter. Here the friendly staff of the company welcomes them and gives them direction. The client uses the card to confirm their membership at the reception. The customer is then directed at the locker where they prepare for the for the various club activities. From the locker, the customer will now go to the respective service activities. The customer may be going for a team workout, joining the personal trainer, using the gym facilities, among other services depending on the subscribed plan. The services enjoy the services, and after that, they go to the shower rooms then to the café. This process handles and guides the customer in the process of delivering the service to the customers.

Strategic planning for improving the process is critical to improving customer experience at the Fitness First Gym. The organization should consider using thumb lock in the system instead of the standard membership cards. This is likely to improve the process and make it more efficient. Some customers usually forget the cards at home thus inconveniencing them from getting the service. Also, one can take someone's card and use it without being noticed quickly. Therefore, efficient process is likely to improve the user satisfaction, thus will help improve the brand name which will, in turn, give the organization more profit and a better competitive advantage.

Physical evidence is one of the marketing mix strategies that entail various aspects of the business. These elements include an environment where the company delivers service to the customers, the actual space of customer interaction with the business personnel, the tangible items that are involved in the delivering the service to the customers among many other aspects. They contribute to the satisfaction of the customers. Thus they are important, and every company must make efforts to an emphasis on them because they have a direct impact on the sales of a given company (Rafiq, 2016).There should be physical evidence that provides a proof of service delivery to the customers.

Fitness First Club has put a lot of emphasis on physical evidence by delivering unique room design where the customers are served thus providing value. Also, the club has equipped its facilities well with most of the required gym machinery that help to provide better customer experience. Besides, other facilities of the company such as the swimming pool, the bathrooms, and the cafe also physical evidence that Fitness First Gym uses to satisfy the users and add value. This physical evidence provide a proof of service delivery to the customers of this company. Good physical evidence always helps to attract more customers thus a perfect marketing strategy to increase the organization's profitability (Karniel & Reich, 2011). 

Strategic plan for continuous improvement of the physical evidence of a given company is critical for successful marketing. The Fitness First should have a plan for ensuring that their tangible items do not get outdated. Some items can become obsolete due to technology changes and therefore, need for a continuous update. Also, there should be standardization. The company needs to ensure that their tangible items and facilities meet the expected world standards to satisfy their users. Physical evidence is important because it affects the number of satisfied customers and also acts a s a proof of progress and service delivery in the company (Milisavljevic, 2013,  pp. 299-309).

As a brief to the marketing agency, there are various aspects of Fitness First Company that can be communicated to the public and make them know more about the best club services offered by this company. This is because the ad company usually dedicates itself to creating, planning and also handling advertising, and also many other promotional needs of the company and may not be aware of the activities and the current state of the organization (Rhiu et al., 2016).

Some of these aspects need focus and are mostly the key factors strengths in the mix. Regarding the product, there should be an emphasis on the services that Fitness First offers to its customers. The high-tech Gym facilities and the general club services must be communicated to the people (McNaughton, 2008, pp. 303-305). Regarding the place, the location of the clubs should be described so that people can know the place where they can access the services from this company. This is important because some people have failed to join the club just because they can't trace the branches.

Also, the agency should consider the pricing at Fitness First and therefore, communicate to people about the various payment plans that are available for the services of this club. Diversified payment modes should also be mentioned for effectiveness. Besides, the public should know about people. It should communicate clearly to the public about the well-trained staff that company has which will help them believe of the better services (Fill et al., 2012). Lastly, physical evidence must be emphasized. The public should know about the latest technology machines, the facilities and the various other useful resources that the company has. The agency should show people these resources available, and this is likely to attract them.

An integrated service plan is a plan that aims at creating a good customer experience with the company. It combines various aspects of marketing communication such as public relations, social media, direct marketing among many others. They use a mix of tactics and methods such as media, methods, and channels that are used to convey a message to the public but working in a unified way (Smith et al., 2010). There are various critical aspects of the integrated service plan that must be considered for its success. These include the company's marketing objectives and goals, the target market, communication positioning, key messages, creative brief, public relations plan, advertising plan and the campaign timeline. These works together to deliver healthy service marketing exercise (Peng and Li, 2012).

The messages brought out from the integrated market plan must be in line with the strategic objectives of this company. In this marketing mission, people of all ages will be the target market. However, there is need to target some specific segments of customers to the Fitness First Club. These particular segments include the women, the elderly who have not shown a lot of interests in the club activities. The message should be clear, telling people why they should join the club activities. This is likely to help the organization to increase its membership and thus improve its profitability (Fleetwood, 2014, pp. 1087-1113). 

As a plan to communicate the message to people and convince them, various methods can be employed. The message can be conveyed through broadcast media such as radio and Television with a convincing advert. Also, people can be reached through the print media such as the newspapers, fliers, banners, and many others where an attractive print advert is designed to communicate the message about Fitness First. Besides, the online activities will play a critical role in this endeavor, to reach an online community through the various platforms such as twitter and facebook where the message will be conveyed to them (Levinson & Gibson, 2010).

As a self-reflection, I have learned and realized that many aspects must be considered for successful service marketing. The seven marketing mix strategies must be in place to the success in this endeavor. Product must deliver value to the customer since it is the essential thing for the success in marketing. They product or service must satisfy all the customer wants. There should also be a continuous research to explore and find the new service or product for continuous improvement.

I have also realized that place is critical for the success of the business. Companies must ensure that the product or service are well placed for easy reach by the customers, both physical points on virtual points like online. Also, promotion is critical in the successful marketing of the products. This communicates the product or services and gives reasons to the customers why they should go for a given brand. As a self-reflection, pricing also affects the sales of the company. A fair price is admirable for businesses; however, this may vary with demand, segmentation, events and other factors.

Also, as physical evidence are the tangible items for service delivery is also essential for successful marketing for a given company. They help in delivering value to the company thus very critical. Also, people contribute to providing value to the customers. Besides, an efficient process is necessary for the success of the business enterprise. The organizations should, therefore, make efforts to make their process much more effective and convenient to customers.  If these marketing mix strategies are well placed, it is easier for the making a good and efficient integrated service market plan. Integrated marketing should prepare positive information about the organization and then communicate the message through various channels that can reach many people for their success.

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