Business Diploma

Introduction:

Every company engages in marketing operations in order to promote and sell their products. These marketing operations are however governed under various statutory laws, code of conduct and practices, ethical principles and safety guidelines which are set by every country including Australia.

Thus, in Australia, there are different code of conduct established namely the Association for data-driven marketing & advertising (ADMA), Direct Marketing Code of Practice and the Australian Communications Media Authority (ACMA) (Cunningham, 2010). The said code states that marketing which is carried out in Australia should provide accurate information, avoid misleading endorsements, avoid stating scientific data without justification and respect privacy (Todorov et al., 2013). Thus, every individual involved in marketing in Australia is required to follow the said Code of Practices in order to promote great good ethics in business and create strong relationship with clients (Clow, 2012).

In the modern world of marketing, companies acquire a lot of personal information from customers in form of email, phone number, address, etc Therefore, many a times marketing operations face claims of privacy violation. Thus, in Australia, under the amendments in the Privacy Act in 2000, organizations engaged in marketing in Australia are required to comply with the National Privacy Principles unless they agree to follow the approved privacy code. The National Privacy Principles discuss minimum standards required to collect and handle personal information taken by business houses and private companies (Pike et al., 2010).

Additionally, in Australia certain ethical principles are established by the Australian Association of National Advertisers which was amendment in the year 2000 as a part of marketing and advertising self regulations. The ethical principles established in marketing in Australia ensure that various advisements and other form of marketing communications are honest, decent and legal. The said principles require marketing operations in Australia to be made with an obligation towards the consumers and the community and also with a sense of fairness towards the competitors.

Under the Australian Consumer Law and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, consumer welfare is primary and thus, the said act restricts marketing of goods and services which indicate misleading information about the same under section 35 of the Act. The said Act also describes various warranties and guaranties which are sanctioned under the said Act to consumers against wrongful conduct of marketing agents and companies including sellers. Under section 43 of the said Act, an individual is prohibited from asserting from another the charge for selling any object or service s based on wrongful advertisements and marketing. Thus, the Australian Consumer laws cover misleading and deceptive conduct concerning marketing, dishonest and misleading representation, unconscionable conduct of marketing agents and sellers,

Additionally, the telemarketing do-not-call legislation was introduced on 31 May 2007 which makes it illegal for telemarketers to call Australian numbers which are registered for personal and domestic use when the owners put their numbers on do-not-call register.

The companies which are engage in marketing should promote the welfare of the community by adopting corporate social responsibility as a method of marketing. Thus, the Australian law promotes companies to adopt cooperate social responsibility as a method for brand marketing to promote welfare of community as well.

Moreover, the Australian Consumer law in Australia covers marketing of products which are of acceptable quality under section 54 of the said Act. Thus, marketing and selling of goods with safety defects is punishable in Australia.

Under the branch of marketing, many statistical methods and techniques are devised to evaluate marketing opportunities. Some of the said techniques are discussed as follows:

Bootstrapping – Bootstrapping is a process where self initiative is taken by an individual without the use of any external input to start and build a business. The primary feature of the said method is to not rely on outside sources of capital and funding. Thus, in bootstrapping method, individuals provide their own funds for marketing their business, thus come up with innovative ideas to market products at lower costs.

Brand Choice Model – Brand Choice Model is a popular marketing technique where models are established which suggest the behavioral tendencies of the consumers which help in accurately forecasting potential customer behavior.  Thus, the method of brand choice model helps in making assumptions about the customer’s mindset when he is purchasing a product, thus marketing opportunities are then decided accordingly (Schacher, 2010).

Experimental Design Technique – The experimental design technique is a process of planning, analyzing and interpreting certain tests to review the factors that constrain or control the value of different relevant parameters. This methods is best to answer question of when can the performance be accepted, thus, it is very useful in marketing as it provides clarify on when to accept profits (Hinkelmann & Kempthorne, 2012).

Central Tendency – Central tendency is a statistical method in which an individual reviews the tendency of values of various different variables to cluster around its mode. The said process is used to remove an average of the data collected during marketing operations.

Conjoint Analysis – This is a statistical method which helps in market research to analyze the manner in which individuals value various attributes like functions, benefits, price to make a single product. This method helps in evaluating various marketing opportunities by determining how different attributes are look upon by group of people and individuals (Lohrke et al., 2010).

Cross Tabulation – Cross tabulation is a device which helps in determining the relationship between two different variables. As marketing operations require data collection intensively, this method helps to ease down the process of analyzing the same.

Perceptual Maps – Perceptual maps are made in form of diagrams to make a visual display of the perception which potential customers and present customers. This method is used to evaluate marketing opportunities as it transfers qualitative questions answered by customers into charts which are easy to review.

Intentional Survey – Intentional surveys usually are conducted to review how prepared an individual is to accept an innovation. This method helps in determining marketing opportunities as the reaction of customers is judged before a launch of a new product.

Data Mining – Data mining is a process of computer science which is often used in marketing operations. It helps in discovering different patterns present in huge data base and uses the methods statistics and machine learning. It helps in reviewing marketing opportunities my ease access to huge data base.

Extrapolation – Extrapolation is a sort of hypothesis where facts and observation of present situations are judged to analysis future or potential consequences. This method evaluates marketing opportunities which are very helpful during new launches as reviewing customer reaction is necessary (Nwose, 2010).

Game Theory – This is a mathematical analysis of conflicts and the cooperation between intelligent and practical decision markers. This method is useful as survey from large consumers is not always possible thus a handful of intelligent and ration individual’s mind set is judged to figure the general view of individuals at large. This method is very helpful in reviewing marketing opportunities to minimize the time of analysis.

Introduction:

Exercise and physical fitness are essential for good physical and mental well being, including weight control. Exercising helps in the development of a person by keeping them fit and having an emotional balance. As people get old, the importance of exercise increases. However, for many people, price becomes an important factor at the time of joining any fitness club or gym. Keeping such factors in mind, it is important to form a prospective marketing plan for any given gym industry. The marketing plan of Fit Life Health Club was analyzed and based on the analysis of the plan the appropriate market opportunities is described. The market opportunities included potential new markets and opportunities to penetrate into these markets and the contribution to the marketing strategy to Fit Life. Additionally, the report evaluates the identified market opportunities in a way that it is likely to fit with the goals and objectives of the marketing plan. The report also includes the changes that are needed in the current operations of the business and the viability of the changes that are needed in the current operations so that it is accommodated easily in the organization.

Identification of Market Opportunities:

The company Fit Life Health Club is a low budget fitness center depending entirely on fitness and nothing more at a very reasonable price (Kotler  and Keller 2016). The company strives to offer the customers, the best price in proportion to the quality available in any other fitness industry in Australia. The main points that Fit Life focuses on are as follows:

• Proportion of price and Quality
• Equipment of Good Quality
• Personal Treatment to members

Hence, Fit Life can change the competencies into marketing opportunities based on the given points:

Competitive Price:

Fit Life Company focuses only on fitness; they do not offer a spa center, group lessons and showers (Wagner and Eggert 2016). However, the company provides good quality fitness facilities. By not offering these extra options, the company is able to save money on variable and fixed costs. A fitness gym incurs huge expenditure on gas, water and electricity and establishment of a spa center demands huge investment from the founders of the gym. Additionally, the company aims at saving money by hiring trainees for training instead of full time trainers as employees (Hutt and Speh 2013). This can help Fit Life in becoming more popular in the market as many other gym industries only focus on offering extra services rather than fitness.

Quality Equipment:

Fit life focuses on the quality of the services that they provide to their customers. They aim at making a good business deal with other companies in the same industry. For example, Fit Life has entered into deals with other companies where in they would be supplying fitness equipment (Hollensen 2010). The aim of Fit Life is to provide the best equipments available at the market to their customers by convincing them as per their setting in the low budget system. In a fitness industry, equipment plays a very important role in becoming a potential market opportunity for Fit Life.

Personal Approach:

Many fitness centers ask for huge sum of money for membership and most of the time it is seen that customers are not satisfied with the training that they get from professionals. Fit Life aims at forming good relationships with their customers and each of them offer a training program that is professional in nature (Shukre 2013). Electronic data is maintained regarding each customer so that the trainer notes the weaknesses and strengths of each of the customer. The given marketing opportunity shall make Fit Life gym industry popular in the coming future (Arora 2013).

Evaluation of marketing opportunities:

The main goal of FitLife’s fitness centre is to provide best quality of fitness in low prices to the customers. Therefore, the centre has provided all the opportunities, like, affordable fees structure, god quality of the equipments and personalized treatment to meet the goals. In order to make the affordable fees structure, the fitness centre has taken a rent house outside of the city centre, especially near industrial areas. This is a good strategy to lower done the cost. However, due to this reason, the customers of this fitness centre will be very limited (Woolf 2008). In order to provide a good marketing, the fitness centre needs to explore in other areas. It can be done through performing occasional training sessions in corporate sectors, schools, near residential areas and renting rooms in corporate offices. The centre has focused on part-time trainees to lower down the maintenance cost. However, the management of the centre needs to focus on the fact that the employees should be trained and skilled with advanced techniques. The fitness centre is focusing on implementation of equipments with good quality (Charski 2002). It has a great impact on the customers and it has a high influence in competitive business. In personalization of customer approach, the centre has provided with many facilities and computer based surveys. However, this is limited to those customers, who are appearing for this particular fitness centre. In order to maintain the competitive strategy and to increase the business, this centre should organize for vocational fitness trainings in various areas. After analyzing other competitors, it is found that other fitness centers have provided many facilities to the customers personally, like customized training to each customer (Oliver 2007). It is not observed in FitLife’s fitness centre. The management needs to think that after all it is a growing business along with the fitness centre. Therefore, apart from providing fitness, the management should focus on business profit. After all this profit will balance this fitness centre in the market for a longer period of time and the reputation will be built according to that.

Evaluation of changes to current opportunities:

After reviewing the company’s marketing plan, it is found that the fitness centre has great marketing opportunities. While evaluating those opportunities, it is also observed that those opportunities need some changes in order to grow in the competitive market. In case of providing minimal fees structure, the company is focusing on opening their centers in the outside of the city centre. However, if the company can open their centers in schools, offices and residential areas, then the company can attract more customers. The management needs to know that the customers of a fitness centre are those, who need to exercises along with their busy schedule on daily basis (Fuggetta 2012). Therefore, if the centers are present in the target areas, then the customers can easily access the fitness facilities. It will automatically increase the profit of the company. If it is not possible to open the centers in the target areas, at least the management can provide vocational training sessions in those areas. It will guide the people to know the facilities and activities of the fitness centre.  The company can change their fees structure in each year with little hikes. It will help to maintain the economic structure of the company. The company is emphasizing on part-time trainers. Those trainers should be skilled and trained with advanced techniques. After all the customers will show their interests on certain fitness trainings and exercises in advance level, which will help them to maintain a healthy life (Grabel 2012). The company is also planning on implementation of good equipments. Instead of good equipments, the company can focus on advanced equipments, which can provide good results in less time. While focusing on increasing business target, the management can emphasize on personal level training procedure. The training procedure should be built up in that way. In this procedure, the health of each customer should be monitored on a daily basis. The data will be loaded in the computer so that it can be monitored automatically. The training session may be different for different customers. Therefore, the trainer should design the training plan according to that. While introduction to the centre, the management can arrange for short video, where, the customers will come to know about all the provided facilities of this centre. After performing the competitive research study, it is also found that many times, the people are not getting motivation to continue with the fitness centre after their busy schedule (Rodon 2013). Therefore, in order to motivate the customers, the management can arrange for some gift coupons, refreshments and required necessities for the fitness centre. Above all the management should keep in mind that the opportunities will not only help the customers, it should be made in such a way that it can increase the business of this centre.

Conclusion:

Conclusively, it may be stated that in the modern world following a strict fitness regime is one of the major concerns. To encounter issues related to health and fitness people take help from the fitness trainers who are available in a fitness gym only. Fit life also aims at providing quality service along with price proportion to its customers. In this report, evaluation of the marketing opportunities of Fit Life is conducted and based on the assessment appropriate recommendations are provided.

References:

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